Zero- and Non-Zero-Sum Advantage

I've been thinking a lot recently about "privilege," what I agree is more sociologically termed advantage.* Specifically, I've been wrestling with the practice of publicly forcing people to acknowledge their advantage. I think this crescendoed last summer during the BLM protests. On whole, I think that these kinds of correctives are good. Part of advantage, after all, is not having to recognize that advantage so making advantaged folks see and address their advantage opens the opportunity for social change.

Along the way, however, I think there has been a shift from making people aware of their advantage to shaming and stigmatizing that advantage. As an example, imagine a white woman posting a picture of the new home she just purchased to Facebook and her friends commenting on the post that she is blindly demonstrating her privilege. It is a fine line between rightly problematizing her ignorance of her privilege and problematizing the purchase of a new home per se. I propose that it is better to think of two kinds of advantage/privilege, zero-sum and non-zero-sum.

By zero-sum advantage, I mean those kinds of situations in which one benefits at the expense of another. Generational wealth is a good example of this since, under capitalism, one's economic fortunes are tied to the current and/or historic exploitation of others. Because of this, corrective actions are necessary beyond just consciousness-raising (e.g. reparations or redistributive taxation). My advantaged economic standing is systemically linked to the standing of others, which requires the reduction of my advantage.

By non-zero-sum advantage, I mean those kinds of situations in which one's benefit is not directly linked to another's disadvantage but is instead a comparative or relative advantage. Interactions with the police are a good example of this since the fact that whites are less likely to have negative interactions with the police does not explain the increased propensity for police to target (intentionally or otherwise) blacks. The disprivilege of BIPOC folks to be disproportionately mistreated by the police does not mean that whites should be exposed to more mistreatment; instead, the "advantage" of being treated fairly and humanely should be expanded to the disadvantaged.

In other words, non-zero-sum advantages should be extended to those who are disadvantaged, while zero-sum advantages should be removed from those who are advantaged. I think this distinction will be helpful in both the public discourse about advantage/privilege as well in its treatment.

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* - See here for a note about this.

Student Evaluations, Equity, and Advantage

I posted the following tweet this morning: 

This is the time of year when I ignore student evaluations because the research shows that they disadvantage my colleagues who aren't like me (i.e. straight, white, cisgender, man, etc.) and they harm my mental health. It's also a good time to remind administrators of it, too.

— Brad Koch 🎶🚲📚🍻 (@BradleyAKoch) December 10, 2020

There is an unfortunate irony to my tweet in that I am, to some extent, able to ignore my evaluations because of the advantages conveyed by my identities and tenure. Literally everything about my identity grants me structural advantage (a/k/a privilege*) relative to those with identities different from mine, and there is no way for me to opt-out of it or to compartmentalize it. On the one hand, this is unfair to me in that I will never know to what extent my successes were earned or were a product of those advantages. (Cue world's smallest violin.) More troublingly, it is unjust to those who are not like me who are less likely to have successes in the first place.

I followed up with a comment linking to the press release (9/9/19) from the American Sociological Association (ASA) on Reconsidering Student Evaluations of Teaching. I, however, don't fully agree with the ASA recommendations. Confusingly, they argue that "SETs [student evaluations of teaching] are weakly related to other measures of teaching effectiveness and student learning" and that:

A scholarly consensus has emerged that using SETs as the primary measure of teaching effectiveness in faculty review processes can systematically disadvantage faculty from marginalized groups. This can be especially consequential for contingent faculty for whom a small difference in average scores can mean the difference between contract renewal and

dismissal.

but then continue nonetheless with recommendations on how to include SETs as "part of a holistic assessment." If the evidence suggests that SETs are inherently inequitable, they should have no role in the faculty evaluation process. 

Imagine forcing students to wear glasses in certain professors' classes that make everything look blurry and unfocused and then asking them at the end of the semester to accurately describe the professor's physical attributes. We should not be surprised when the students are unable to give anything approaching an accurate description. Now imagine arguing that if only we asked the right questions, we would be able to suss out a fair characterization. This would be ridiculous! One cannot reconstruct data from a concept that was obstructed from the data in the first place. No, the only way to accurately measure the professor's physical attributes would be to remove the glasses from the students' eyes before taking the classes.

