On Losing Privilege

John Philpin is right that this post from Dave Winer called “On gaslighting” has nothing at all to do with gaslighting, and I’m honestly not at all clear on why Winer thinks it does. In truth, it’s just Winer failing to come to terms with the fact that his political ideas are nothing special or unique, and that he’s only going to continue feeling frustration if he thinks that the world should be paying attention to another old white guy. It’s the same situation I’m in, except while I feel frustrated I don’t also feel entitled to attention or readership. Grappling with the fact that one’s writing, or the ideas it conveys, mostly are just spitting into the void is rough; I get it. But it’s not our world anymore, and when it was it was illegitimately so. I keep talking because I can’t not; the nice thing about blogging is I’m not taking up anyone else’s space with it. Those very few people who want to hear from me get to hear from me. Outside of that, the world spins merrily along without me. Winer, of course, over the course of his blogging life has had a wider and more involved audience than many of us. I’m sure it’s tough to lose the full sense of that. Here’s the thing though: loss of privilege is only an actual loss if you’re hanging on to your ego. And losing one’s privilege isn’t an example of “a person or a group covertly [sowing] seeds of doubt in a targeted individual […], making them question their own memory, perception, or judgment”. It’s just progress. That’s no judgement on my part; I trip up on this, too. In the end, though, his opinions, my opinions, they simply aren’t generally deserving of attention or applause. We aren’t special. We’re just us, writing because we do that.