Analysis Comment

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Privilege Cultural Emotions and Institutional Boundaries©

Theodoric Manley, Jr. PhD

Introduction

What are privilege cultural emotions? Privilege cultural emotions are typically

what people in a society believe everyone has—like justice (to feel your cultural

emotion (s) are respected by others); liberty (to feel you can express your

cultural emotion (s) without oppressive conditions) and; freedom (to feel you

can act, think, and discuss your cultural emotion (s) without any hindrance or

restraint).

Liberty

emotions

Freedom

emotions

Justice

emotions

Figure. 1—Privilege Cultural Emotions

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Understanding Privilege Cultural Emotions

To understand privilege cultural emotions let's imagine a situation in which there

are two communities who believe they are different, for example in language,

culture and way of life, history, and/or some visible physical characteristics. (In

reality, there are often many community's in society, but let's simplify the situation

to make the definitions clear.) We can describe the relationship between

communities in two ways: privilege cultural emotions and the openness of

institutional decision-making structures.

"Hard and soft privilege cultural emotions" refers to a set of beliefs, values,

and norms about how rigid the lines are between the two communities and how

easily individuals can emotionally participate in the activities and institutions of

the community to which they aren't ascribed. In a "soft privilege cultural emotion"

situation the boundaries are permeable and fluid; there are few barriers to

emotional participation. For example, in urban America today, whether a person is

"English" or "Scotch-Irish" makes practically no difference; the two

ethnicities intermarry, live in the same urban neighborhood, and recognize little

distinction between them. In a "hard privilege cultural emotion" situation, the

boundaries are rigid and extremely difficult to cross or penetrate; one

community shuts out all individuals from the other community from any emotional

participation in the activities of daily life--jobs, education, residence, friendship,

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marriage, social clubs, perhaps even the use of public spaces like beaches or mass

transit. The former white-controlled apartheid regime in South Africa constructed

these kinds of barriers to any emotional participation by individuals living in Black

African communities: Blacks and other "non-whites” (colored) were residentially

segregated, kept out of many job categories, forbidden to marry or date whites,

confined to separate schools, and barred from the use of white-designated beaches,

buses, parks, etc.

"Open and closed institutional decision-making structures" refers to the

degree to which one community monopolizes control of the economy, the political

system, cultural institutions (churches, media, schools) and social organization. In

an open system, members of both communities can direct and organize any of

these institutions. In other—less open—systems, each community has its "own"

institutions, sometimes enjoying a equal amount of power, in other cases, separate

and unequal. For example, in Belgium, both the French and the Flemish-speaking

communities have established their own universities, media, political parties, and

are roughly at parity in their power in the society. In other cases, although both

communities have institutions, those of one community clearly dominate. In these

systems, the institutional decision-making structures could be said to be "separate

and unequal." For example, Canadian institutions like the national government and

the national economy are far more "English" than "French"; the control of the

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French is effectively limited to the province of Quebec, and even there, their

control over the economy is not exhaustive.

In the closed type of institutional decision-making structures, one

community is not permitted to have any institutional control at all, neither in a set

of common institutions nor in a separate set; for example, the plantation system of

the South in the United States was a totally closed one, with African slave

communities having no political representation, no economic rights, no

schools...not even in churches or families, except with the permission of the slave-

owner. Any institutions the African slaves established were treated as illegal. In

this system, all institutional decision-making structures were completely

monopolized by one community.

Below, in Table One, are ideal types for each of the privilege and

institutional decision-making structures.

Table 1. —Privilege Cultural Emotions and Institutional Boundaries

Privilege Cultural Emotions Institutional Boundaries

Open Closed

Hard Accommodation Exclusion

Soft Inclusion Conflict

Ideal Type Privilege Cultural Emotions and Institutional Structure

In hard/open privilege cultural emotions and institutional structure

situations the ideal type community is accommodation. In this ideal type, privilege

