I just read an excellent article by Theo Hobson, on the Guardian Comment is Free website (to be honest, unless I specify otherwise, assume that everything I've read comes from CiF). Anyway, Hobson is a Christian who usually writes about religion, a topic that doesn't much interest me. However, I thought his latest article was fantastic; one of those pieces that hits the nail on the head of a vague feeling I've had for a while that I've been unable to articulate. It's biased as hell, of course, and doesn't deal with social conservatism along with economic. Some sentences leapt out at me, which I will summarise for your reading convenience:
Liberal guilt is nothing to be ashamed of. It's really just the political expression of that rather old-fashioned thing, conscience.
In other words, Toryism is a posture of world affirmation. It works by rubbishing reformist angst, painting it as neurotic hypocrisy.
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.
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.
The entry title is paraphrased from one of the commentators. Here is the article:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/aug/29/liberal-guilt-good-for-you
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