A-Infos (en) Irish Anarchist Review no 8 - Creating an Anarchist Theory of Privilege

Privilege and the theory around it is a significant topic of debate at the moment among 
those interested in radical social change. Touching on many issues dear to the hearts of 
anarchists, it is hard to avoid.(i) Yet, the two are not fitting together as well as they 
should and there is a sense of unease about this. (ii) Much of this is because privilege 
theory has emerged from US academic circles rather than anarchist ones and, ironically, 
has been co-opted to protect middle-class privileges. (iii) This is a situation in need of 
repair if we are to maintain our links with feminist, anti-racist and other struggles 
against oppression. If we are to create a mass movement capable of social change then it 
has to be able to engage with everyone in the first place.

Guest writer, Dónal O’Driscoll, contributes to the ongoing discussion on intersectionality 
and privilege theory.

Solidarity cannot be built on blithe assumptions we are getting it right by virtue of 
being anarchists, or that every oppressed group is our natural ally. Nor is not sustained 
by being patronising or repeating forms of oppression in daily interactions. Anarchist 
should sidestep the mistakes of liberal NGOs and policies that are more about assuaging 
guilt than genuine mutual aid. That requires recognising privileges we take for granted. 
Often privilege theory is nothing more than a useful tool for pointing out unacknowledged 
assumptions and behaviours that liberal-capitalist-patriarchal society has instilled and 
which ultimately throw up barriers between those who should be allies.

I.
The flaws of privilege theory
Current society is set up to advantage some groups over others, consciously or otherwise. 
Thus privilege theory is a way of identifying how nearly everyone benefits in some fashion 
from the oppression of others, whether or not it is intentional. At its heart is the 
understanding that hidden hierarchies exist and maintain individuals and institutions in 
positions of power (iv) – something anarchists should instinctively challenge.

Yet, the overwhelming privileged conferred by class and education is ignored by many. Much 
of the work of privilege theory appears to be about giving people access to a system built 
on exploitation. Tinkering with the social order rather than recognising that it is the 
current social order itself that maintains the inequalities.

The failure to use privilege theory with a revolutionary analysis of economics and power 
is the source of its problems. In this first part I shall look at how it is being 
implemented from a purely liberal perspective. The result is a perversion as it is pressed 
into
service of maintaining individual social standing and systemic inequality.

This happens, in part, because too often the theory is deeply embedded in academia, 
available only to those with the education and time to access it, and their own privileges 
to maintain. These same liberal theorists are unable to envisage radical solutions, but 
see the answers as lying in reformism and state institutions. Capitalist society is 
inherently competitive which gives rise to the desire to use privilege to maintain status 
in the face of this pressure, whether in academia or otherwise. Without wider political 
analysis such as anarchism, this will be a fundamental weakness of privilege theory.

(A) Middle Class Protectionism
Privilege theory has been wholeheartedly co-opted by middle class liberals of all stripes 
to maintain their position. Walter Benn Michaelsv astutely recognises this, noting how 
obsession with diversity in social institutions is used to cover up wider economic 
inequalities. This works to make the middle classes of minority or oppressed populations 
feel comfortable with their position rather than recognise that there remains a larger 
number who are not, regardless of how they are to be categorised. The dominant 
middle-classes are provided the moral high-ground for having done something, while the 
illusion that everyone can climb the social ladder is maintained. Thus, undermining 
justified anger at the inequality of the whole system.

It is re-enforced when journalists and politicians discuss the need for 'positive' 
cultural / ethnic minority role models. Examples used are consistently drawn from those 
who have reached elite positions and emphasis is placed on upward social mobility. Rarely 
are champions of resistance exemplified.

We see it again when anti-oppression professionals complain they are merely teaching the 
language to avoid being called out for racism, sexism, ableism, etc., but without changing 
deep-seated prejudices (vi). Yet, rarely do they question the very system that causes 
this. It is not recognised that their critique incorporates the flawed politics of 
liberalism, with its emphasis on the individual, and meritocracy as the basis for position 
and power in society – two notions that work to maintain the (economic) status quo.

