J. E. LaCaze has some curious musings on privilege in the context of the social distancing measures enacted during the ongoing SARS-CoV-2 pandemic that challenge my notions of privilege; perhaps “complicate” is a better word.
Before the order for social distancing, I saw routine as a necessity. But now I see that in some ways routine is a privilege. After all, to establish a routine is to assume that catastrophe will not come along and disrupt said routine. It is to assume at least a semblance of stability, something we now see none of us can take for granted.
I can’t speak for LaCaze or anyone else but my routines generally are a necessity; my brain needs them in order to remain properly functional. In fact, my routines do not “assume that catastrophe will not come along” they assume the very opposite—and that’s before we ever get to the fact that some events which others might view as (excuse me) routine everyday crises could strike my autistic brain in fact as a catastrophe.
That “semblance of stability” to which LaCaze refers is a quasi-fiction required in order for me to be able to function on a day-to-day basis. To think that routine somehow stands revealed as a disposable thing, that’s the real privilege.