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Privilege and reality alludes to a conflicting coexistence between what the world really is and what you think it is.

Whether you are an empiricist (“there is an ‘out-there’ reality”) or an idealist (“the only reality is within my mind”), there is a common element: your mind. Even if we accept the empiricist thesis, this “out-there” reality cannot be accessed but through our senses. And hence, this leaves us vulnerable to delusion.

Let’s now ponder on this in terms of society, privilege, and class.

It is often said, correctly, that the very rich and powerful are entirely disconnected from the masses. The 1% don’t know how the 99% live, how they feel and think, how they cope. The problem is (and yes, it is a problem), you don’t know either.

Privilege and Reality Is about Perspective

If you are reading these lines, there is an overwhelming chance that you live in a Western-World nation. You are probably educated and, though possibly not very rich, you are not really in financial troubles – that you know of; although, how’s your student loan situation?

The thing is, however, you are almost certainly oblivious to how the overwhelming majority of the world faces life. If you make about $30.000 per year (a very modest sum for many middle-class citizens in the Western World), you belong to the richest 6% of the world.

To put this another way: There are more than six billion people that are poorer than you. Let that sink in for a moment…

There is an inherent epistemological failure at understanding poverty. This is what privilege and reality alluded to; a conflict of understanding. Even someone attuned to human suffering, capable of empathy (definitely not a given), cannot comprehend what it means to eat a small portion of food (or not at all) so that there is enough left for your children.

Even this example is offered in a strictly Western-World, limited context. From the perspective of a farmer in India or China, the discussion would be whether someone living in a rather comfortable, clean apartment in Mumbai or Shanghai can possibly know what it means to dig the ground for roots, because that would be the only nutrition available. If you’re the visual type, just Google “Stung Meanchey“.

Mancur Olson famously argued that collective action will always fail if someone can free-ride on the effort of others. Oh, and we haven’t even considered democracy’s systemic failures.

Imagine the same argument for someone not knowing how the world really is.

That is, a good 90+% of us.