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Woe is me, oh woe
July 16th, 2013 10:06 pmI am a rich person. It looks weird to write it out like that, and to be honest, it's weird to think it but it's true. I'm sitting in the garden right now, on the decking, watching TV on my tablet computer because I feel too hot to watch it inside. I went to a flower show last weekend to splash out on some plants to beautify this 'room' even further (they're looking good, by the way). Alex and I built this garden and the rooms that front on to it not with our own labour but with our earned capital and that of our parents. We've chosen not to have children and so we have disposable income instead.
The question I find myself contemplating is this - should I feel guilty about being wealthy? I don't deserve the money particularly - it was a combination of right place, right time and coming from a middle class background that got me where I am today, assets wise. No-one, I think, could argue that we need the luxury that we currently have. So should I be giving it away? The thought that haunts me is yes I should. If I was really as liberal and egalitarian as I claim, I would live an aesetic existence and give the surplus to Oxfam. I don't. I like to be comfortable, our lifestyle makes me genuinely happy. Do I have a right to that? Does my ability to provide another drop in the ocean mean that I shouldn't avail myself of that? I feel like it's disingenuous to call this middle class guilt - after all, we're hardly middle income.
I did a whole bunch of reading about equitable resource distribution as part of my philosophy course and I feel like I'm still nowhere knowing what I think about this. What I have is ridiculous, exhorbitant by the standards of a huge proportion of the world's population. What is there to do about that?
The question I find myself contemplating is this - should I feel guilty about being wealthy? I don't deserve the money particularly - it was a combination of right place, right time and coming from a middle class background that got me where I am today, assets wise. No-one, I think, could argue that we need the luxury that we currently have. So should I be giving it away? The thought that haunts me is yes I should. If I was really as liberal and egalitarian as I claim, I would live an aesetic existence and give the surplus to Oxfam. I don't. I like to be comfortable, our lifestyle makes me genuinely happy. Do I have a right to that? Does my ability to provide another drop in the ocean mean that I shouldn't avail myself of that? I feel like it's disingenuous to call this middle class guilt - after all, we're hardly middle income.
I did a whole bunch of reading about equitable resource distribution as part of my philosophy course and I feel like I'm still nowhere knowing what I think about this. What I have is ridiculous, exhorbitant by the standards of a huge proportion of the world's population. What is there to do about that?
