I've always admired Charles Dickens' ability to shed light on the greed and callousness of people.

[C Moon]

Tonight, as I watched A Christmas Carol, it made me realize how humans have been able to make so much progress in areas like science, medicine, etc; but the one area that has not progressed over thousands of years (even with religions and artists preaching about it), is selfishness, greed and gluttony.

We need to create special schools for these rich, gluttonous fuckers, so they can be taught humility.
Gluttony is an ugly word that fits them so well.

[tirebiter]

1. I've been part of the Dickens Faire in SF and learned about Victorian England

England was still bad up to and including WWII. They had no FDR. Which was the reason FDR, Truman and even Eisenhower had no interest in aiding in restoring the British empire.

[murielm99]

2. They still had a very strong class system.

The U.S. had to learn that during WWII, when we had to work and fight side by side with them. A lot of that persisted even in the early 1950's.

I think that is a lot of what you are talking about.

That has changed, slowly. They do have universal health care. It looks to me like they take much better care of their citizens than we do, at least in that regard.

[no_hypocrisy]

3. I think "Uncle" Ralph Nickelby is far more greedy and evil than Scrooge.

Ralph Nickleby: The book's principal antagonist, Nicholas's uncle. He seems to care about nothing but money and takes an immediate dislike to the idealistic Nicholas; however, he does harbour something of a soft spot for Kate. Ralph's anger at Nicholas's beating of Wackford Squeers leads to a serious rift with his nephew, and after Nicholas interferes with his machinations several more times, Ralph schemes to deliberately hurt and humiliate Nicholas; but the only man Ralph ends up destroying is himself. When it is revealed that Smike was his son, and that the boy died hating him, he takes his own life. He dies without a will, and his family refuses to take his property, so his hard-earned fortune is given back to the Crown and lost.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas_Nickleby

[Achilleaze]

7. Wackford Squeers

You can't make this shit up. But Dickens sure could.

Here's an image of Mr. Wackford Squeers. If alive today, he would surely be a KGOP republican doing his damnedest to destroy American democracy:

[cyclonefence]

4. You're singing my song

I'm about 3/4 of the way through Dombey and Son--not for the first time--and Dickens was one righteously angry dude.

[logosoco]

5. That is true, unfortunately.

I have been watching Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman and have been seeing something similar as well. Progress outside does not always mean progress inside. Although for me, having computers with the internet has brought me closer to people all over and that's an amazing thing!

But, like how the Grinch learned that Christmas does not come with bows and boxes, I don't think this is something a person can learn at school so much. Being at school can bring young people together, but you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink!

I like to think that if these few people in the world are holding so much of the financial wealth, we should just give it ALL to them and just start over with a new system for the rest of us! Maybe then they will learn that having money (which is a made up thing anyway) is not the thing in life that is really fulfilling.

[Snarkoleptic]

6. Updated for 2017-