A few weeks ago, a viral blog served up a refreshingly compassionate interpretation of privilege for the Portal generation. If life were a video game, the writer John Scalzi explained, “straight white male” would be “the lowest difficulty setting there is”.
“This means that the default behaviours for almost all the non-player characters in the game are easier on you than they would be otherwise,” wrote Scalzi. “The default barriers for completions of quests are lower. Your leveling-up thresholds come more quickly. You automatically gain entry to some parts of the map that others have to work for. The game is easier to play, automatically, and when you need help, by default it’s easier to get.”
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