[Ombrageux]

Here.

One of the phrases that stuck with me: "Liberal guilt is nothing to be ashamed of. It's really just the political expression of that rather old-fashioned thing, conscience." I am sure Qatz will approve.

Liberal guilt? Good for you
It's right to be anxious. To be completely fatly smugly relaxed about our problematic world is the definition of the Tory soul

A basic British political division is not between left and right, or liberal and conservative, but between Schlegel and Wilcox. What separates the two families of EM Forster's novel Howard's End is that the Schlegels worry about how to make the world fairer, with occasionally embarrassing consequences, while the Wilcoxes worry about their stocks and shares. In other words, the Schlegels are afflicted by the complaint we sneeringly call liberal guilt.

Sneer ye not. Liberal guilt is nothing to be ashamed of. It's really just the political expression of that rather old-fashioned thing, conscience.

To "suffer" from liberal guilt means that you are somewhat uneasy about all sorts of awkward things that it is tempting to harden your heart against, like global injustice, global warming, racism. It means that you are troubled by the stubborn persistence of our class system, though you personally have done fine by it. It means you sometimes worry that you might be prejudiced against all sorts of people. It means that your vague patriotism is laced with uncertainty about whether our ancient constitution is able to be truly inclusive. It means, for goodness sake, that you fail to be completely fatly smugly relaxed about this problematic world we inhabit. Is that really so shameful and wet, so laughably mentally effeminate?

If this little parade of privileged anxiety fills you with derision, then you are a Tory. Rejection of liberal guilt is the very cornerstone of the Tory soul, the unofficial definition of Tory. "Look how relaxed I am about my place at the feast," says the Tory. "Regard my sense of entitlement. Inequality and privilege are nothing to be ashamed of; they are part of life, and life is good, n'est-ce pas? So please: no more strident student-union hectoring stuff about how evil the 'system' is." In other words, Toryism is a posture of world affirmation. It works by rubbishing reformist angst, painting it as neurotic hypocrisy. The phrase liberal guilt is obviously a Tory coinage. It ought to be called "the necessary self-accusing anxiety accompanying liberal idealism". Or something.

This is the thing that unites every sort of Tory, from Norman Tebbit to Nick Boles. They all find liberal guilt risible and dangerous. Its risibility is highlighted by fat jocular types like Boris Johnson. Its peril is highlighted by wide-eyed humourless skinny types like Thatcher. Beware the "socialist" puritans, they say, who want the world to be radically different, who dream dreams and scheme schemes, and worry that someone somewhere is having fun. Don't be anxious about your status as a comfy bourgeoisie, but blumming well rejoice in it, you chump!

On Any Questions recently, someone asked the panellists whether they intended to cut down on their meat consumption, for environmental reasons. There were a couple of hesitant, nondescript answers and then Ken Clarke calmly guffawed at the whole idea. Like I'm going to cut down on my merry feasting, he basically said. And the audience found his cavalier confidence sort of reassuring, and laughed. Here, it struck me, is the very nub of the Tory soul: it enjoys showing its lack of angst. And such confidence impresses people. Let us be ruled by these Nietzschean strong souls, we cravenly feel, who are too busy living well to entertain cowardly moral scruples.

There is really no excuse for failing to feel liberal guilt about global warming. No excuse. It is a fact that our affluent lifestyles are endangering the planet, to some maddeningly unknown degree. What is wrong with someone who is not made uneasy by this? What is wrong with someone who affects (or, worse, genuinely feels) indifference to this fact, and sneers at the muddled, hesitant, hypocritical responses of the conscience-pricked rest of us? Of course we don't know if cutting down on meat will really help things, and make future flooding of distant lands less likely. But those farting cows are a problem, and maybe one should sponsor slightly fewer of them. To be a bit anxious about this is just to acknowledge the strange moral universe we seemingly inhabit.