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cultural emotion communities co-exist and share resources but there is a privilege

cultural emotion community that determines the financing, allocation and delivery

of resources for communities that co-exist with the privilege cultural emotion

community. Social groups that co-exist with privilege cultural emotion

communities in the accommodation ideal type are defined as either hyphenated

community's (e.g., in the US African American, Hispanic American) or gendered

community's (e.g., same sex individuals and groups) or class-based community's

(i.e., middle class, working class, lower class, poor). These community groups are

typically stereotyped as lacking the privilege cultural emotions community’s

culture and work ethic. In this ideal type community of accommodation, we

hypothesize the emotional experience (s) of content, gratified, pleased if they are

located within a certain echelon of the class-based community system (e.g., middle

class, working class) or they are located in the gendered division community (i.e.,

same-sex) or are benefiting from the psychological wage of looking physically like

the privilege cultural emotion community. They may seek to involve themselves in

social action and thus, can become discontented when their co-existence in the

accommodated community is threatened by less privilege cultural emotion

communities seeking to gain more resources; usually social actions, at times, are at

the expense of keeping other communities deemed "lower" or "inferior" in there

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“place.” Can you think of any real situations in the global community (including

the United States) that approximate this ideal type community—accommodation?

In soft/open situations the ideal type community is inclusion. In this ideal

type, privilege cultural emotion communities are treated in an equitable (not

necessarily equal) way and receive opportunities to express their cultural emotions

regardless of their social position, language, religion, phenotype, sexuality etc. The

least advantaged communities are provided for along with the advantaged

communities to minimize inequality and to promote opportunities for all cultural

emotions to be expressed, accepted and must important respected. While there may

be a privilege cultural emotion community group that determines the financing,

allocation, and delivery of resources they seek to include least advantaged cultural

emotion community members into the privileges and institutional decision-making

structures to minimize social distinctions and to offer the least advantage

community members opportunities to participate in decisions that affect all

peoples’ cultural emotions. The ideal type inclusion community seeks to practice

democracy by sharing privilege cultural emotions with all communities along

equitable standards that are deemed appropriate by each community members

participation. Can you think of any real situations in the global community

(including the United States) that approximate this ideal type community—

inclusion?

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In closed/hard situations the ideal type community is exclusion. In this

ideal type community, certain cultural emotion communities are excluded from

resources by a privilege cultural emotion community that determines the financing,

allocation, and delivery resources for communities that are not excluded (these

communities might also be in an accommodation ideal type community) but

excludes other communities based on national origin and citizenship. The excluded

cultural emotion communities are potential drains on those resources afforded

citizens of the country (e.g., undocumented Mexicans in the US; Algerians in

France; Yemini in Britain). The cultural emotion of a person in this ideal type

community of exclusion is either forced to act on changing their exclusion or they

feel powerless and incapable to change the existing terms of their exclusion. Can

you think of any real situations in the global community (including the United

States) that approximate this ideal type community—exclusion?

In soft/closed situations the ideal type community is conflict. In this ideal

type community conflict exist because there is a need for certain cultural emotion

communities to participate in the boundaries of a country as guest workers,

migrants or seasonal laborers etc. and they are providing resources for the host

country. For example, undocumented Mexicans that live in communities

throughout the US provide up to 7 billion dollars annually in social security funds

per year but are not given access to a set of social services (e.g., education for their

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offspring—Dream Act). In this ideal type cultural emotion community, the person

is in conflict as they sense an injustice in the rewards the privilege cultural

emotion community gains from resources created by communities at the expense

of their participation. Can you think of any real situations in the global community

(including the United States) that approximate this ideal type community—

conflict?

Conclusion

It is imperative that we critically examine the role of privilege cultural

emotions and institutional decision-making structures that are “soft and hard” and

“open and closed” when attempting to create privilege cultural emotions for

everyone in a society based on liberty, justice and freedom for all. We believe each

of these ideal types can lead to the grow of advocates seeking to create, develop,

and grow more privilege cultural emotion situations. We hope this short analysis

provides a way to begin to understand and examine the actions required to promote

and welcome the unrestricted expression of all peoples’ cultural emotions. Finally,

we understand the ideal type privilege cultural emotion community of inclusion is

the model thus, those who advocate for privilege cultural emotions of inclusion at

the local, state, national and global levels ought to set their goals on achieving this

ideal type to minimize various forms of discontent in the privilege cultural emotion

situations we have identified—accommodation, exclusion and conflict.