Michael Knowles latest book, "Speechless, Controlling Words, Controlling Minds", delves extensively into this subject. The PC culture partially wins by corrupting language; redefining words to mean new things, often the opposite of what they used to mean. "Privilege" is one of those corrupted words. So is "equity". These words used to mean something far different than they are being used for now.

Growing up I learned the phrase "it is a privilege, not a right" which applied to many things: drivers license and citizenship are two that come to mind immediately. It was explained to me that a right is something innate, that you simply HAVE - it can be temporarily unavailable to you through force or coercion or circumstance, but it is still yours. Privilege, on the other hand, is something you must earn and constantly prove yourself worthy of having through responsible action and behavior.

I do wish these definitions were still used.

Agreed. Now privilege is used to describe fair treatment under the law and freedom from racial prejudice.

Calling them privilege, focuses attention on the wrong area and away from the real problem. It implies that to improve equity the solution is taking away these "privileges". It also implies some level of moral corruption for those enjoying the "privileges".

It is a race to the bottom where we punish everyone until their experience matches those with the most unjust treatment in society.

Every term used to describe social situations will become ideologically and politically loaded.

Originally it was a word used to describe what I mentioned in the other branch, social privilege, a general set of rules that affect you which enable concentration of means and power. It is not a result of these rules which was the main point of confusion.

It's not an original sin then, the rules can be changed to be more equitable. (Though some changes done under this name are either ineffective or wrong in principle.)

Then someone rightly decided to call whiteness a privilege (a complex of rules pertinent to people declared by society as white, by contrast with the opposite of them), and then somehow it was conflated with immutable characteristics. Yes, a person with light skin color might not actually be or act "white".

Another example: age cannot be changed (at least without), but ageism can. Age is not a privilege, set of rules pertinent to may be. (Some positive, others negative, protective or harmful.)

The opposite of privilege as sum total (which is beneficial rules) is mostly kyriarchy (set of oppressive rules, mostly hierarchies). Perhaps that is a better focus, at least for now.

I’m not sure what you’re trying to say. For me, at least, rhetoric matters. I don't care for some as it were commentary on the state of language and ideology. If rhetorical poison is being deployed against my ideology, then I want to shed light on it stop it. Things, as most people understand them, are not becoming more equitable. That’s a real problem despite the obtuse linguistic tricks deployed to justify a post-modern agenda.

Now imagine a future world where (biological) age or skin color of an already living individual really can be changed on demand. But possibly at a huge cost.

Given the thread we are in and current strides in gene therapy, we might be there sooner than we expect.