Coates in Paris

Reading such an eloquent dissection of privilege, I can almost forget that the Atlantic also employed Megan McCardle for half a decade.

But the game is rigged. I know this because I loved my craft for many years and it meant nothing to anyone save my mother, my father, my siblings, my wife and a few close friends. At twenty-five my only noteworthy success was playing some part in the creation of my son. I stayed loyal to his mother. I think I stayed loyal because I could park myself there–perhaps I failed at all other things. But I was a good father and I was a loyal spouse. And then one day a  man of some privilege (bearing his own struggles) spoke to another man of some privilege and I became a man of some privilege with a megaphone, which I now employ, across an ocean, to bring these thoughts to you. And I love both of these men of privilege–power is a fact, it is not morality. Losing is tragic, but it is not noble. How many freedom fighters turned despots in the possession of superior guns?

But the game is rigged. Let me tell you how I came here. I write for a major magazine and this is a privilege. I would say that it is earned, except that many people earn many things which they never receive. So I shall say that it was earned and I was lucky. I shall also say that my whole aim when I write is to blow a hole in that great forever, to make you feel the particular fire that burns in me. Someone who felt that fire wrote me. He lived in Paris. We struck up a friendship. Now he is in New York with his family, and I am here in Paris with mine. Privilege multiplied many times over.