Similarly, there is no excuse for failing to feel liberal guilt about race and class. The fact is that it is excessively hard for the vast majority of people from ethnic minorities, and from economically disadvantaged backgrounds, to attain the cushy lifestyle that one was born into and takes for granted. One can either react to this fact by pretending that one's good fortune is one's natural right, and by boasting that one has "worked hard" for it (well done, for turning up to banker school, or to that internship your uncle wangled); or one can react with humble awareness that our social world is still packed with injustice – an awareness known as liberal guilt.

Liberal guilt is one of the key factors in the ebb and flow of British politics. New Labour was propelled by a wave of liberal guilt. As it ran aground, fat jocular Toryism was limbering up in the wings, and learning to mask its braying tones with a new liberal urbanity. It found a new figurehead (Boris), and a soberer practitioner, and it rides high.

In Howard's End, Margaret Schlegel eventually forms a surprising coalition with Mr Wilcox. It won't last; it can't. You're either a Schlegel or a Wilcox. And I assure you that Schlegelism will bounce back.

[eugenekop]

Its commendable to care for others, a healthy doze of guilt is productive in this case. However the problem with the leftist thinking is that to help others they think you need to give them things and to excuse them for every evil. This is the opposite of helping, this is damaging and destroying.

The huge amounts of money that are given to the Palestinians as aid is a great example of this. This is not helping Palestinians, this just rewards them for violence. Another example is sending food to Africa. Sending more food now means only population explosion in the future and even more hungry kids. This is not helping, this is destroying. Another good example is affirmative action in all its different forms. Fighting for equality by creating inequality is also extremely stupid and very unhelpful. Just look at all the black racists in this forum.

Regarding the environment issues? This should have nothing to do with guilt. Who are you offending, mother earth? That's kind of silly.

Another problem with leftists, especially the European radical ones is their guilt over something some people in Europe did 50 years ago. This is stupid beyond help.

In short the leftists make every mistake they can to calm their guilt, the problem is usually not with the guilt itself but with the stupid actions that follow it.

[Demosthenes]

I'm not impressed with liberal guilt in the slightest. If you feel so damned guilty, why don't you actually do something meaningful to change the way your system operates? No, you want to keep your system and then apologize for it by performing token gestures that accomplish nothing in the long run.

I feel no guilt whatsoever for the decisions the American government makes because I categorically oppose a great number of them.

Liberal guilt is as much a joke as conservative pride.

[SomeRandom]

I see the author's using the American liberal-conservative dichotomy; lumping socialists in as 'liberals'. Perhaps this is the Guardian's way of supporting and seperating the Liberal Democrats from the ConDem coalition, so they can just attack the Tories.

[Oxymoron]

Oh please, guilt is only associated with doing something wrong, one should not feel guilty for others misfortune not to say we shouldnt care. We should care and help others but for positive reaons not out of some sort of idiotic guilt for something you have nothing to do with.

[eugenekop]

Oh please, guilt is only associated with doing something wrong, one should not feel guilty for others misfortune not to say we shouldnt care. We should care and help others but for positive reaons not out of some sort of idiotic guilt for something you have nothing to do with.

You will help out of pity or empathy, but if you won't help you'll feel guilty. So although you don't help out of guilt, you do help to avoid guilt.

[Oxymoron]

False, I help others because it is the right thing to do, not out of fear of self punishment. Doing things out of fear is on the lower scale of good moral behavior.

[eugenekop]

False, I help others because it is the right thing to do, not out of fear of self punishment. Doing things out of fear is on the lower scale of good moral behavior.

I agree that this is the right thing to do. However let's say you didn't help someone in need because you felt lazy that day or that you didn't want to spend money, how would you feel? What would you do next time to avoid that bad feeling?

[Oxymoron]

I wouldnt feel shit, because I am obligated to no anyone aside my child, parents/brother and good friends. If I didnt do the right thing at that time, either I had a good reason or some other consideration happend.

[Rei Murasame]

This article is surprisingly over-simplified and wrong, so I'm just going to point out the places where they self-contradict. Especially because they have oddly enough, decided to cast One Nation Tories as the enemy rather than neoliberals.

