Scenes of Extended Fretting
It all began for me more than a decade ago, with the “mangetout moment”; a passing conversation with my editor at the Guardian about those pangs of consumer guilt that wash over us, but upon which we rarely act.
Ah, consumer guilt. I bet you’re feeling its sting right now.
Those moments when, for example, you pick up a plastic-wrapped packet of mangetout in a supermarket, fleetingly dwell on their food miles or the likely exploitative wage of the Kenyan farmer who grew them, but still pop them into your shopping basket and shuffle towards the next aisle.
Such are the recollections of Mr Leo Hickman, whose ten years of struggling with ethical purity will be known to long-term readers. And who believes that the way to make poor people rich is to not buy their goods.
Our experiment was never framed as anything other than a personal journey. It certainly was never meant to be a finger-wagging sermon – more a fumble and a feel through some of modern life’s most chewy dilemmas.
Yes, Mr Hickman and his equally fretful colleagues shied from any hint of such competitive piety, honest, and instead merely had debates on subjects ranging from ethical sandwich-wrapping and the immorality of fireworks to whether it’s acceptable to employ a cleaner and alternative uses for inherited fur coats – among them, dog bedding and indoors-only fashion. And debates on whether roadkill could be an alternative ethical food source for Guardianistas who “hate waste.” Those “chewy dilemmas” that bedevil us all.
And Mr Hickman’s moral guidance was often reciprocated by his readers:
A woman from Derbyshire wrote to enthusiastically explain how she hung her “washable menstrual products” out to dry from the guy rope when camping.
It’s good to know these things. And such wisdom was not without influence:
We certainly saved money by washing our daughter’s cloth nappies and ditching disposables.
Sadly, this experiment in planetary consciousness wasn’t without its troubles. Among which, the sourcing and cost of ethically tolerable food, and the difficulties of taking a baby on a “guilt-free” holiday to Umbria “without using a plane or a hire car.” Thankfully, Mr Hickman’s readers, like the man himself, are compassionate, forgiving and entirely non-judgmental:
My first thought, looking at the photo, was, “Is three children environmentally sound?”
Other Guardian readers were also distressed by Mr Hickman’s profligate reproduction.
I am rather puzzled by counting heads and seeing that the writer appears to have three children. Guess he is no longer that concerned with ethical living these days.
And,
Having a child is one of the worst things you can do, environmentally speaking.
And furthermore,
As long as you have a house, mains power and a vehicle you cannot be living ethically.
It seems the search for moral purity will continue for some time.
” you pick up a plastic-wrapped packet of mangetout in a supermarket, fleetingly dwell on their food miles or the likely exploitative wage of the Kenyan farmer who grew them”
Much better to let that Kenyan farmer die starving in poverty for your purity.
Really, shouldn’t these people be taking vows of poverty and joining monasteries and convents? If not that then maybe a slow boat to somewhere where the “problem” of housing and electricity will no longer tempt them?
They could be living ethically pure, but likely miserable, lives if they really chose to. But they don’t. And that’s very telling.
Much better to let that Kenyan farmer die starving in poverty for your purity.
Well, quite. Because not buying the goods of poor people will help them out no end. It’s basic science.
But then, Mr Hickman is not only prone to “mangetout moments” and agonising in the aisles, he also frets about how to take the family on holiday to Umbria without committing the sin of buying a cheap flight, or any flight, or even hiring a car. And so he opts for an uncomfortable and hugely expensive train journey and lots of yomping with kids in tow. Which of course means carrying a baby around for hours on end in the sweltering Umbrian heat. Thus attracting judgmental looks from the locals and mutterings of child endangerment.
‘Much better to let that Kenyan farmer die starving in poverty for your purity’.
Well if he honestly gave a fuck, he’d campaign for an end to the CAP and other acts of protectionism which prevent African farmers from competing on the world market fairly, thereby earning a decent wage, and also helping to pull their countries out of aid dependence and poverty.
But no. Let’s just emote and use a dying rag of a newspaper to show the world how ‘caring’ we are.
Wanker.
And debates on whether roadkill could be an alternative ethical food source for Guardianistas who “hate waste.” Those “chewy dilemmas” that bedevil us all.
Snork!
Shuffle. Head bowed. In a relentless, crushing black shame that can know no mortal release.
That being, you know, what eating peas produced by commerce can do to a man.
If Gaia fells a tree on a world without conscious awareness, does it make a moral statement?
Well, as the shaman used to say, man is the dream of the dolphin.
Spam filtered 🙁
I’m also worried I may be a robot, because those Captchas are hard.
Steve 2,
There’s nothing snarled in the spam filter. Try again?
Thanks David. How odd, it did say “your comment has been posted”.