Likewise, I don't see a way that we can reconstruct an accurate measure of teaching effectiveness that is hopelessly clouded by culturally imposed implicit biases short of eliminating the source of these biases before students enter the classroom, which, while a worthy project, is one beyond the scope of colleges and universities working alone.

The non-expert, naive opinions of students are of little utility, regardless, but that's best saved for another blog post.

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I prefer not to use the term "privilege." For a good explanation of why, see Kaufman and Schoepflin's discussion on the topic

The Irony and Paradox of Self-interest

I tweeted this a couple days ago:

We parents have irrational--though understandable--fears that our kids could be the victims at school shootings. How many of us, though, fear that our kids might *do* the school shooting? Still an irrational fear, but one that would pay better social dividends.

— Brad Koch (@BradleyAKoch) March 5, 2018

I wanted to elaborate on it a bit here. In general, I think that our societal shift to individualism has made self-interest the default mindset. Self-interested positions, however, have the ironic consequence of being self-injurious. Here are a few additional examples:

• We parents often fear that our children will be bullied. How many of us fear that our kids might end up being the bullies, though?
• We parents want our kids to go to the "best" schools. How many of us realize that the decisions we make to ensure our kids' advantages (e.g. moving to new districts or opting for private school) necessarily creates a disadvantage for the other kids left behind?
• We often buy cars that will make us safer. How many of us buy cars that will keep others safer, though? (See here and here.)
• Many buy firearms to protect themselves. How many realize that those guns are more likely to be used against them? or that they will be used against their loved ones? or that they could unpredictably, intentionally turn them on themselves?

The way that we individualistically frame our own wellbeing often happens by decreasing the wellbeing of others. The social reality, though, is that each individual is someone else's other. Truly making ourselves safer means paradoxically thinking of others before ourselves.

Why I'm on a First-name Basis with My Students

...despite the Privilege.

I've been waiting to respond to this essay for a while. Here it is, warts and all.

First, let me offer context. My social location is the height of privilege. Everything below should be read in that light. This is not mansplaining but a dialogue.

Students come to college having been taught in primary and secondary education to respect their teachers because of their traditional and/or rational-legal (a/k/a bureaucratic) authority. In order to redefine the kind of authority to professional-client that is endemic in and essential to higher ed, I ask students to call me by my first name instead of with a title that aligns with a bureaucratic office (e.g. "Professor" or "Doctor"). This informality highlights that my authority rests in my expertise, not in customs or rules. (See [1] for a thorough treatment of these kinds authorities.)

I have always been of the view that traditional and bureaucratic authority in the classroom is a hindrance. This is not to deny that there is a power differential. As a professor, I hold a lot of power over my students, not the least of which is my ability to assign grades and, ultimately, to bestow or withhold a degree. (I go to great lengths, though, to craft syllabi that remove as much subjectivity from the process as possible--or at least to lay as bare as possible where my expert status affords subjectivity.) The students in my classes are adults, however, and I treat them as such. I am not the high school teacher; I will not coddle them or hold their hands. They are fully capable of being self-sufficient. In secondary education, it is the teacher's responsibility that the student learns; in post-secondary education, that responsibility belongs to the student. Because of this, I see no need for deference.

I do not agree that it is our job to teach students how to behave in a professional setting, as Prof. Gulliver claims. That is the creep of corporate influence into academia. College is not--or at least shouldn't be--job training. Regardless, behavior in professional settings has been becoming increasingly casual for decades. Most employees are on a first-name basis with their boss. Arguing that college has a duty to professionalize students would require that we help students transition from their high-school habit of calling authority figures Mr., Mrs., etc. to having the bravery to see themselves as closer in status to their superiors and setting aside the titles.

There absolutely is a problem for women professors, professors of color, and instructors of otherwise marginalized identities, and we should do everything to address the cultural and structural realities that cause these problems. But I, "the cool white guy" doing my best to meet my students in a place that will best facilitate their edification, am not the problem. I am an ally, not an enemy.

