A few days ago, Metro (December 18, 2009) carried a piece on the Queen travelling on Capital First Connect from London Kings Cross to Sandrigham. Her Majesty was commended for reducing her Carbon footprint by using scheduled train services over the year. This, the piece suggested, was a lot greener than that of her son Charles jetting off to Copenhagen (like the many others) to lecture the world on how to save planet earth from pollution. The piece, however, quickly went on to become more cynical by noting that perhaps the real reason Her Majesty went by train is because all the private jets have headed to Copenhagen, as did all the limousines having had to travel miles from other European countries, as Denmark could not source the necessary amount required.
What strikes me from this news item is how easy it is for one group in their egalitarian and ecological zeal to assume the high moral ground, oblivious of the inconsistencies of their own positions, what they themselves aspire for, and are actually involved in.
This attitude is there in Labour and especially middle class efforts of wanting to remove all the privileges of those born with “golden spoons” in their mouths, and those attending Independent and Grammar Schools and those whose postcode is not like theirs. Lest you read me wrongly, I am all for an egalitarian society and for equality of opportunities for all and it is a disgrace that we live in a world with so great a gap between the people who have and those who do have – both between nations and within a nation.
The reality, however, is that egalitarianism and a level playing field are wishful thinking. Just look at the way one Party pledged how it was going to reform the House of Lords. Well, some of the fiercest critics having been made life Peers, now truly enjoy the privilege to the extent that you would be excused for believing that they were ever the same people who “preached” against privilege. And where do you think those who advocate “all comprehensive schools” send their children for their education? Are the sons and daughters of privilege bashers those on the battlefronts in Afghanistan and Iraq? Who really wants to drink a cup of tea, play cards with or have a conversation with all and sundry? The reality is that privilege, like the poor, will always be with us. Animal Farm is just as applicable to us as it is to Communist regimes!
But back to the related ecological point of the article: it is certainly true about all the jetting around to get to a summit intended to make a case for saving the planet has also caused more pollution by the chosen means of travel to get there. Newspapers and journalists can gloat about this and take the high moral ground. But they need to remember that they also do the same to get there in order to get news that will make money. And to make this news readable they will have to use rolls and rolls of paper – rain forest in effect - to print not only news, but so much that should neither be read nor seen on television. This is besides the fact of the carbon footprint that all their online papers will create as a result of the energy used to drive servers and computers.
What we do with our privilege is what is important: for starters we can begin by being honest about who we are, our intentions, the jealousies that drive us and the greed(s) that has/have become our orienting framework. Let’s be honest and open in our criticality: this will carry more integrity for us together to take a moral high ground as we challenge each other for the benefit of the whole of creation.
© copyright jagessar December 19 2009
