There’s a quote I occasionally see ricochet around social media. “When you’re accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression.”III26 There’s truth to this line, but it cuts both ways. To the extent that it’s true that a loss of privilege feels like oppression, that feeling needs to be taken seriously, both because it’s real, and because, left to fester, it can be weaponized by demagogues and reactionaries. In her book Talking to Strangers, Harvard political theorist Danielle Allen writes that “the hard truth of democracy is that some citizens are always giving things up for others.”
...more