I think Prof. Gulliver underestimates her capacity for being the "cool" professor. What stops women from being the "cool" professor, too? Using your first name removes an easy opportunity for douchy undergrads to challenge authority. If anything, it opens up an opportunity to be surprised by those who find it hard or impossible to call a superior by her first name.

Finally, let me close by saying that I very much appreciate Prof. Gulliver's essay and I continue to wrestle with her arguments. I hope the dialogue continues.

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[1] Pace, Judith. 2003. "Managing the Dilemmas of Professional and Bureaucratic Authority in a High School English Class." Sociology of Education 76(January): 37-52

Southerns 2013

I'll be heading over to the Annual Meeting of the Southern Sociological Society so posting will be limited this week. I will be presenting with my coauthors at 4:00 PM on Thursday in the Fairlie room. Here is our abstract:

The "War on Christmas": Teaching about Christian Privilege

Scholars have begun to recognize a “Christian privilege” (CP) in the vein of “white privilege,” which McIntosh (1988) famously described as being “like an invisible weightless knapsack of special provisions, assurances, tools, maps, guides, codebooks, passports, visas, clothes, compass, emergency gear, and blank checks” (1-2). Blumenfeld (2006) defines CP as the:

…seemingly invisible, unearned, and largely unacknowledged array of benefits accorded to Christians. … This system of benefits confers dominance on Christians while subordinating members of other faith communities as well as non-believers. These systemic inequities are pervasive throughout the society. They are encoded into the individual’s consciousness and woven into the fabric of our social institutions, resulting in a stratified social order privileging dominant (“agent”) groups while restring and disempowering subordinate (“target”) groups… (195).

Several scholars (e.g. Schlosser 2003 and Goodman and Seifert 2010) have constructed lists of CP in line with McIntosh’s list of white privileges. Christians, irrespective to their specific religious practice or tradition, are indiscriminately privileged, just as even the most progressive of whites and men are advantaged by white and male privileges (Clark 2006). Christians can problematically ignore or deny their CP because they have never experienced the oppression that is levied against non-Christians (Schlosser 2003). Further entrenching CP is the supposed diversity of religion in the U.S., which tends to mask the hegemonic force exerted by Protestant Christianity; the assumption of pluralism in fact allows Protestant hegemony to marginalize religions that are not “normal” (Beaman 2003).

To teach this concept to students, we developed an in-class debate about the “War on Christmas” and holiday expressions (“happy holidays” vs. “Merry Christmas,” neutral winter displays vs. religious displays, etc.).

In the exercise, students are told they represent a community group meeting to decide if local businesses should be neutral on holiday greetings. They are divided up to represent different perspectives. The first group is instructed to argue the belief that “happy holidays” and neutral displays represent political correctness gone too far, and that these emphases focus too much on semantics. The second group is to argue that neutral greetings/displays represent inclusiveness of diverse religious backgrounds. Optionally, a third group can argue that the push for neutrality is “reverse discrimination” against Christians.

A debriefing discussion includes if a Christian offended by “happy holidays” is equivalent to a non-Christian offended by “Merry Christmas.” The instructor then addresses the concept of Christian privilege: the idea that “Merry Christmas” or other Christian displays may be intended as neutral is used to demonstrate the pervasiveness of Christianity and the privilege of being in a dominant group. Anonymous polls measure students’ own experiences with Christian privilege.

This exercise can be used in introductory classes or courses on religion, politics, or inequality, related to conversations about the separation of church and state, political correctness, pluralism, and privilege. As researchers in the South, we examine Christian privilege where Christianity is often the norm and taken for granted. Pending IRB-approval, we will implement this exercise in a range of introductory courses across our institutions.

Drop me a line if you'd like to meet up for a beer.