Liberal guilt is nothing to be ashamed of. It's really just the political expression of that rather old-fashioned thing, conscience.

Interestingly enough, it was the very Toryism they seek to attack, which brought "social conscience" (Kenneth Clarke's favourite term, I will say more on this later) to the political stage to fight against Liberals and their lack of a conscience historically.

The whole dichotomy they are framing here almost entirely ignores the history of the two movements they are describing. It's as if an American had written it.

Rejection of liberal guilt is the very cornerstone of the Tory soul, the unofficial definition of Tory.

The reason that we reject "liberal guilt" is not because it is "effeminate" (I believe that Liberalism is the furthest thing from 'female' anyway if we look at how the votes have historically stacked against them. Women voted far-Right and far-Left in order to get away from Liberalism at any cost), but because we know that Liberalism really ends up being freedom only for a specific group of people who have very little regard for what is in the national interest or in the interests of specific socio-economic groups in the society - because their individualism blinds them to it.

There are numerous Liberals inside the Conservative Party, since there is a whole wing of the party for them now, and that is bad, but they are not "the essence of Toryism", and that is what the article is presuming to attack.

They all find liberal guilt risible and dangerous.

Because it funnels people's efforts into a dead-end.

On Any Questions recently, someone asked the panellists whether they intended to cut down on their meat consumption, for environmental reasons. There were a couple of hesitant, nondescript answers and then Ken Clarke calmly guffawed at the whole idea. Like I'm going to cut down on my merry feasting, he basically said. And the audience found his cavalier confidence sort of reassuring, and laughed. Here, it struck me, is the very nub of the Tory soul: it enjoys showing its lack of angst. And such confidence impresses people. Let us be ruled by these Nietzschean strong souls, we cravenly feel, who are too busy living well to entertain cowardly moral scruples.

Here the article comes close to understanding an ingenious tactic, but then skirts around it in order to deliberately draw the wrong conclusion!

Kenneth Clarke is a One Nation Tory, and as they should know from his voting record, he actually laughs at 'liberal guilt' because he knows that actually voting in the house to actually do something, is more effective than actually trying to guilt people into actually altering their behaviour as individuals. I would've laughed too - it's not that he doesn't care, it's that he knows that people will keep buying meat if it appears on shelves. Therefore someone (the government!) needs to make sure it is not on shelves in the quantities that it is now. Guilting individuals into reducing their demand will not accomplish that, because individuals are going to pick it up if it's on the shelf and it looks cheap.

When the One Nation-ists laugh, it's not a "get your hands off the market!" type of laugh, it's a "why don't you just advocate for collective action to be taken if you are really serious?" kind of laugh.

That's why you notice that on the Iraq war issue, for example, Kenneth Clarke did not go on a huge rant about dying Iraqi children, he simply smiled that inscrutable smile of his and voted in favour of an amendment to add to to the war bill a line that read:

"This House believes that the case for war against Iraq has not yet been established, especially given the absence of specific United Nations authorisation..." (this amendment did not get a majority, unfortunately.)

Also why you notice that in 1995 when he was Chancellor, with that same inscrutable and confident smile, Kenneth Clarke introduced a budget that would raise taxes on just about everything with two legs in the country, in an effort to pay down the national debt (he anticipated where we would end up in 2010!), and the entire house short-sightedly opposed his budget (thus defeating it, unfortunately) because they felt 'guilty' about actually paying for social services with taxes from the population. They preferred to pay for it by borrowing from banks, and we know how that nonsense ended up.

Kenneth Clarke is basically embodiment of charisma coupled with social conscience, and he is a One Nation Tory, so this article rubbishes itself by attempting to invoke him to prove their point.

New Labour was propelled by a wave of liberal guilt.

Exactly, exactly, which was how Anthony Giddens and Tony Blair's goons managed to wreck the entire country (and ruin Gordon Brown's life along the way). They (exactly like the neoliberals, hence the term "Blatcherism") were so 'guilty' about the bleating taxpayers that they refused to raise taxes and actually pay for the social programmes that are used in this country, even at times when they actually had the political capital to do so.

