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Oh my gosh ... you do such fine work!

I'm jealous of your summer of Dickens. It's been a long time since I've read those books and I think you may have inspired me to pick up a copy of "A Tale of Two Cities" at the secondhand stores to read again.

I think you make some good observations about the industrialization of human society and the effects of the technological revolution as well. No doubt it's possible to err in the direction of either enslaving yourself to technology (the "technology compels" crowd) or hating it with such passion that you rob human beings of the benefits of industry and technology (the New Left's anarchical destruction without concern for the individuals they harm in the process).

Additionally, if I remember correctly, it seems to me that folks in the country generally had a better handle on reality -- and morality -- than lots of folks who populated Dickens' cityscapes. But that's probably another thread ...

I shall be back tomorrow to quote for you a writer and thinker I love very much ... Erik von Keunnelt-Leddihn. It's something I've been meaning to post for a while now and I think you'll enjoy considering it.

Also, I might note for the record that another favorite writer and philosopher of mine -- Thomas Molnar -- HATES machines and himself uses only a microwave to heat the water for his tea if NO ONE is around to help him! It alarms him that I post so much of his work on the internet, as a matter of fact! =)

But he has a point. Not only is he too a Catholic who recognizes the temptation of industrialists and certain humans to lose sight of the dignity of every individual -- paying them as little possible, downsizing them at will and destroying their sensibilities with company-enforced Compliance Programs -- but he also loves Beauty and relishes Time.

There is no question but what industry and technology have made for a more sterile and ugly world in many respects. Perhaps one day humans will better balance their desire to improve the comfort or ease of living with an appreciation of what it means to be human and need Beauty.

Perhaps one day humans will realize that many of their Labor-Saving devices only devour precious Time better spent doing things by hand ... lost in one's own thoughts or conversing with the kindred spirit who helps you with the chores.

I know I hope that one day everyone agrees that cell phones and pagers are boorish interruptions and that blabbing non-stop gibberish on their cell phones is a good way to miss out on the human being or bit of beauty -- much less the bicyclist they're about to flatten -- right before their eyes.

Ah, 'tis the lovely Lady NattieShea once again, come to lighten up our day. Thank you, Ma'am!

Without question you spent many hours and much of your summer "fun time" working on this most ambitious project. Not only did you finish it, as they say 'round my neck o' the woods, "Ya done good!."

Now for the real question. The proof of the pudding, so to speak, about any worthwhile exercise like the one you just finished is always "What did you learn about yourself from all this?" If Dickens could only see the world around him through the lens of his own experience, does that teach you anything about the rest of us?

P.S. These are the best kind of questions - there's no grade for your answer.

P.P.S. And thanks again, NattieShea. And thank your Dad for calling me to your latest project.

Dickens pointed out all these problems . . . He wanted everyone to be treated equally. He was always angry at the factory owners' treatment towards the poor.

Dickens was so distracted with his anger over his childhood, that he couldn't see the benefits of the Industrial Revolution . . . The Industrial Revolution produced the wealth that, in time, improved living and working conditions for everyone.

It is unlikely that Dickens did not see the benefits of the Industrial Revolution all around him, but he focused not on the donut, but on the hole in the donut. Just like many people today do. The lesson is that it's easy to criticize, even if the people you complain about are doing more for society than you are doing.
If efforts to spread the wealth are undertaken arrogantly from the top down (socialist government policies, often called "liberal" in America) the result will spread misery much more than it will spread wealth. And that is because wealth is such an insubstantial thing--factories and machines look so splendid and substantial, but without astute management they turn out to be pretty useless. The Communists in the USSR slaved the people to create the facilities to make steel and concrete, but our steel industry turned into the "Rust Belt" when other things like computers came to be economically more important than steel.
Only by having prices deterimed by free people's decisions to buy and sell can the economy change. No bureaucrat wants to have the value of his empire marked down as "obsolete," and so the government bureaucrat will tend to keep that from happening. Both private enterprise and government socialist producers make mistakes, but the difference is that since the government is so powerful it makes bigger--and longer lasting--blunders.
OTOH entrepreneurs can make huge fortunes if they keep their mistakes smaller than their successes. But let a greedy-eyed government bureaucrat take over, and that same business suddenly starts making bigger mistakes--and becomes unprofitable. The seemingly small item called management, so despised by Communism's "prophet" Karl Marx, turns out to matter more than the size of the factory.

Nattie, you are a wonderful, insightful writer! Thank you for posting this. I thoroughly enjoyed reading it. You've a way of expressing yourself clearly and logically. That is a great gift!

Dickens has always been one of my favorite storytellers. I think I like Oliver Twist best of all, but his masterpiece is probably David Copperfield. Which of his novels did you prefer?

You make some very keen observations about the relationship between industry, the government, and the poor at the end of your paper. Very nicely done!