Check your privilege contending with Check your conscience

From Book Review of David and Goliath by Tracy Quan.

It’s not just that people misread state power. It’s worse. By positioning yourself as the underdog, you can humiliate others, destroy lives, misuse your government’s power and maybe even get a bad law passed. People who see their struggles in David and Goliath terms are naive and often dangerous. Sometimes, as Gladwell shows us, they influence the justice system and create lasting damage.

On Twitter and elsewhere, “Check your privilege” has become the underdog’s political putdown du jour, a stone in every David’s virtual sling. Underdogs exist across the political spectrum—left, right, libertarian, feminist, antifeminist—and they have more in common than they care to admit. I don’t know whether Gladwell would agree with me, but I think the time has come for every David to check his conscience. Or hers.