Does Privilege Matter? – 8-Bit Philosophy

Imagine, if you will, that a warrior named
Firion is seeking vengeance for losses suffered

at the hands of an evil Emperor. But his friend
Leon comes from a much wealthier family, can

afford much nicer weapons, and can hire out
a large army to support his mission. If Leon

brags about slaying the Emperor before Firion
even gets the chance to set out on his quest—Firion

might be tempted to tell Leon, ‘Dude, check
your privilege.’

After all, Leon didn’t choose to be born
into wealth, but he is choosing how he relates

to it — in this case, with little grace.

According to existentialist Jean Paul Sartre,
who said people are like dice (in that) we’re

thrown into the world as part of a particular
culture, religion, language, and socio-economic

status without any say in the manner. These
are features of what Sartre calls our facticity—the

individual parts of ourselves that we’re
born with.

And although we have no control over our facticity—we
are always free to choose our relation to

the world that we live in. This freedom is
just part of the human condition. We define

our own existence by determining our purpose
in life—we make our life our own particular

project—things have value only in the frame
of the project that we freely create.

In his colossal work Being and Nothingness
Sartre uses several examples to illustrate

humanity’s radical freedom.

To Sartre, even a prisoner is radically free.
He can choose to attempt an escape, he can

choose to restructure his purpose in life
given his incarceration, or he can choose

to end his life—the fact that he’s locked
up isn’t what restricts his freedom, rather

it’s his choice to believe, given his situation,
that he is un-free.

Because the prisoner's own created goal in life resides outside the prison

It's not the physical bars that cause him anguish. It's in his unwillingness to conform his goal in life to his current situation

You see, freedom is only ever experienced
by each particular person in the context of

their own project, their own ends, and their
own understanding of the world.

Firion could compare his ragged armor and
motley crew versus Leon’s disciplined battalion

and shining plate mail but it has nothing
to do with Firion’s goal for himself. Each

person is their own free project with their
own situation—their own personal quest.

Because Leon has more at his disposal than
Firion doesn’t mean that Leon is freer—both

are free to construct their own ends. As such
there is no superior life situation because

there is no metric to decide who has the best
way to make meaning in their lives. There

isn’t a way to determine who has the best
life plan.

For Sartre, it means that facticity, or a
person’s material situation doesn’t constitute

privilege—we are all radically free to create
meaning. And that is what matters.

But then again, should we really look to a
rich white man to be an authority on privilege?