Review of 'Beautiful and impossible things' on 'Goodreads'
5 stars
I was not a fan of poets until recently. But, I keep falling for the writings of this Irish man lately. Here's an excerpt from his essay, "The Soul of Man under Socialism (1891)"
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The fact is, that civilisation requires slaves. The Greeks were quite right there. Unless there are slaves to do the ugly, horrible, uninteresting work, culture and contemplation become almost impossible. Human slavery is wrong, insecure and demoralising. On mechanical slavery, on the slavery of the machine, the future of the world depends. And when scientific men are no longer called upon to go down to a depressing East End and distribute bad cocoa and worse blankets to staving people, they will have delightful leisure in which to devise wonderful and marvelous things for their own joy and the joy of everyone else. There will be great storages of force for every city, and for every …
I was not a fan of poets until recently. But, I keep falling for the writings of this Irish man lately. Here's an excerpt from his essay, "The Soul of Man under Socialism (1891)"
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The fact is, that civilisation requires slaves. The Greeks were quite right there. Unless there are slaves to do the ugly, horrible, uninteresting work, culture and contemplation become almost impossible. Human slavery is wrong, insecure and demoralising. On mechanical slavery, on the slavery of the machine, the future of the world depends. And when scientific men are no longer called upon to go down to a depressing East End and distribute bad cocoa and worse blankets to staving people, they will have delightful leisure in which to devise wonderful and marvelous things for their own joy and the joy of everyone else. There will be great storages of force for every city, and for every house if required, and this force man will convert into heat, light, or motion, according to his needs. Is this Utopian? A map of the world that does not include Utopia is not worth even glancing at, for it leaves out the one country at which Humanity is always landing. And when Humanity lands there, it looks out, and, seeing a better country, sets sail. Progress is the realisation of Utopias.
- "The Soul of Man under Socialism" by Oscar Wilde (1891)