ecophilosophy
- on poverty
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ON THIS PAGE:
Gorge Orwell
Nicolas Freeling
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George Orwell on POVERTY
Excerpts from
Down and Out in Paris and London (1933)
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On being unemployed:
...a man like Paddy, with
no means of filling up time,
is as miserable out of work as a dog on the chain.
That is why it is such nonsense to pretend
that those who have "come down in the world"
are to be pitied above all others.
The man who really merits pity is the man
who has been down from the start,
and faces poverty with a blank, resourceless mind. |
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On the Rescuer and Being Rescued:
A man receiving charity
almost always hates his benefactor—
it is a fixed characteristic of human nature;
and when he has fifty or a hundred others to back him,
he will show it. |
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On righteous Rescuers:
It is curious how people take it for
granted
that they have a right to preach at you
and pray over you as soon as your income
falls below a certain level. |
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On being penniless:
Some day I want to explore that world more
thoroughly.
I should like to understand what really goes on
in the souls of tramps. At present I do not feel
that I have seen more than the fringe of poverty.
Still I can point to one or two things I have definitely
learned by being hard up.
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I shall never again think that all tramps are drunken
scoundrels
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Nor expect a beggar to be grateful when I give him a
penny
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Nor be surprised if men out of work lack energy
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Nor subscribe to the Salvation Army
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Nor pawn my clothes
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Nor refuse a handbill
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Nor enjoy a meal at a smart restaurant.
That is a beginning. |
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Nicolas Freeling on poverty.
Excerpts from The Kitchen
and the Cook. 1970. 1972. Hamish Hamilton Ltd.
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He had the cutting intelligence and icy sarcasm that
frequently goes with being unlikeable and knowing it.
These people are
distant and solitary, and often unbalanced. (36) |
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Scruffy disliked work. If genius is an infinite capacity for
not taking pains, then he was a genius. Why not?
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