The Pits and Pieces

  It was a post by Ageless Possibilities that got me thinking about privilege. What does being privileged mean? Does it mean having a comfortably well-off life? Having doors open easily for you? Not being subjected to discrimination?   Sometimes I think we tend to mix up terms, equating being privileged with being well-to-do or affluent. Although I think the real meaning is not being disadvantaged, being part of a group that gets preferential treatment that others do not, simply because you’re automatically assumed to be in a higher echelon of society. Being privileged means one is not subjected to automatic demeaning perceptions, judgments and hardships that others may face daily. Words become buzz words and then after a while some tire of them and begin to sneer and speak of them with ‘air-quotes’. I’ve listened to conversations where people bemoan the fact they are now hard done by because of their so-called ‘white privilege’. They believe they’re not privileged at all because th

  What I’ve been watching : I went with a couple of friends (who once lived in Bhutan) to see the movie “The Monk And the Gun” which was part of a film festival last year. It is set in Bhutan, where the king is abdicating in favour of transitioning the country to democracy. The Bhutanese don’t know how to vote in an election, and so officials stage a mock election, while a visiting American is there to secure an antique gun. A monk is also out searching for two guns, an odd request by his lama, which he carries out unquestioningly but finds difficult in a country where guns are scarce. When the American and the monk cross paths, and the monk learns of the number of guns in the U.S., he exclaims, wide-eyed, “More guns than people?” The film gently, subtly, and humourously displays the contrasts between the Western world (the drive for money, power, and more, more, more), the divisions and violence and greed it creates in western society against the contented, simple, polite Bhutanese. T