from Edward Bellamy, LOOKING BACKWARD: 2000-1887 (publ. 1888), http://xroads.virginia.edu/~hyper/BELLAMY/ch01.html
> By way of attempting to give the reader some general impression of the way > people lived together in those days [when capitalism (not his word) reigned], > and especially of the relations of the rich and poor to one another, perhaps > I cannot do better than to compare society as it then was to a prodigious > coach which the masses of humanity were harnessed to and dragged toilsomely > along a very hilly and sandy road. The driver was hunger, and permitted no > lagging, though the pace was necessarily very slow. Despite the difficulty of > drawing the coach at all along so hard a road, the top was covered with > passengers who never got down, even at the steepest ascents. These seats on > top were very breezy and comfortable. Well up out of the dust, their > occupants could enjoy the scenery at their leisure, or critically discuss the > merits of the straining team. Naturally such places were in great demand and > the competition for them was keen, every one seeking as the first end in life > to secure a seat on the coach for himself and to leave it to his child after > him. By the rule of the coach a man could leave his seat to whom he wished, > but on the other hand there were many accidents by which it might at any time > be wholly lost. For all that they were so easy, the seats were very insecure, > and at every sudden jolt of the coach persons were slipping out of them and > falling to the ground, where they were instantly compelled to take hold of > the rope and help to drag the coach on which they had before ridden so > pleasantly. It was naturally regarded as a terrible misfortune to lose one's > seat, and the apprehension that this might happen to them or their friends > was a constant cloud upon the happiness of those who rode. > But did they think only of themselves? you ask. Was not their very luxury > rendered intolerable to them by comparison with the lot of their brothers and > sisters in the harness, and the knowledge that their own weight added to > their toil? Had they no compassion for fellow beings from whom fortune only > distinguished them? Oh, yes; commiseration was frequently expressed by those > who rode for those who had to pull the coach, especially when the vehicle > came to a bad place in the road, as it was constantly doing, or to a > particularly steep hill. At such times, the desperate straining of the team, > their agonized leaping and plunging under the pitiless lashing of hunger, the > many who fainted at the rope and were trampled in the mire, made a very > distressing spectacle, which often called forth highly creditable displays of > feeling on the top of the coach. At such times the passengers would call down > encouragingly to the toilers of the rope, exhorting them to patience, and > holding out hopes of possible compensation in another world for the hardness > of their lot, while others contributed to buy salves and liniments for the > crippled and injured. It was agreed that it was a great pity that the coach > should be so hard to pull, and there was a sense of general relief when the > specially bad piece of road was gotten over. This relief was not, indeed, > wholly on account of the team, for there was always some danger at these bad > places of a general overturn in which all would lose their seats. > It must in truth be admitted that the main effect of the spectacle of the > misery of the toilers at the rope was to enhance the passengers' sense of the > value of their seats upon the coach, and to cause them to hold on to them > more desperately than before. If the passengers could only have felt assured > that neither they nor their friends would ever fall from the top, it is > probable that, beyond contributing to the funds for liniments and bandages, > they would have troubled themselves extremely little about those who dragged > the coach. > I am well aware that this will appear to the men and women of the twentieth > century [when Bellamy's utopia was presumed to prevail] an incredible > inhumanity, but there are two facts, both very curious, which partly explain > it. In the first place, it was firmly and sincerely believed that there was > no other way in which Society could get along, except the many pulled at the > rope and the few rode, and not only this, but that no very radical > improvement even was possible, either in the harness, the coach, the roadway, > or the distribution of the toil. It had always been as it was, and it always > would be so. It was a pity, but it could not be helped, and philosophy > forbade wasting compassion on what was beyond remedy. > The other fact is yet more curious, consisting in a singular hallucination > which those on the top of the coach generally shared, that they were not > exactly like their brothers and sisters who pulled at the rope, but of finer > clay, in some way belonging to a higher order of beings who might justly > expect to be drawn. This seems unaccountable, but, as I once rode on this > very coach and shared that very hallucination, I ought to be believed. The > strangest thing about the hallucination was that those who had but just > climbed up from the ground, before they had outgrown the marks of the rope > upon their hands, began to fall under its influence. As for those whose > parents and grand-parents before them had been so fortunate as to keep their > seats on the top, the conviction they cherished of the essential difference > between their sort of humanity and the common article was absolute. The > effect of such a delusion in moderating fellow feeling for the sufferings of > the mass of men into a distant and philosophical compassion is obvious. To it > I refer as the only extenuation I can offer for the indifference which, at > the period I write of, marked my own attitude toward the misery of my > brothers. < -- Jim Devine / "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own way and let people talk.) -- Karl, paraphrasing Dante. _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
