09 August 2006
Confessions of a progressive snob
Nick Martlew considers whether his political views and personal tastes make him a hypocrite.
Hello, my name’s Nick and I’m a snob. It’s been a hard struggle coming to terms with that fact, but my friends have been supportive and now I’m content in my snobbery, though not smugly so. I think.
The problem has been reconciling my political views with my snobbery. How can I be on the side of the political spectra that include workers’ revolutions and internationalism when my personal tastes shun anything ‘mass’? It’s a tricky one.
Before you reject this musing as self-indulgence, consider the average Guardian or Independent reader. They’re generally quite comfortable - they may even take the odd peak at the restaurant reviews and over-priced supplemental ‘style’. Yet they too would consider themselves progressives, internationalists, so they too are in this quandary.
Let’s start with a Facebook/My Space style mugshot of a snob:
My favourite TV programme is the West Wing. I say ‘TV programme’ but actually I watch it on DVD and I’m only up to series 4 - so don’t tell me how it ends. Being a snob, you see, I don’t watch much telly.
My favourite films are all limited release types: Shooting Dogs; Garden State; Brick. Oh, then there’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s, but we needn’t read much into that.
OK, I’m not a fully-fledged snob, I only like Opera for the tunes and I’ve been known to take a G&T with lemon rather than lime, but my personal tastes - my favourite things - have a certain highbrow tendency. They do, however, translate into my progressive, internationalist political views. I believe the strongest engine of social change is in high politics, not mass mobilisation. Bizarre as it is – perverse even (but this is all about confessions) – I get genuinely excited about Prime Minister’s Question Time.
My vision of how change comes about may seem elitist, but it is said that whoever wills the ends wills the means – so I am no elitist. The ends I aspire to and work for involve genuine internationalism and global social justice. If it means schmoozing in the corridors of power then so be it.
Inevitably some may find my means objectionable. And so you should. It is freedom of expression that means I can proclaim I am a snob.
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Nick Martlew was born in Malaysia. This is his interesting fact. A graduate of Oxford and Sheffield, Nick then sold his soul to Oxfam for the price of lunch and travel. As a campaigns volunteer in Leeds he took part in the Change programme and he is now an intern, researching Oxfam's humanitarian protection work.
Ideally, Nick would like to be paid, perhaps even in a job he enjoys, like in advocacy or speech-writing.
Until then, he is editor of 