Jesus, Jews, and the Classroom

I have been fascinated by two recent episodes in which teaching exercises have come under heavy criticism. The first, assigned by a 10th-grade English teacher in New Albany, New York, required students to write a persuasive essay using historic Nazi propaganda arguing that Jews were evil and "the source of our problems." The second, assigned by a Communications Studies instructor at Florida Atlantic University, asked students to step on a piece of paper with the word "Jesus" written on it. While both exercises sound egregious and inflammatory, I don't find either necessarily inappropriate. (For contextualized defenses of both, see here and here respectively.) When we talk about academic freedom, we typically focus on research. [1] Academic freedom, however, is also essential in the classroom. It is our job as educators to challenge our students' common-sense conceptions of the world. If my students are not uncomfortable at some level in my class, I am not doing my job. [2]

That said, what so far hasn't been a part of the discussion about the "evil Jews" and "step on Jesus" exercises is the larger, stratified social context in which people of different religions/ethnicities exist. Jews and Christians experience different social advantages and disadvantages. While antisemitism has been waning for quite some time in the United States, Christians still enjoy immense privilege. (See previous posts on Christian Privilege here, here, and here.) It is quite a different thing to denigrate Jews--even if for benevolent effect--than it is to show symbolic disrespect to the name of the central figure of Christianity. Imagine similar teaching exercises about race instead of ethnicity/religion. Could you imagine asking a class to write an essay arguing that blacks are an inferior race? How about asking a class to step on pieces of paper with the word "Whites" written on them? The negative effect is asymmetric because the social location of these groups is asymmetric.

I suppose my point is that while we should grant teachers a lot of leeway in their classrooms, we teachers are responsible for understanding the social context that are larger than our classrooms.

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[1] - I remember when I was on the job market several years ago, there was some controversy in Georgia over a professor of "blowjob studies" whom several state legislators wanted to oust. Luckily, the professor in this case was protected by tenure, and aside from the legislators scoring some political points with their anti-intellectual, backwards core constituents, nothing ever came of the media attention. Coincidentally, I was at that very time interviewing for two job in the University System of Georgia. While I found the witch-hunt extremely disconcerting and expressed concern in the interviews, I did end up accepting one of the job offers and today still work in Georgia. If all goes as planned, I'll be getting tenure in a year at which point I'll be able to reveal my actual, diabolical research agenda. Muah ha ha ha!

[2] - h/t Stephanie McClure

Friday Music: "W.M.A." - Pearl Jam

I give you Pearl Jam's "W.M.A.":



This song is about white male privilege and racist policing.

Is It Ethical to Give Thanks for Privilege?

On this Thanksgiving holiday, I ask an important question: Is it ethical to give thanks for privilege? In essence, that is what many of us do on Turkey Day. In fact, it is often ritualized as we go around the table and delineate all of the things for which we are thankful. Like in the other parts of our lives, however, we are unlikely to contextualize these items, instead misunderstanding them as earned and/or "blessings" from divine providence. Both conceptions cloud the reality--and thus perpetuate the fact that--some of us are systematically advantaged over, and even at the expense of, others.

I'll hold myself up as an example. Here is a partial list of things that I might name at the dinner table today: I am thankful for my health, my family, and my career. Now, here is a partial list of my intersecting statuses to which many would be unlikely to attribute these "blessings": I am white, upper class, a man, heterosexual, married, Mainline Protestant, over-educated, and American. It's tough to imagine a person with a more privileging set of identities than me, and yet, people like me are typically more likely to tacitly ascribe their "blessings" to their own efforts and/or to God's preference for them. The implication is that those who have less for which to be thankful have not worked hard enough and/or have somehow been spurned by God. The notion that God blesses or prefers some over others is a theological problem into which I won't delve here, but the notion that privilege or relative advantage is wholly earned is contradicted by over a hundred years of scientific, sociological evidence. The danger is that by being ignorant to the structural nature of privilege, we collectively cement that privilege along with the deprivation for the unprivileged.

So, what to do? Many spend the holidays "giving back" by volunteering at soup kitchens and homeless shelters, and they should be applauded for these efforts; however, such volunteering serves to ameliorate the symptoms of disadvantage only temporarily. Deeper change is needed to address the causes of inequality. This Thanksgiving, I hope that as we all reflect on our "blessings," we will take some time to reflect also on the systematic ways in which many among us are are not "blessed" and that we might be moved to action by that reflection.

Fortuna Favors the Bold (of Birth)

Most of you have probably already heard about Michael Lewis' viral 2012 Princeton commencement speech titled "Don't Eat Fortune's Cookie." If you haven't seen it, check it out below. (If you want to skip forward, the meat begins at 5:53 and then again 6:55.)



