Comments on: Dickens’ A Christmas Carol: cosy seasonal tale or passionate condemnation of unfettered capitalism?

By: michael

michael — Sun, 29 May 2022 10:31:33 +0000

Will Trumpism, Neo Liberalism and/or Globalisation, like Dickensian, enter the lexicon, as pejoratives?

By: solitr

solitr — Fri, 16 Apr 2021 10:07:22 +0000

Maybe all that heavy duty stuff is just a bit too much for your average professor of creative writing to wrap his head round. solitr

By: maryosue

maryosue — Mon, 22 Mar 2021 09:38:42 +0000

Ahh that is great thank you ! Good for special needs too ! friday night funkin

By: Greg Bacon

Greg Bacon — Thu, 28 Dec 2017 16:52:45 +0000

The USA Panic of 1837 was set off by the Rothschilds, who were PO that President Jackson would not renew the charter of the forerunner of the Federal Reserve, the National Bank. Just like all the other ‘panics that decimated the stock markets, wiping out the little man while a handful of insiders bailed out in time to keep what they had looted.
It’s this subservience to an artificial creation, a bank–both in the US and England–that pretends to be working for the people, but in reality is a monster controlled by a handful of rich assholes who use their debt-based fiat currency to control the government and make huge fortunes while the rest of the ‘marks’ get taken in various swindles, cons and outright thefts.
Until those central banks are closed down and the power to print a debt-free currency is taken back by the people, look for more of the same misery experienced in Dicken’s England.

By: Fair dinkum

Fair dinkum — Thu, 28 Dec 2017 03:50:00 +0000

Gotta wonder.
Will Trumpism, Neo Liberalism and/or Globalisation, like Dickensian, enter the lexicon, as pejoratives?

By: MichaelK

MichaelK — Tue, 26 Dec 2017 19:08:49 +0000

Dickens wasn’t a revolutionary, but a liberal with a big heart who was appalled by by needless suffering and inhumanity which, in his time was all around him and, as he feared might become something terrible and uncontrolable… a Revolution, if decent people didn’t step forward and do something for the poor… before it was too late. Dickens was the archetypal liberal reformer, and one can argue his side won, as reforms were introduced on a large and structural scale in the century after his Christmas Carol, his warning, to Scrooge was published. The story isn’t an attack on Capitalism at all, only on the excessive greed of individuals like Scrooge who gathers wealth around him but that’s all he gathers. Where’s the love, the warmth, the family, the friendship, the basic humanity? Scrooge is rich, but really nothing more than a dry and empty husk of a man. There’s far more basic Christian doctrine in a Christmas Carol than criticismm of Capitalism. The cosy stuff came afterwards and is hardly Dicken’s fault, though his sentimentality, a prime Victorian social trait, is there too. If anything, the story illustrates just how incredibly it’ is, even for a genius storyteller like Dickens, to write ‘politically’ at the same time as one is attempti ng to ‘entertain’ a mass audience. One could compare Dicken’s attempt to Welle’s Citizen Cane, which also tries to discover what makes the great capitalist baron ‘tick.’

By: A Green Road Daily News

A Green Road Daily News — Mon, 25 Dec 2017 21:55:42 +0000

Reblogged this on AGR Daily 60 Second News Bites.

By: Hugh O'Neill

Hugh O'Neill — Mon, 25 Dec 2017 21:26:13 +0000

Wonderful essay! I wonder if any readers know that JFK quoted from Dickens’ “Christmas Carol” in a speech to the Florida Chamber of Commerce on 18th November 1963 (4 days before Dallas).
“…I realize that there are some businessmen who feel only they want to be left alone, that Government and politics are none of their affairs, that the balance sheet and profit rate of their own corporation are of more importance than the worldwide balance of power or the Nationwide rate of unemployment. But I hope it is not rushing the season to recall to you the passage from Dickens’ “Christmas Carol” in which Ebenezer Scrooge is terrified by the ghosts of his former partner, Jacob Marley, and Scrooge, appalled by Marley’s story of ceaseless wandering, cries out, “But you were always a good man of business, Jacob.” And the ghost of Marley, his legs bound by a chain of ledger books and cash boxes, replied, “Business? Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business. Charity, mercy, forbearance and benevolence were all my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!”
“Members and guests of the Florida State Chamber of Commerce, whether we work in the White House or the State House or in a house of industry or commerce, mankind is our business. And if we work in harmony, if we understand the problems of each other and the responsibilities that each of us bears, then surely the business of mankind will prosper. And your children and mine will move ahead in a securer world, and one in which there is opportunity for them all.”

By: mariannewildart

mariannewildart — Mon, 25 Dec 2017 21:22:32 +0000

Reblogged this on .