(B) Binaries
On a practical level, the way privilege theory is incorporated into anti-discrimination 
politics focuses on the individual in ways that drastically simplify the world. Thus when 
individuals recognise themselves in oppressed groups it comes with an implicit 
hierarchical baggage. This is embedded in the language of anti-discrimination. So, while 
stereotypes of oppressed groups are denounced, it often comes at the cost of an implicit 
stereotyping of everyone else.

This manifests in several ways, including a simplistic view of privilege through 
reductionist binaries. An example of what I mean by this is the notion of 'whiteness' and 
'blackness'. This is an important failure as it undermines a key part of privilege theory 
– recognising difference as valuable in and of itself, to be celebrated even. (vii) 
Sticking with whiteness as a useful example for the moment, what we have is a very 
simplistic view of race that is used in many circles to overlook other issues. For 
instance, by focusing on skin colour, other examples of racism and ethnic struggle are 
glossed over – e.g. the six counties, Travellers and Eastern European immigrants are all 
examples of inter-'white' racism that is ignored. 'White' has become synonymous with the 
privileged / hegemonic group.

It treats all 'non-whites' as a homogenous group whose experience is universal – that is 
of being oppressed. Inter-group tensions and racism is likewise ignored. It allows people 
to ignore how social class and national culture affects experience of racism for different 
peoples.

Just because someone has an attribute that confers privilege in some contexts, there are 
other factors which mean they don't get those benefits in others. Their experience is not 
so much devalued as considered non-existent. This is something commonly seen in the way 
'white male' is used as a set phrase, yet also is played on in a classist way, for example 
in discussions of 'chavs'. Experiences of patriarchy and economic powerlessness are 
relevant across situations of concern to privilege politics, and are just as destructive 
to people who fall into the broadly drawn 'oppressor' groups.

Ironically, this is also a form of US cultural imperialism and emphasises why we need to 
develop our own anarchist theory and practice of privilege theory. Much of what is adopted 
as the politics of privilege theory comes from the US perspective. In particular, the 
notion of 'whiteness' is very much based on US racial laws and is not applicable to the 
situation in other parts of the world. It is rarely asked if the wholehearted application 
to Europe is actually appropriate. The irony is that, contrary to theory, it is an 
imposition of identity by those who do not recognise it as such. Tariq Modood, in 
particular, points out how inappropriate the established anti-racist terminology of 
'white' and 'black' as political terms is for the experiences of Muslim and South Asians 
in Europe (albeit, he is an example of the liberal intellectual who relies on laws and 
states for solutions) (viii).

(C) Status
This simplistic approach also means that individuals can focus on that aspect of their 
life where they experience membership of an oppressed group and conveniently ignore all 
those other aspects in which they do experience privilege. As an anarchist the notion of 
how different oppressions overlap ('intersectionality', in the jargon) and affect people 
is something we can readily recognise through our own political critiques. However, often 
this intersectionality is only paid lip-service.

Instead, what we have the situation of the individual who seeks to protect the advantages 
they have in life by emphasising the particular oppressed group they belong to, even where 
they do not suffer oppression. The result is those with the loudest voice claim status in 
an inverse hierarchy of oppression, while less visible ones often get ignored. Thus, for 
example, we see working class carers being abused by middle class disabled employers. Or 
the needs of a person with a hidden disability being ignored because their ethnicity is 
white or they are cis-male. Action ceases to be about revolutionary change but asserting 
that they are members of an oppressed group regardless of context. One effect of this is a 
tendency towards separatism.

It is worth citing at this point that obsession with identity is a problem in itself. As 
an example, there was the Köln-Düsseldorf No Borders camp where migrants complained that a 
section of the European activists were too focused on dealing with 'critical whiteness 
theory' to the point it came to dominate the camp – at the expense of the needs of the 
migrants the camp was there to help.