I thought mangetout was French for “my pleasure”. Apparently it’s some sort of pretentious vegetable, which I didn’t know because for ethical reasons I don’t speak French and never eat anything without a face.
Eating vegetables is immoral and cruel to animals, because vegetable farming displaces habitats for cows, sheep, pigs, chicken, and turkey twizzlers. Without animal farming many species of domesticated livestock would simply go extinct, like the dodo or the cornetto.
Vegetarianism is an unhealthy lifestyle that promotes aggression in humans as their bodies are starved of the essential nutrients found in steak and their malnourished brains eat themselves. It’s why vegetarians usually look pale and smell of wee and have the pinched, unhappy look of a man who is riding a bicycle over rough terrain without a seat.
It’s also why the more extreme veggies and vegans are militant leftwing loonies. You never hear of meat eaters trying to bomb plant science labs. And you rarely see meat eaters getting henna tattoos or facial piercings. Coincidence? I think not.
Anyway, for those reasons I have made a bold moral decision to eat as many animals as I can get my hands on, except my cat, Lady Purrington, who enthusiastically if misguidedly tried to show her support for carnivorianism by eating a crunchy bumblebee.
For every lentil stew consumed by the veggies, I will eat a chicken wing. For every miserable tofu stick they eat, I shall devour a plate of delicious veal. For every mangetout they cram into their festering maws, Lady Purrington will delicately nibble a bowl of Sheba.
And if any upset soy-slurpers should come to my house to complain, the last sound they ever hear before my attack kitty pounces off her cat tree to maul them will be me saying “Nice to MEAT you!”.
Because you don’t mess with cat owners.
People who talk about having children as if it is some sort of ethical faux par should do us all a big favour…
Sackcloth,
Well if he honestly gave a fuck, he’d campaign for an end to the CAP and other acts of protectionism…
I doubt it’s about caring at all, just the usual ‘mirror-signal-manoeuvre’ routine. Admire self in mirror, signal piety to others, manoeuvre above those less pious.
those pangs of consumer guilt that wash over us,
Nope. Never had those.
*Looks at credit card statement*
Neither has my wife.
I never really saw the point of mangetout (I like my peas grown up) but the idea that their purchase constitutes some sort of moral dilemma is so other-worldly that I cannot wrap my head around it. This is childish angst on an almost fractal level. It must be so tiring being Leo Hickman. All that posturing is liable to throw one’s back out.
those pangs of consumer guilt that wash over us,
It’s a defining Guardianista trait – the paranormal “we,” always speaking for the rest of us. And given what so many of them say, it’s hard to take that as a compliment.
Perhaps if they wanted truly to expunge their guilt they could splurge one last time on a plane ticket to relocate permanently to Madagascar, where every day they could WALK to an open-air market and buy ratty, unwashed foodstuffs from the farmers themselves.
the usual ‘mirror-signal-manoeuvre’ routine. Admire self in mirror, signal piety to others, manoeuvre above those less pious.
Oh hey. That works out to “MSM.”
The primary problem with an absolutely strict diet of nothing but vegan or vegetarian is that once you run out of them you’re going to have to go back to other forms of meat.
Having a child is one of the worst things you can do, environmentally speaking.
That’s my justification for eating veal.
Steve 2: Steveageddon, I’ve been a vegetarian for 18 years. Raced in Tough Mudder last year, Spartan Sprint this year and other sundry silly hurty events. No tattoos, henna or otherwise, and the only piercing is in the ear – it was the fashion in the 80s. Don’t think I’m too unhealthy in spite of the lentils, but thanks for your concern.
I’m sure I’d like vegans a whole lot more if they weren’t such a bugger to peel.
The most ethical act one can commit, apparently, is to turn off all your electricity, walk out into the woods, dig a deep hole, and compost yourself.
“Really, shouldn’t these people be taking vows of poverty and joining monasteries and convents?”
Would those be monasteries and convents where the inmates toil all day in the fields, growing their own food? Or would they be the kind where the inmates spend all their days having beatific visions of the politically correct life, while outsiders work hard to be able to pay for their food…and shelter…and medical care…and…? /rhetorical question 🙂
As long as you have a house, mains power and a vehicle you cannot be living ethically.
Well, when I say “house”, it was just a hole in the ground covered by a sheet of tarpaulin…
We were evicted from our hole in the ground.
One Guardian reader regards the 70s sitcom The Good Life as some kind of moral lodestone:
Which is an odd thing to say, as Tom and Barbara’s experiment in “self-sufficiency” wasn’t at all self-sufficient. They don’t prevail in the end, not on their own terms. Every other week the couple’s survival is dependent on the neighbours’ car, the neighbours’ chequebook, the neighbours’ unpaid labour, a favour of some kind. And of course they’re dependent on the bourgeois infrastructure maintained by all those people who haven’t adopted a similarly ‘ecological’ lifestyle. Precisely because it doesn’t work.
