A Christmas Carol (1984)
The original story was written by Charles Dickens and first published on December 19, 1843. It is a morality tale of a miser, one Ebenezer Scrooge and of his redemption to kindness & generosity.
This is the made for TV version starring George C. Scott as Ebenezer Scrooge, which first was broadcast on 17 December 1984.
Many of us have read Charles Dickens’ novels, including A Christmas Carol, which was published in 1843. Dickens sets the tone in the story by writing a vivid description of Ebenezer Scrooge:
Oh! But he was a tight-fisted hand at the grindstone, Scrooge! a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous, old sinner! Hard and sharp as flint, from which no steel had ever struck out generous fire; secret, and self-contained, and solitary as an oyster. The cold within him froze his old features, nipped his pointed nose, shrivelled his cheek, stiffened his gait; made his eyes red, his thin lips blue; and spoke out shrewdly in his grating voice. A frosty rime was on his head, and on his eyebrows, and his wiry chin. He carried his own low temperature always about with him; he iced his office in the dog-days; and didn’t thaw it one degree at Christmas.
Scrooge was as cold as ice. He was a miserable miser, wealthy yet not able to share any of his good fortune. Scrooge was not an anomaly then, and yet I see Scrooge as an accepted form today. Scrooge is admired today for his tight-fistedness, his avarice and his business acumen. Since the time, during the heyday of Victorian England, when Dickens penned this timeless masterpiece on the figurative health of the human heart, the collective hearts of the wealthy have grown colder, shrivelled and become smaller. Scrooge is a paragon of virtue and generosity compared to today’s billionaires. Would they be moved by Dickens’ tale of the moral meaning of Christmas? Or as a minimum apprehend its message and meaning.
Until the 1980s, until the time when this version above was created, I would say yes. The wealthy could be moved. But then with the increased worship of neoliberalism and of the wealthy as the only measure of success, this became less likely. The 1980s were, after all, about deregulation and empowering the Wall Street mavens to allow them to hoard more and more. It was about increasing social and economic inequalities, or at least this is what happened. More wealth has flowed to the top, a flow upward that goes against the laws of gravity and against the laws of Nature. Be as it may, the system, as unnatural as it is, worked well for the top one percent. They are not complaining, except they want to pay less taxes.
Greed has increased our society’s unnaturalness, and corrupted the hearts of the wealthy to have sympathy for those not wealthy, to have sympathy for people not like them, for the lower classes, to use the language of capitalism. Then, since around the time of the Great Recession (2008-09), I would say the answer is that the wealthy cannot be moved to better mental health and that they have little or No Sympathy. No Compassion. No heart. Greed and selfishness has become more pronounced, normalized and accepted, if not lauded and applauded. And more so since 2016. It explains to a great degree why the United States of America is a sick, highly unhealthy society, and is clearly defined as such no matter what metric you use.
It is apparent to all but the cruel- and cold-hearted that our society suffers from a Greed Problem, which shows itself as taking. Taking and hoarding. And more taking. The only known cure, the only antidote to greed is giving. Giving is the story—the main message—of A Christmas Carol. Giving is the only cure to greed. Whether or not the wealthy, and the billionaire class in particular, apprehends this message, as Scrooge eventually does, remains to be seen. I highly doubt it, and this is one case I would love to be wrong.
Merci et à bientôt
Born at 315 ppm
Now at 425 ppm
Well said Perry. So many layers to this one. Greed is the tip of the iceberg. Lots of questions come out of this one. Christmas for me has a glimpse of what you hope for. The movies, the smells, the sounds, the smiles of hope. To that I raise a glass to you for sharing and giving here. Thanks for writing. We need you 🙏❤️
> Whether or not the wealthy, and the billionaire class in particular, apprehends this message, as Scrooge eventually does, remains to be seen. I highly doubt it, and this is one case I would love to be wrong.
That will simply never happen. The only way forward is to restructure society so such wealth accumulation to the billionaire stage is impossible. The problem is that the entire reason these people are billionaires is because they are the best of the best at exploitation. Giving isn't even the answer, in my opinion: even if some give their money away, the money still represents exploitation and it will just be others benefiting from that. What we need to do is stop the exploitation entirely.