(D) Victimhood and Pacification
A side-effect of the middle-class liberal approach to privilege theory is an encouragement 
of victimhood and pacification of those suffering oppression. By constantly emphasising 
that those oppressed are victims, it is disempowers them from action. Yet at the same 
time, the oppressed are expected to be the source of radical social change. This vicious 
circle actually maintains the status quo. And where oppressed groups have sought to break 
out of it, famously the Black Panthers or the militancy of the suffragist movement (ix), 
that revolutionary history is denied or discretely written out of history. Expression and 
definition is very much controlled by a middle-class narrative, and outburst of anger are 
neutered or discouraged as being counter productive to the reformist approaches that serve 
their needs.

This 'pacification of the oppressed' aspect of the implementation of privilege theory is 
pointed out in the article, “Privilege Politics is Reformism,” published by the Black 
Orchid Collective. (x) It argues it being applied in a way that the liberal-capitalist 
structure of society does not have to be challenged. The aspirations become not radical 
social change and a fair, just society, but about getting access to the class ladder. A 
focus on the individual makes it easier to ignore the wider impersonal social structures 
which are just as important sources of oppression.

So, apparently liberatory politics end up re-enforcing the very discriminations they want 
to challenge through poor application of the politics, something that goes right back to 
anti-colonisation struggles. (xi) Failure to recognise the role of class politics in 
shaping the theory is undermining it and what Audrey Lorde warned of when she famously 
wrote “The masters tools will never dismantle the masters house” is too often applicable.

Sadly, out of this we see emerging privilege theory as a way of maintaining status in some 
activist circles, where advocates of identity politics create in-groups based around a 
particular identity, rather than perceiving a wider notion of solidarity or recognising 
contexts. As what has happened in many places with consensus decision making, a particular 
form of the theory is being taken up in a dogmatic sense and being applied uncritically, 
thus undermining what it is seeking out to achieve.

We see implicit hierarchies of oppression and a culture of seeing individuals as victims 
of oppression thus denying them histories of rebellion and even the ability to see 
themselves as agent of change. People become entrenched in their positions and see those 
they are most naturally allied with as part of the threat rather than seeking to 
incorporate them as solutions. This is often closer to home than we like to admit – how 
many working class groups are focused around men, implicitly excluding women, arguing that 
class is more important than gender in revolutionary change....

II.
Much of this is understood already. Feminists and people of colour have expanded the sites 
of social struggle from the workplace to the rest of society, challenging a Left which saw 
identity politics as distraction from the purity of class struggle. Those of a more 
radical background, particularly anarcha-feminists, highlighted the flaws of liberation 
movements too focused on the needs of the bourgeois.
In part, this was achieved by applying the central dynamic of anarchism – neither pure 
liberal individualism nor total submission to the will of the collective. The core of 
anarchism, as set out in Bakunin, Goldman, Landauer etc., is the constant balancing of 
these two needs. Thus, an anarchist solution to the flaws of liberal individualism within 
the politics of privilege theory is to remember the core principles of solidarity and 
mutual aid, combined with collective responsibility.

The anarchist dynamic introduces another important aspect that addresses flaws in 
privilege theory – awareness of context. Anarchism is not grounded in huge universal 
narratives and ideas, but in the struggle of every day life. When we lose sight of this, 
as often happens, we talk in grand terms of challenging social institutions, while 
ignoring daily reproduction of the oppressions we are supposed be fighting.
That does not mean we won't fall down; sometimes it is easier to fight against an abstract 
foe than actually see ourselves as being part of the problem. The fact that many anarchist 
groups only focus on larger ideas is a good reason to face up to the challenges of 
privilege theory. If we are not inclusive, then a chunk of the the problem lies within 
ourselves.

After all, why join a group if it means listening to particular voices dominate 
discussions and where the desires of a few are met without question at the expense of 
everyone else? When supposedly there are no leaders, so why are so many groups dominated 
by a few individuals in ways that are seemingly impossible to challenge? A bit more 
self-awareness would go a long way. Equality only works if everyone gets to say what 
equality means for them; it cannot be imposed. If the definitions are not compatible that 
needs to be brought out and if possible addressed, not dismissed, but we cannot tell 
others to accept what we consider equality to be.

