LIVING WITH PRIVILEGE

And Why We Have To Talk About It

Recently my husband read a book that convinced him that there is no such thing as free will. He now believes that every single decision and action people take is predetermined by forces outside of their control/awareness. This means no one should take any credit for being good at something and no one should feel any guilt over their mistakes because we are basically just robots responding to stimuli.

While John found this notion compelling, I found it horrifying. I don’t want to live in a world where no one is responsible for their behavior and people’s fates are limited to certain outcomes due to their environment. For my own sanity, I need to believe in free will. But our spirited conversation about it reminded me that while I don’t think everything is predetermined, we often don’t admit how much is out of our control.

We don’t all start off on an equal playing field and pretending we do isn’t just dishonest, it’s actively harmful because we then blame inequities on the individual and not the system.

As someone who grew up and continues to benefit from massive amounts of privilege, I understand why it can be uncomfortable to admit that a lot of your life is simply luck.