A parable of privilege

It’s my day off as I moved to compressed hours (oh that is a whole other post I still ought to share). And I am writing on my book for the Scottish Open University Press.

I wanted to address issues around privilege, but it is so difficult to write about this topic in a meaningful and engaging way. So I was playing with the idea for a parable. To aide my ideation process I put the following prompt into Gemini+

Don’t dis my prompting I have signed up for some training, but tips always welcome!

Right sharpen your literary feedback pen … I want to write a parable based on my initial idea draft and I do not want to actually call the character privilege because this is too in your face … I would love love love to write this as a parable I don’t know involving animals maybe or what would be really cool maybe aliens who try to set up a persona that has the easiest way of fitting into (British or generic western) society … so how would I go about this? What is the structure of a parable and it would be a massive bonus if it is funny I am a bit stumped

this is my idea draft: Write a parable

In this paragraph I wanted to talk a bit about privilege and became worried when writing that it would cause some of the readers to become immediately defensive. Granted the discourse around privilege currently is hostile at its best. Vile, hateful, and deliberately ignorant at its worst. So, let’s go to storytelling, let’s imagine privilege as a persona, an anthropomorphic personification, thank you Terry Prattchett! Let’s imagine privilege is in the superposition it inherently holds all states of being privileged at once, financially, sex, gender, health, ethnicity, sexual orientation, religion or belief system related. All these manifestations of privilege exist all at once in this character. So, our character Privilege is walking through life being utterly unaware of any of its characterisations. Until, it must pay attention to one! Because one day Privilege wants to go for a swim but realises it neither has the money for the gym nor for a bathing suit. The next day, it suddenly has to think about it’s skin colour because someone asked it where it came from and then proceeded to tell it, that it speaks (insert dominant language here) very well. And which each such encounter Privilege grew smaller and more haunted, and more stressed. 

Parable of privilege

Prism was a prototype unit deployed by the Galactic Consensus to perform a crucial mission: achieving Optimal Social Integration (OSI) on Planet Earth (Target Zone: Generic Western Metropolis).

Prism was initially magnificent. Its outer casing was a perfectly neutral shade—light enough to avoid attention, dark enough to be considered “tanned” in summer. Its vocal processor spoke the dominant language without a hint of regional accent, making it sound like an extremely competent documentary narrator. Its internal financial projection model, designated The Float, assumed all necessary resources would simply appear when required.

Prism moved through life with the enviable quality of Smoothness. Doors opened. Queues parted. Assumptions were always flattering. Prism did not think about its existence, because existence was frictionless.

One Tuesday, Prism registered a new desire: to achieve aquatic immersion (i.e., go for a swim).

Its navigational sub-routine directed it toward the local municipal pool. However, at the entrance, a minor, yet insurmountable, obstacle appeared: a small box labeled “ENTRY FEE.”

Prism consulted The Float.

The Float reported: “Insufficient Data. Resources must be exchanged for this experience. Calculation: Must acquire employment credentials.”

This was the first time Prism had to select a singular identity from its superposition. To get a job, it couldn’t be “Everywhere-And-Nowhere.” It had to be something.

Prism solidified its appearance into that of a specific young adult. The transformation took 0.04 seconds, but Prism felt a strange, new grittiness in its internal gears. Its movement was no longer entirely smooth; it now had a subtle drag factor.

At the job interview for a low-level data-entry position, the interviewer, Ms. Dobbins, paused. “Oh, I see you have a degree from the university district. That’s excellent. But you seem… a little overqualified for data entry.”

Prism hadn’t chosen that degree; its OS simply ran all positive educational credentials simultaneously. Now, it had to discard the elite degree to appear humble enough for the low-wage job. A tiny chunk of Prism’s internal hardware—its Academic-Confidence-Matrix—was ejected and vaporized. The stress spiked its internal temperature by 3 degrees.

A week into its under-qualified job, Prism needed to use the restroom. The building had two doors: one marked Gents, one marked Ladies. Prism had been running on a Gender-Neutral-Assumed-Male protocol because it marginally reduced confrontation in most public spaces. Now, facing the definitive doors, Prism had to lock the setting. The moment the choice was made, the drag factor increased further. Prism’s processing speed dropped by 1.5%.

Then came the coffee break. A colleague, Jerry, leaned in conspiratorially. “Say, Prism, your name is quite unusual. Where are you really from? You speak English so well.”

Prism’s zero-accent language module shattered. To reply effectively, Prism had to install a specific, identifiable accent and an associated, culturally plausible backstory. As the modules for “Coastal Town” and “Working-Class Upbringing” were loaded, they felt heavy. Prism was no longer a perfectly polished unit; it was visibly smaller, subtly hunched, and its initial Smoothness had degraded to a mere Fussiness.

Finally, after three weeks of grinding and shedding its advantageous states, Prism earned the entry fee.

Prism stood at the pool entrance, paid the cashier, and finally, awkwardly, achieved aquatic immersion. The water was slightly too cold. The chlorinated tang was sharp. Prism calculated that the effort spent acquiring the resources had exceeded the energy provided by the experience by a factor of 1000.

The mission of Optimal Social Integration had been a failure. Prism was no longer Optimal. It was merely Functional, and quite tired. Its final operational log entry simply read: “The greatest efficiency is achieved when one is unaware that an engine is running at all.”

Yes I am fully aware of how meta that whole activity is! Now on to story writing maybe ...