Yet, the interaction between the individual and the collective can, if done right, give 
greater understanding of how oppression is played out and thus make solidarity with each 
other and other groups stronger. Demands to end hierarchies will only have strength when 
anarchist groups are not riddled with implicit hierarchies because they have failed to 
recognise how individuals have been shaped by the social conditioning of liberal-capitalism.

Understanding the importance of context in lived oppression via class provides tools to 
identify it in other spheres. It is uncomfortable to be challenged, but solidarity without 
seeing ourselves as part of the issue is an empty, even insulting, gesture. However, it is 
possible to explicitly break down labels and acknowledge practically that everyone has 
multiple aspects, and how they interact varies with context.

Conversely, collective responsibility is a tool for considering the materials produced 
around privilege theory. This is too short a space to go through all the issues, but I 
will draw attention to one approach of privilege theory practice that is problematic for 
anarchists – the principle that those in oppressed groups do not have to speak of their 
oppression. Thus, if you are concerned around issues of disability, the disabled person 
has the absolute right to not answer your questions. This is reasonable. As someone in 
this position, there are various times that I do not want to talk about it.

However, I resist the individualist implications some draw from this approach. Especially 
where it changes emphasis on those of the oppressed group to be the source of change in 
themselves, while leaving those from the non-disadvantaged group who want to effect change 
floundering – only to be slammed when they get it wrong. This serves only individuals who 
have the ability to cocoon themselves or who want to identify themselves solely by their 
oppression. It misses the point that the lead for change must come within the oppressed 
groups.

It ignores that while I have a health disadvantage, I am fortunate to have another set of 
advantages that class society has given me, which I should not ignore. I have an 
obligation not to be silent. The above approach is indicative of the binary approach where 
everyone else would be defined by the privilege that I do not have. It is not how I face 
life, or how most people do. It misses utterly multiple identities and protects other 
privileges from being questioned. As bell hooks puts it, (xii) we cannot let the reduction 
of our identities to simplistic terms (imposed by the discriminators in most cases) to 
blind us to our own complicities and accesses to other privileges.

This individualism is mitigated by collective processes. In my case, I resolve it by 
actively involving my community (a housing cooperative), accepting they are not going to 
get it right all the times and there are times when I am going to have to educate people 
on how they have disadvantaged me (I struggle to say it amounts to an 'oppression' when I 
look at that word in the light of other people's experiences). Standing up as a voice for 
others with the same issue but are less able to is putting my anarchist politics in action.

Anarchism teaches me that no state or institution can make my life better by simply 
legislating away discrimination. What improves my life is talking to my compatriots and 
working together to resolve disadvantages each of us face. My needs cannot be met solely 
by myself and there are things they require of me. There is a need to accept that not 
everything is possible all the time, but rather than tie ourselves up in theoretical 
possibilities, we address what is before us.

Thus, perfection is not required, but rather there is the flexibility to change as needed. 
However, if I am not prepared to enter into that dialogue, to trust my collective and them 
in trust me, there can be no effective solidarity, only ignorance and misunderstand- ing, 
an approach that scales up to all levels. At the end of the day, people are not going to 
get things right if competitive approaches get preference over respect, listening and 
co-operation. In my experience, many from oppressed backgrounds without middle class 
privileges are not looking for complete agreement, but acknowledgement they have a cause 
and to be able to be heard in their own voices – not to be spoken on behalf of or ignored. 
Something that applies even to the statements put out as part of our political 
struggles.(xiii)

It is one reason why the ongoing interplay of individual and community that informs 
anarchism is such a powerful mechanism for analysing politics. However, an anarchist 
theory of privilege first needs to deal with how we have been infected by liberal ideology 
– and we all have.