Take this quote:

People really don't like to hear success explained away as luck, especially successful people.... The world doesn't want to acknowledge it either.

This points to an important sociological concept: how people attribute success and failure. Here are a couple tables to help make sense of it:

(green = comfort; red = discomfort)

We are generally comfortable attributing our own successes to individual-level factors (e.g. strong character, intelligence, and strong work ethic) and our own failures to structural factors (i.e. things outside of our control). We generally are only comfortable, though, attributing any outcome for others, positive or negative, to individual-level factors. It is as if others do not exist within society at all. (We're not quite sure about how structure affects others' successes. If we think of them positively [e.g. if they are a member of our group], we're not too comfortable with it; if we think of them negatively [e.g. they are an outsider], we're more comfortable with it.)

Lewis uses the terms "luck" and "accident," but it's not quite this arbitrary usually. Some people aren't just lucky but have advantages that are built into the system, into our social structure. Luck is something that can be thought of as fairly randomly distributed; in all societies, however, certain people, because of their ascribed (i.e. unearned) identities*, are disproportionately advantaged. "Luck" is inexplicable, but social advantage (a/k/a privilege) is socially determined and, thus, can be socially mitigated or eliminated through social movements.

Because people also generally want to live in a just world, acknowledging the influence of social structure requires a shift in worldview. Take it from Mr. Lewis:

With luck comes obligation.... You owe a debt to the unlucky.

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* - I suppose we could get into a philosophical debate as to whether some individuals are "lucky" to have been born into certain advantaged identities. For example, being born male, white, and heterosexual to a middle class Presbyterian family is "luckier" than being born female, black, and queer to a lower class Muslim parent, but this is beside the point.

The Privilege and Persecution of Evangelical Protestants

I wrote yesterday that the dominant narrative among Evangelical Protestants in the United States is that their religion is systematically persecuted by secular society and mainstream culture. The reality, however, is that Evangelicals in particular and Christians in general enjoy widespread and significant privileges because of their membership in the dominant religion. How can we account for this discrepancy? How do those who are advantaged come to see themselves as being disadvantaged?

Part of privilege is not having to confront that privilege. Unlike those who are disadvantaged and are forced to confront that hardship regularly, the privileged are lucky to be able to go through life blind to their advantages. Think about economic privilege as a good example. Imagine an upper-middle class kid who applies to a few colleges, gets a few acceptances, visits a few campuses, and them enrolls and matriculates to college. Now, imagine the working class kid who applies to a few colleges and gets a few acceptances but then must wrestle with the financial realities of higher education. Which school, if any, can he and his parents afford? Can they even afford for him to visit the campuses of the schools to which he's been accepted? The middle class kid never has to see his advantage; he is simply living the lifecourse set out for him. The working class kid, on the other hand, must face head on the structural resistance to his will; he is made acutely aware of his disadvantage.

It's one thing to not be aware of one's privilege, though, and another to image oneself as being disadvantaged. For those with privilege, any attempt to level the playing field--that is, to overcome the structural disadvantages for those without privilege--becomes perceived as an injustice since they are not conscious to their advantages. Let's return to the college applicants example. Say that both the middle class kid and the working class kid decide to go to Harvard. Let's say that the working class kid is able to take advantage of a scholarship or grant program to help low-income students pay for tuition. To the middle class kid and his parents, this might seem inherently unjust, an advantage to which they are not eligible, but it can only be seen as unjust if they ignore the systematic advantages that they have enjoyed (e.g. better social connections, higher levels of income, etc.) up until that point.

How does this translate to Evangelicals? Evangelicalism has two central and related tenets. First, it makes a monopolistic claim to legitimacy and salvation (i.e. "Ours is the one true religion and the only way to Heaven."). Second, it requires its adherents not only to believe but to convert all others to their religion (i.e. "Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them...."). Because of these perceived imperatives to negate tolerance and engage with the "others," along with their unacknowledged social privileges, Evangelicals interpret any limitation to their usually unimpinged advantages to be an unjust affront, a persecution. (This, of course, also conveniently parallels the persecution of Christ in the Gospel narratives.) Like the comfortable upper-middle class parents angry that their son won't get the financial aid for hardship, Evangelicals get angry if they cannot impose their beliefs in the public square.

