Protect me from what I know
'Take an example of parents going into a supermarket and buying their child some chocolate as a treat. As they are doing this, let us imagine that they notice someone stealing from the same store. They are angered by what they see and tell a security guard who promptly arrests the shoplifter. In this situation we witness the law-abiding parents and the criminal who breaks the law. The problem, however, is that we can fail to look at the situation in it's wider context. It is likely that the chocolate bar which the parents bought was made with cocoa beans picked in the Ivory Coast by children the same age as their own, children who have no rights, who work inhumane hours, and who suffer continual abuse. Here we can say that while it is clear that there is a law and a crime that transgresses the law, we can miss the way in which the legal system itself, in its failure to intervene in how the chocolate gets to the shops, is itself criminal. The point here is that the parents can feel rightly moral and just while wholly participating in an immoral and unjust system. (It is one thing if the parents really have no idea about the wider system they participate in, but most of us do have an awareness of these issues but prefer not to confront ourselves with them).'
This example is one I found quite a challenge because the offended, appearing to be on the higher moral ground, actually finds themselves guilty of something less obvious and more commonplace. Whilst we might not advocate there is a deeper issue that confronts us every time we our products from the shops. A 'for instance' being that Muller Wiseman are to cut payment for their milk by 1.9p/litre (that's 27.1p/litre from 1st November. Arla (a major buyer) has announced a 1.67p cut (that 28.55p/litre) and Tesco has confirmed it's their payment by 2.19p/litre (32.01p/litre). The problem is that listening to BBC's Farming Today I realise that my wanting cheap milk is unfairly treating those British farmers who produce it but what do I do? There is no Fairtrade agreement for UK producers - and surely that's wrong?
Now I find myself paying 44p/litre for milk (that's a quid for four pints) and less than a tenner for a couple of shirts when going into London and buying handmade would cost me something nearer £150 for tow - oh, those were the days!) and wherever I look, I want more for less. Sweatshops? Awful things but don't stop them if it means I'll have to pay more and get less for my money.
I like the scenario above for a number of reasons:
1. It talks of the unseen potential for duplicity and the tendency we all have to look the other way, especially if the outcome leans in our favour,
2. It talks of a society in which we damn those who break the law and consider to be acceptable that which breaks God's laws (and can you tell me that exploiting others sits comfortably with be a Christian or even a person with morals of no faith?),
3. It puts me in the dock and raises the levels of moral outrage I have against me, for I am culpable and, once the case has been heard, guilty of being in the wrong?
Just a little more grist to the mill for those who visit here to be considering.
