• DOI:10.1080/02580136.2014.892681
• Corpus ID: 145358447

The concept of privilege: a critical appraisal

@article{Monahan2014TheCO,
  title={The concept of privilege: a critical appraisal},
  author={Michael J. Monahan},
  journal={South African Journal of Philosophy},
  year={2014},
  volume={33},
  pages={73 - 83}
}

• Michael J. Monahan
• Published 2 January 2014
• Sociology
• South African Journal of Philosophy

In this essay, I examine the use of the concept of privilege within the critical theoretical discourse on oppression and liberation (with a particular focus on white privilege and antiracism in the USA). In order to fulfill the rhetorical aims of liberation, concepts for privilege must meet what I term the ‘boundary condition’, which demarcates the boundary between a privileged elite and the rest of society, and the ‘ignorance condition’, which establishes that the elite status and the advantages it confers are not publicly recognised or affirmed. I argue that the dominant use of the concept of privilege cannot fulfill these conditions. As a result, while I do not advocate for the complete abandonment of the rhetoric of privilege, I conclude that it obscures as much as it illuminates, and that the critical theoretical discourse on liberation and oppression should be suspicious of its use.