A List of Christian Privileges

Christian Privilege is the unearned advantages that Christians experience as part of the dominant religion even if, as is most often the case, it goes unacknowledged (Seifert 2007). This concept runs completely counter to the dominant narrative among Evangelical Protestants in the United States who collectively believe that their religion is systematically persecuted by secular society and mainstream culture.* Based in part on lists created by Scholsser (2003) and Seifert and Goodman (2010), here are just ten out of countless privileges the typical Christian enjoys in the United States:

1. I am likely to be off work or out of school during my religious holidays and weekly day of worship.
2. My religious holidays are so "normal" that many question whether they still have religious significance.
3. When I talk about my religion, others are unlikely to judge this as an unwanted act of proselytization.
4. I can remain ignorant to the differences between religions since it's unlikely I'll be penalized for this.
5. I can travel without others assuming I am putting them at risk and thus without putting myself at risk.
6. I can openly disclose my religion without fear for my safety.
7. It's unlikely that others will judge me for bad things done by those who happen to share my religion.
8. Neither my citizenship nor the legality of my immigration status will be questioned because of my religion.
9. My place of worship will not be targeted for violence.
10. The media depicts my religion positively and often.

More on Christian Privilege here, here, and here.


* - Indeed, it's a highly ironic position akin to those who benefit from white privilege screaming "reverse racism!" More on this at another time, perhaps.

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Scholsser, Lewis. 2003. “Christian Privilege: Breaking a Sacred Taboo.” Journal of Multicultural Counseling and Development 31:44-51.

Seifert, Tricia. 2007. “Understanding Christian Privilege: Managing the Tensions of Spiritual Plurality.” About Campus 12:10-17.

Seifert, Tricia and Kathy Goodman. 2010. “40 Examples of Christian Privilege.” Retrieved May 30, 2012.

"Hot Problems" of the Privileged

On the heels of Rebecca Black's "Friday," I give you Double Take's "Hot Problems":

Lyrics:

Look at me, and tell me the truth.

What do you do when people don't know what we go through?

They see my blonde hair, blue eyes, and class,

but they don't know I have a really big heart.

Please don't get me wrong;

I know that I'm hot, but textbook perfection really takes a lot.

Weird guys call my phone, and girls call me names,

but like Miley said, "I can't be tamed."

Hot girls, we have problems, too.

We're just like you—except we're hot.

The world needs to open their eyes and realize

we're not perfect, and sometimes, we lie.

I got the look. I got the butt,

but those things don't make me a [slut].

Boys call me stuck up. Girls say I'm conceited.

On behalf of all hot girls, those comments aren't needed.

Just 'cause I'm pretty, I have to be dumb.

"I don't care about wits; I just wanna have fun."

People start rumors and say things about me.

Funny thing is I didn't go to that party.

Why, oh why, can't you see?

You all are just like me.

We make mistakes and get in trouble.

Now, you know our hot-girls trouble.

 Just kidding; we're perfect.

Contrary to what you may be thinking, this appears not to be a joke. These blonde-haired, blue-eyed, upper class, self-proclaimed perfect girls do actually believe that they have problems on par with their non-hot peers. One of the advantages of the privileged is that they are rarely forced to acknowledge their own privilege, unlike the disadvantaged who are continually required to confront their lack of privilege. This is just a particularly egregious and callous example of the ignorance of the privileged.

I share this video with you for a couple of reasons. First, my misery needs company. If I have to hear this, so do you. [jokes] Second, I believe this music video could be put to good use in the classroom. Here are a handful of suggested questions that might spark conversation among students:

1. In what ways are these girls advantaged over others?
2. Do you think they recognize those advantages? If not, why not?
3. In what ways, beyond just emotionally, could their lack of perspective be detrimental to their peers?
4. How might privileged people like these be made aware of their advantages?
5. In what ways are you advantaged over others?

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UPDATE (1:12 PM):

     6. In what ways are beauty and class related?