Comments on: Now You See Us, Now You Don’t

By: Pete

Pete — Fri, 21 May 2010 01:22:58 +0000

You’re absolutely right, Bruce. The very best minds of the era (you name three of them) grappled with many of the political/social/moral issues that still drive our public debate–even if, for example, Dickens’ racism is appalling by our standards.

By: Bruce

Bruce — Wed, 19 May 2010 15:33:10 +0000

Any consideraton of the works of Dickens, Arnold, Tennyson, etc reveals a degree of anguish missing in our time. It has been replaced by more assertive, ideological arguments–for instance, the Ayn Randers vs. the Progressives. And it was exactly the Victorians who were the first to be morally offended by the plight of the poor. You find no such sense of moral obligation expressed by earlier writers up to the eighteenth century. Aware, yes, but under no obligation to do anything.

By: Darlene

Darlene — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 17:05:27 +0000

The only thing that keeps me sane during the present ugliness going on in Congress is the fact that America survived the exploitation of child labor and the cruelties practiced by the Robber Barons. America survived that terrible period of history and it gives me hope that we will again.

As to religion; just keep it out of politics.

By: Pete

Pete — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 17:49:57 +0000

There’s a fine old Victorian hymn by one George Croly that we still sometimes sing in the church I attend. I think it contains the anguish you mention, Barry. I have always stumbled over the third verse:

Teach me to feel that Thou art always nigh;
Teach me the struggles of the soul to bear.
To check the rising doubt, the rebel sigh,
Teach me the patience of unanswered prayer.

There is a kind of desperation of logic going on—as if the writer is saying, “I’m asking you not to answer me, God, so that silence will prove you are there.” It’s so unsatisfying on so many levels that, to my ear at least, it sounds incredibly disingenuous.

Concern for the poor didn’t catch on immediately in Victorian Britain. Wilson tells the story of one mill owner who, upon learning that newly instituted shipments by rail meant that his workers had to spend less for food, responded by immediately cutting everyone’s wages.

By: barry knister

barry knister — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 17:14:47 +0000