This advertisement [the WWF panda] is an instance of the ...

This advertisement [the WWF panda] is an instance of the image of reasonableness English people project very successfully. I believe they induce in themselves an enormous moral security, which always prevents them from faulting themselves for anything worse than stodginess or ineptitude or excessive vulnerability to foreign influences. Hearing themselves expound as slick as you please on every great question of the age, abhorring racism, despising the thought of nuclear deterrence, scorning nationalism and militarism, appalled at the spectacle of poverty, they must feel that their gift to the world of moral enlightenment exculpates the racism, poverty, nationalism, and so on with which their own country is grievously afflicted.

Marilynne Robinson, Mother Country (via The Vaulted Fool)