Who knows what housing, stores, railways or other benefits to society Scrooge had made possible through his wise judgment? How many thousands of jobs had he created? Dickens is unjustly silent on this. Whatever Scrooge had financed, we know it was something the public wanted or needed enough to pay for voluntarily. Thanks to Scrooge, however crusty his demeanor, the common people of London were far richer than they otherwise would have been without his services.
The little we are told by Dickens of Scrooge's dealings appears to show him as a Victorian equivalent of a 90's corporate raider, with a sideline as a loan shark. It takes a strange mind to find loan sharking as a benefit to society, but just yesterday I was re-reading an article where someone was arguing that Bedford Falls would be better if they invested heavily in prostitution and speakeasies, and had police firing wildly into crowds. Strange times and all that. I would quote more and write a longer refutation, but why? There really doesn't seem much point. And besides, there is a danger in staring too hard into the crazy: look at it too long, it begins to make sense.
Scrooge the miser benefitted the people around him? Tell his nephew that. He really benefitted.
1 comment:
I am now seeing this type of distortion as both diabolical disorientation and gaslighting. However, gaslighting is when the perp tries to twist reality for the sake of driving another person crazy. These people really seem to believe their madness, which makes diabolical disorientation a better description.
Whatever it is, it is pretty crazymaking, for the rest of us. As a person in my sixth decade, I can assure anyone younger, it was not always like this, not at all. These are truly bizarre times, and this is not a phenomenon limited to say, people who were "out there" in one way or another, this political/ideological split, if that's what we would call it, has divided families, siblings, just as scripture describes. We no longer speak the same language, nor think the same kind of thoughts, as the people in the opposing camp.
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