Next week on Oprah
Chuck should team up with Sholto Byrnes. Together they could make Britain a more spiritual and caring place. Chuck has told the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies that environmental problems are on account of not believing in “the soul” and that it’s Galileo’s fault and that scientists are baffling because they don’t see things his way.
“As a result, Nature has been completely objectified — ‘She’ has become an ‘it’ — and we are persuaded to concentrate on the material aspect of reality that fits within Galileo’s scheme.” The Prince said that he believed “green technology” alone could not resolve the world’s environmental problems. Instead, the West must do something about its “deep, inner crisis of the soul”.
That ‘she has become an it’ is choice, don’t you think? As if he somehow knows that it’s a she (or a he) in the first place? As if he is privy to secret information that nature is a person, with a soul, who deserves a personal pronoun?
Speaking at the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies to mark its 25th anniversary, the Prince — who is patron of the centre — said that the West had been been “de-souled” by consumerism.
He said that the present approach to the environment was contrary to the teachings of all of the world’s sacred traditions. The desire for financial profit ignored the spiritual teachings.
Maybe he and Sholto could get Sarah Ferguson to join them and they could all go on Oprah and explain it to everyone, and then global warming would stop and women would all wear hijabs and the lion would lie down with the kid. Sound good?
Urgh – why not just say that we were de-moraled by consumerism or that the desire for profit ignored moral teachings? Isn’t there any way to have basic things like right and wrong without throwing in all kinds of other silliness about spirits and whatnot? This is just sad.
The man was, is and forever will be a complete arsehole.
Since when did the royals not indulge in conspicuous consumption, then eh? One only has to look at their stately homes and palaces, not to mention the castles. Seems to me that this particular HRH has got sod-all else to do, hence his ridiculous rantings.
Diane (also in Cheshire)
What a flake.
Dandruff? Lint?
Oh but all those houses and palaces don’t count as consumerism because the royals didn’t go out and buy them. Well not recently. Well except for the recent ones. And then all the towels and plates and dog bowls and can openers that fill them up don’t count as consumerism because the servants buy them, so the royals are not tainted. Apart from Sarah Ferguson of course. But she has been shriven by Oprah, so she’s not a consumer any more either.
Oh sweet mother Gaia, re-soul-ify us with your spiritual teachings! Save us from that nasty, financial-profit-seeking, deep-soul-crisis-creating, materialistic Galileo!
Can he really be so unaware of how ridiculous his disdain for ‘materialism’ is? Well of course he can; there’s a lot of that about. Contempt from the rich (in his case extremely rich) for poor people who seem to think that happiness has a material dimension — as if stuff brought happiness! It’s precisely because he never has to worry about where his next million is coming from that he can create his version of high church pantheism free from the taint of materialism, economics or rationality.
Actually I don’t dislike him. He’s generally harmless — a historical monument to English Quaintness, like cricket on the village green. He’s like the national vicar — a little wet, a little awkward, convinced of his own intellectual worth, not serious enough to bother taking issue with.
And all the prating about environmentalism when he has one of the biggest carbon footprints on earth.
He’s not harmless though, not even mostly harmless. Don’t forget all the preaching for alt med, and the funding it too, and the selling of bogus fraudulent quack remedies at his ridiculous Duchy of Cornwall whatsit. He got done by the Advertising Standards Authority for that – had to change the labels, he did. Had to stop saying “This will fix you right up” on the jar, because it won’t.
In fairness, it is true that if we as a society all abandoned the materialistic/scientific worldview that has led us to the state we find ourselves in now we would all soon find ourselves coming back into balance with the rest of the world in the same way that other species stay in balance with nature. Currently the lifestyle and human population is really unsustainable but after a few decades, if we followed his recommendation, I’m sure that the population at the very least would be at a sustainable level.
‘“As a result, Nature has been completely objectified — ‘She’ has become an ‘it’
Yes, life was so much better when we anthropomorphised natural phenomena.
We could have prevented the Icelandic eruption by appeasing the godess with a sacrifice or two.
Oh, and Chuck – if you are reading this, maybe you should consider the effects of flying around the world in your private jet before you concern yourself with the environmental impact of soullessness.
” Don’t forget all the preaching for alt med, and the funding it too, and the selling of bogus fraudulent quack remedies at his ridiculous Duchy of Cornwall whatsit.”
It’s almost a reflex but I have to put in at least one good word for the soulful Prince: the Duchy enterprises are not at all ridicuolous and really quite impressive. He has created a major brand of excellent and mostly completely uncontroversial products which are expensive but generally worth the premium (in my republican opinion). The quakish studff is a tiny part of it and I don’t think it does any more harm than selling, say, royal jelly to give you better skin or shampoo which claims to be effective because it contains ‘polypeptides’ . And all the profits go to a very effective and important charity established and chaired by Charles. I agree his talk of the spirit and the environment is silly, but I think the actual effects he has had on the world, measured by how many really poor and damaged lives he helps to transform compared to how many people like us he really annoys, is balanced towards the positve. How many other men born with his sort of wealth and privilege have done so much? I can’t see that his blather about the environment, alternative medicine, god etc etc has had any actual effect on anything.
He is right about architecure too, at least when it comes to what is wrong with it. And Poundbury is a brilliant success, no matter what anyone tells you (just ask the people who live there).
John – well, okay, fair enough, a good luxury brand that funds useful stuff is not so bad. But as for “I can’t see that his blather about the environment, alternative medicine, god etc etc has had any actual effect on anything” – well in what sense have you looked? You wouldn’t expect such an effect to unfurl in front of you like a banner, but it seems pretty cavalier to assume that the very wide exposure his blather gets would have no effect at all.
John Meredith: you may be right about Poundbury, but it is well-documented that Charles has inappropriately used his public position behind the scenes to influence planning decisions. While we are all entitled to our opinions on architecture, we are also entitled to a transparent planning process. I agree that Poundbury is an interesting and useful experiment (you didn’t say that but I imagine from what you say that you’d agree).
I also agree with OB that people do actually listen to Charles, and it’s unhelpful for him to diss reason and science.