It means taking identity politics seriously, but deciding our own reactions. It means 
being honest with ourselves that we all have both advantages and disadvantages and that 
they interact in complex ways. Solidarity includes awareness of the needs of others and 
adapting behaviour to ensure they are empowered. Rather than seeing these issues as a 
distraction, they can be consider an opportunity to support people standing up in the face 
of years of oppressive social conditioning and experience. If they are 'empowered', it 
does not make them offensive or 'over- privileged', rather it is because they have spent 
years fighting the crap thrown at them, which should be applauded as the achievement it is.

A collective is strong when it can communicate and show respect to all its members. It 
does not make assumptions about other people that suit how its want things to be. 
Likewise, anarchism does not let us off with the excuse of reducing ourselves to being 
victims. Not being silent is an important part of our politics. Rather than using 
advantages to offset disadvantages and sustain particular privileges an anarchist theory 
turns this on its head, the advantages should be used to challenged the reasons for 
oppression.

To be honest, this is mostly common sense. It does not have to be dressed up in the 
language of privilege theory to be recognised.
However, what I am bringing the table is the anarchist analysis of power and how it is 
used. Too often in the liberal conception of privilege this is the part that is 
deliberately ignored. Solutions are based in the state – laws, courts and commissions that 
do not address the economic inequalities feeding the oppression. Anarchism demands a 
challenge to all community leaders voicing their agendas in the name of communities they 
supposedly represent.

Likewise, anarchism is wary of definitions being imposed by the more powerful. What use is 
equality when it serves only one side? Unfortunately this is a common mistake in our 
groups, when we tell people from disadvantaged groups that they are equal to us in our 
eyes – what matters is how they perceive it. It is a matter of asking, not telling, and if 
the answer is they do not feel equal, then we ask why not.

In anarchism, empowerment through the self is an equally strong route to liberation. 
People who are encouraged through solidarity and mutual aid to stand up and resist will 
effect the change needed to end oppression. Those strands of privilege theory which have 
been adapted to encourage victimhood is a liberal individualism that puts the onus of 
support back into the hands of the State. This is where it is important to recognised that 
everyone has advantages and disadvantages and bring the former to the struggle against the 
latter.

Crucially, anarchism questions supposedly universal terms and methods. It suspects them of 
hiding hierarchies and power. For instance, there should be a suspicion of whiteness as a 
category, recognising there are many issues of racism within 'white' society that should 
not be devalued. Conversely, allying solely with one oppressed group shouldn't allow 
ignoring other issues of privileged in ourselves. Anarchism should challenge the inverse 
hierarchies of oppression in favour of a complex intersectionality were individuals have 
multiple facets. It is not a place to hide behind simplified notions of class, gender or 
sexuality.

There is the power to recognise how solidarity is offered. Resisting grand narratives 
imposed by middle class intellectuals helps us avoid the traps that plague much of the 
Left with its blind support for groups of dubious politics. We are capable of making our 
solidarity conditional, not caught in the trap of tolerance for groups whose politics 
really are opposed to ours.

Sometimes privilege theory can be used to shut down discussions when it reduced to being 
either all about the individual or monolithic narratives around race, etc. Anarchists have 
a powerful role in keeping these debates open, rooted in wide communities and in each 
individual's complex relationships with those communities, rather than fragmenting down to 
insular perspectives. For instance we can recognise racial hatred against one group while 
acknowledging that group is deeply patriarchal, and actively address it. Or we can 
critique simplified comments on race and religion to ensure that other issues are not buried.

Not all identity-focused movements are necessarily are necessarily to be adopted, but we 
can learn how they combat oppression. For instance, the queer scene counteracting the 
increasing commercialisation and co-option of the gay pride movement, or tranarchy groups 
challenging heteronormative concepts of gender within social structures. An anarchist 
politics of privilege theory will not place any group on a pedestal above criticism, but 
will seek to ad- dress issues raised from a point of view which taken into account the 
experiences of class and capitalism. Anarcha-feminists have already started this by 
raising the issue of misogyny as a working class issue (xiv), something that needs to be 
extended to the related topic of multiculturalism (xv).