In effect, their 'liberal guilt' actually became a device that was used to support 'starving the beast'. "Feeling too 'guilty' to raise taxes on people? Don't worry, just borrow instead." Behind that façade is Goldman Sachs and UBS.

Liberal guilt actually permeates British politics in all three parties to varying degrees, because the public has imbibed and begun to repeat the mantra of "maximum services with minimum taxes". That eventually leads to the situation where financiers can return triumphantly and call for cuts on everything because they are the creditors and they have seized the power.

People like Kenneth Clarke can't be blamed for this, since he did try to avert this scenario while he was Chancellor.

[eugenekop]

I wouldnt feel shit, because I am obligated to no anyone aside my child, parents/brother and good friends. If I didnt do the right thing at that time, either I had a good reason or some other consideration happend.

So you never make mistakes? You always do what you believe in? What happens if you do make a mistake and feel guilty for doing it?

[Oxymoron]

I dont feel guilt, guilt is for the weak. If I do something wrong, I learn from it and become a better person.

[Potemkin]

I dont feel guilt, guilt is for the weak. If I do something wrong, I learn from it and become a better person.

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[lilchnkyskrtn]

Why do you confine guilt to liberal thinking? Do conservatives all think the world is perfect? Do you really need to rationalize good deeds? With great power comes great responsibility. Guilt is not a weakness. It just proves we are designed to feel compassion and have conscienceness to let us know when we lacking that sympathy. I won't pass idly by driving my SUV or playing my PS3 on my HDTV and eating prime ribs or whatever when people are dying of starvation or dying of dyssentery or cholera from not even having clean water. Not because I feel ashamed because I have everything I could ever want while they suffer, it's because I want to help people, even if I could do far much more. Of course I feel guilty about it sometimes, but I don't let that run my life. Besides, I pay taxes of which a portion helps out people those need. Everything I do beyond that just makes me feel good about myself. I really don't care to politicize that feeling.

[eugenekop]

Everything I do beyond that just makes me feel good about myself. I really don't care to politicize that feeling.

As long as you help people help themselves that's fine, but a lot of leftists simply encourage destructive behaviors instead of really helping the person. Their compassion rules their brains, and this is never good.

[lilchnkyskrtn]

That is true in a sense. Throwing money at your problems is not the best way to solve them. I agree with you there for sure. Unfortunately some sitatutions don't have a proactive solution available (fishing lessons), such as pharmaceuticals in third world countries. The best we can do is stem the tide of infectious diseases by supplying medical aid. I don't think guilt really has much to do with that one. Though some may feel so. I would much prefer to help them help themselves but with little or no options we must do what we can to help.

[eugenekop]

such as pharmaceuticals in third world countries.

How that helps? So many Africans are dying from hunger because of lack of farming territories, and we help them multiply by treating the seek? This means only population explosion in the future and many millions of hunger victims.

What will really help the African continent is free condoms. Much less Aids, a lot less children to feed. I don't see how treating diseases will help in the long term. It might only aggravate the situation.

[Figlio di Moros]

...I want to help people, even if I could do far much more. Of course I feel guilty about it sometimes, but I don't let that run my life. Besides, I pay taxes of which a portion helps out people those need. Everything I do beyond that just makes me feel good about myself.

And what do you actually do? It's easy to say, "I want to help people." It's another to provide serious means in doing so.

[lilchnkyskrtn]

I'm getting the vibe that you hope the means of giving them condoms will produce the end of their reproduction over the prevention of the spread of AIDS. Sure it might contribute to both of those causes but only marginally. I would have to assume the majority of HIV infections are from people who are unaware of having the virus.

I've donated for food, medicine, water, even condoms before and raised awareness for those causes. Is that serious enough or is anything short of going there myself not good enough?

[Nattering Nabob]

As a liberal my views were never fueled by guilt...

That whole "liberal guilt" thing was only a right wing label which they (right wingers) applied to opponents in reaction to their own feelings of guilt...

This is called projection...