Some people may say that I can afford to contribute to culture because I am privileged.

That is correct. I am privileged. I am using that situation to contribute to the world what I have to contribute, that I wouldn’t have been able to contribute if I was less privileged.

Some people see the kind of education I’ve had to be something that's given to someone. In fact education takes hard work. I worked my ass off in school, doing 4 hours of homework a day and learning all sorts of material that is difficult to learn. If I am privileged, in many ways I have earned it.

There will always be someone more privileged than you, and there will always be someone less privileged than you. In either situation what matters is not the background but what one is doing with it. In China, people are less privileged than they are in the West; but they are working very hard to rise to a commensurate lifestyle. Whereas there are people in America who think that they are poor when in fact they are richer than most people in the world. And many of these people appeal to their victim history and their perceived poverty to do ugly things to one another and everyone else.

In my case, I have taken the opportunity afforded by my privilege to do valuable things. I translated a vast body of Russian poetry into English, including full sets of poetry by two major Russian poets. I have my name on a patented invention. I used to be in computers. I gave up on looking for work in that industry because I don’t see how I can compete against a man from India who can do the same job for $6000 a year and has a master’s degree. However I haven’t stopped contributing, and work that I’ve performed in translation of Russian poetry was a greater contribution than what I made when I was in computers.

In my case, I am taking the opportunity afforded by my privilege to make valuable contributions that I otherwise would not have been in a position to make. And that is the best application of privilege that one can expect.