And insofar as the series has a feel-good tone, it has little to do with ‘green’ living or “self-sufficiency.” It’s much more about the fact that, despite Tom and Barbara’s bad choices and continual mooching, and despite Margot’s imperious snobbery, the neighbours remain friends. If anything, the terribly bourgeois Margot and Jerry are the more plausible moral heroes, given all that they have to put up with and how often they, not Tom’s “principles,” save the day.
[ Edited. ]
Very much agreed, David. And I do like that show.
Jimmy,
Very much agreed, David. And I do like that show.
I watched a couple of episodes again recently and Margot’s imperiousness still cracks me up. In fact, it’s the hinge for most of the best jokes. But it’s odd how some people can take the series as an affirmation of eco-noodling. The Goods only survive, and then just barely, because of their genuinely self-supporting neighbours – the use of Jerry’s chequebook being a running gag.
I wonder how much the outcome of each episode of ‘The Good Life’ depends on the fact that (a) Margot – despite her airs and graces – is essentially a decent person and (b) Jerry would quite like to shag Barbara?
Heh.
Having a child is one of the worst things you can do, environmentally speaking
Just supposing there were places in the world – with somewhat different cultures than our own – that had a much higher birthrate than that of white British people, which is rather modest.
Suppose that were true, would the Guardianista who wrote the above sentence care to go over and lecture them about it in exactly that tone of voice?
Probably not, because Guardianistas worry about imperialist attitudes. Things is: lecturing British people enough might persuade them to avoid procreating (if successful there will be none of us left) but it won’t stop everyone else gleefully reproducing.
So do we risk accusations of imperialism and tell everyone else to stop having kids, or do we mindlessly self-destruct to no meaningful purpose?
Non PC thought for the day
This is the real ‘Affluenza’: the mental illness of wealthy upper middle class socialists projecting their guilt and self-loathing onto others who’d quite fancy owning a fraction of what Hickman et all posess.
As summarised above: Wanker.
Having a child is one of the worst things you can do, environmentally speaking.
It’s lost on these idiots that in most countries lots of children are necessary to support parents in their dotage. It’s only the modern industrial society which enables people to survive with fewer children. Also lost is the fact that having fewer children who will one day have careers and pay taxes decreases the sustainability of all those marvelous social programs Guardian readers are fond of.
Hi Sin Bad
“I’ve been a vegetarian for 18 years.”
You have my condolences. 🙁 I think it’s a crime that we have all these charity drives for peckish people in Africa when we have people at home who are being deprived of bacon. Just £2 a month could tranform the lives of British vegetarians with regular transfusions of Greggs sausage rolls.
“Raced in Tough Mudder last year, Spartan Sprint this year and other sundry silly hurty events.”
Whereas I had steak. I think we both know who’s winning.
“No tattoos, henna or otherwise, and the only piercing is in the ear – it was the fashion in the 80s.”
It was a regrettable fad. Only pirates and famous rappers can pull off the male earring. I’m not good on boats and my rapping career as “Vanilla Steve” was cut cruelly short when the tape stopped while I was performing in a charity gig at the local old folks home. I tried segueing into an impromptu comedy routine about Dr. Harold Shipman, but that just seemed to make things worse.
I’ve never seen so many angry geriatrics since Last Of The Summer Wine was cancelled, let me tell you. It’s a good job the elderly aren’t quick on their feet.
So I’ve never been drawn in to the anything-goes pansexual libertine world of earrings for blokes, but good luck to you. It’s a slippery slope though. One minute you’re getting an ear pierced and, before you know it, you’re in some godawful suburban key party hosted by The Krankies, playing Connect Four in the nude while crying.
That’s not the life for me. No way, Jose.
It’s a slippery slope though. One minute you’re getting an ear pierced and, before you know it, you’re in some godawful suburban key party hosted by The Krankies, playing Connect Four in the nude while crying.
Thankyou Mr. Steve, you’ve just made my day. I don’t think I’ve laughed so hard since… well, since the actual revelations about the Krankies being swingers. I was mortally disappointed that Viz (normally the only publication on the planet to take an interest in the continued existence Krankies) failed to exploit the comic potential thereof, and you’ve just made up for it. Fan – Dabi – Dozi!
‘One minute you’re getting an ear pierced and, before you know it, you’re in some godawful suburban key party hosted by The Krankies, playing Connect Four in the nude while crying’.
Congratulations, sir. You have just won the internet.
*looks up Krankies on Google Image
Oh lord…
Fan – Dabi – Dozi
This means nothing to me, even though I did look up the Krankies (double yikes). Even a catchphrase has to mean something.