Issue 9: Privilege Guilt

I referred to this topic in my second issue on ‘The Butterfly Effect’, but I keep coming back to it during this time. Although it feels like a tricky subject, I think it bears addressing more directly, especially in light of this past week’s horrific events in the US.

Most of the people in my ‘bubble’ (relatively affluent, left leaning, mostly white, highly educated) are having an ‘OK enough’ lockdown.  As my friends are all (obviously!) very decent people, there’s often an accompanying apology whenever I ask anyone how they are.  It goes something like “I’m actually finding this a spacious opportunity for reflection and slowing down… which feels pretty uncomfortable, considering the vast amount of suffering going on ‘out there’”.

We’ve all become increasingly aware of, and deeply uncomfortable about, the growing polarities in the world – socio-economic, political, ethnic, geographic…  The scenes of rioting in response to the brutal murder of George Floyd and the graphs illustrating the huge differences in Covid deaths and disproportionate economic impact amongst ethnic minorities are just the latest evidence of extreme injustice.

I’ve been wrestling with my conscience, trying to reconcile my value of fairness with my privilege.  Whilst I don’t see the point of berating myself for my good fortune (some of which I’ve earned, but most of which I haven’t), I do see value in a gentle, but relentless, acknowledgement of my privilege and interrogation of whether I’m doing as much as I can to address the issues of our time.

I grew up with the liberal mantra of “from whom much is given, much is expected”, but it’s taken me a lifetime to grow into genuinely feeling that in my bones.  It never works to have moral strictures imposed upon us; we actually need to feel into and honestly confront the incongruity between our values and our behaviours in order to align them better.

I recently heard a Buddhist teacher saying that she asks herself ‘what is the least I can do in this situation?’  As I’ve been asking myself that more and responding in the small ways that I have, I do feel less unease about my comfortable lockdown.  Discerning new ways to ‘flap my butterfly wings’ isn’t just an act of altruism; it’s really a response to my heart’s dissonance reminding me that, while others are suffering, I am too.