III.
Having grand critiques of the great abstract ideas or of social institutions is not 
sufficient if we want to show solidarity and mutual aid on a daily basis. The police, the 
State and fascists are all clear enemies. It is harder to look at ourselves and 
acknowledge that we too are potentially oppressors. Nor is it sufficient to lump 
patriarchy and racism in with capitalism – capitalism needs patriarchy and racism to 
sustain itself, but they can both exist independently of them. If we did not have 
capitalism to fight against, we would still have patriarchy and racism to contend with. 
The struggle has to be thus against all oppression simultaneously. (xvi)
It is for this reason we need to de-liberalise privilege theory and use that to form a 
politics that is liberatory for everyone, demonstrating true solidarity.

Guest Writer: Dónal O’ Driscoll

References and Endnotes
i “The Politics of Voice: Notes on Gender, Race and Class,” Aiden Rowe, 
http://www.wsm.ie/c/ anarchism-intersecionality-gender-race-class
ii This is not to say that there are not grassroots movements and authors who are not 
tackling this, however, as we shall note later on, much of this is buried in a US 
perspective where identification of class position with oppression / privilege has its own 
strong dynamic. For example see “White Benefits, Middle Class Privilege” by Paul Kivel, a 
leading practitioner in US identity politics with a strong grassroots outlook. Much of 
Paul Kivel's work is worth looking at – www.paulkivel.com, but there is a vast amount of 
material online around US grassroots anti-discrimination activism. For a particularly 
anarchist viewpoint, see the Katrina Reader – katrinareader.org
iii “A Question of Privilege”, Venomous Butterfly, 
http://www.geocities.ws/kk_abacus/vb/wd8priv. html ; “The Promise And Pitfalls of 
Privilege Politics,” 2012. 
http://zinelibrary.info/files/ThePromisesAndPitfallsOfPrivilegePolitics.pdf ; “Privilege 
Theory: The Politics of Defeat”, Sabcat Printing., 
http://sabcat.com/privilege-theory-the-poltics-of- defeat/
iv “Privilege, Power and Difference”, Allan G. John- son, 2005.
v “The Trouble With Diversity: How We Learned to Love Identity and Ignore Inequality”, 
Walter Benn Michaels, 2006.
vi “Anti-Oppressive Social Work Theory and Practice”, Lena Dominelli, 2002.
vii “Justice and the Politics of Difference”, Marion Iris Young, 1990.
viii “Multicultural Politics”, Tariq Modood, 2005
ix “How Non-Violence Protects the State”, Peter Gelderloos, 2007; “Pacifism as Pathology”, 
Ward Churchill, 1986.
x “Privilege Politics is Reformism,” Will, 
http://blackorchidcollective.wordpress.com/2012/03/12/guest-post-privile....
xi “The Wretched of the Earth”, Frantz Fanon, a key text of the related notion of 
decolonisation theory.
xii “Outlaw Culture”, bell hooks, 2006
xiii For example, the May 1st Anarchist Alliance statement “Towards an Anarchist Policy on 
Syria” and the response from Shiar, a Syrian anarchist, unpicking in a constructive manner 
the latent Orientalism in it at http://www.anarkismo.net/article/26148
xiv http://anarchalibrary.blogspot.co.uk
xv For instance, how should we react or analyse when a man of an ethnic minority refuses 
to shake the hands of a woman on cultural grounds? Maybe unsurprisingly, where I have 
heard accounts of this it tends to be men from middle classes who express such behaviour. 
While I have not explored multicultural theory here, it is closely related and throws up 
many issues. As well as Tariq Modood, see also “Rethinking Multiculturalism” by Bhikhu 
Parekh, or “Cosmopolitanism” by Kwame Anthony Appiah.
xvi “A Class Struggle Anarchist Analysis of Privilege Theory”, AFED Women's Caucus, 
http://www.afed.org.uk/blog/state/327-a-class-struggle- 
anarchist-analysis-of-privilege-theory--from-the- womens-caucus-.html
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