Capitalistic competition, during Victorian times, was an emerging entity in the world. Through literature, Dickens often portrays characters, or individuals, that cherish greed and self-accomplishment over a group, or even societal goal. In many cases, Dickens' perspective often had the two things opposed, an individuals greed vs. societal advancement.
Do you agree or disagree? Explain why using modern day examples.
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Well, having money can let you do things those without money can't, so it gives off a feeling of superiority. After a while, this might turn into snobbish behavior. In Great Expectations, the boy is given money and taken away from home. The lack of contact with his old peers contribute to him becoming a snob. Though this can't be said for all individuals.
Greed vs. advancement shows two different sides. On the greedy side, the person or people want what they want and only care for them selves. In Victorian times it would be a problem because the people aren’t working. Greed is a big problem to many people and this was a major conflict during the time of the era. I agree on the two perspectives of the two things opposed. An example could the wealth people have. Some have really nice things while others don’t have rich luxuries. Dickens shows a good point between the classes and many weren’t too rich back then. Many had to work, causing them to be miserable leading to competition. The rich are just greedy and the poor hate it.
Worldwide, in general there are more people who do care more about their greed than their social status in life. A good example of this in the world today would be how the bank investors are careless and only see their short term interest. When they do this, they are doing it for their own greed. When doing this, they badly affect society around them. Many people in the world do not understand the effect when they choose greed over society.
I agree with this statement. Dickens does a good job of portraying the truths in life and what people will do for money. This is shown well in many of Dickens stories. For example in Great Expectations Pip is willing to leave the people who love him and core for him. He does this all for self gain in the form of wealth and misunderstood love. Capitalistic competition was key during this time in history. It often lead to two things, a persons downfall or a persons self realization. Charles Dickens does a fantastic job of portraying this.
Society in general is very self–based. People tend to care about themselves and there families well being and that is it. It is not common that you find an entire society that is all about others; it is usually only those who can afford to. The only thing is that people self greed and the societal advancement collides. Since mostly everyone cares solely for themselves this affects the society so that there is little or no advancement at all. It takes people to take a step out from their secluded lives and open up to the public.
I do not entirely agree more one reason. Sure some rich people are greedy pieces of dirt, but not all of them are. People with money sometimes are humanitarians and are chivalrous. During Dickens' time the statement of people caring more about themselves is more prominent.
I disagree with this statement for a few key reasons. Capitalism is the force that drives the American industries. Look how long America has lasted with a capitalistic government. Capitalism relies on the survival of the fittest. This might sound harsh but it is reality. In turn this is the best for America because it drives America’s economy. Without this capitalistic struggle America would cease to exist as a country.
I believe that greed and societal advancement are two very different things as did dickens. Most people in the world are greedy and that is a fact. Most people want to advance socially and that is also a fact. So i disagree with Dickens because i don't think that a person is one or another. For example if you are greedy you can still want to advance socially. People can be any combination of the two. And many people are a combination of the two. Many big businessmen are greedy but they still care about there standings socially because they are people and people naturally are good and want to be good like Lock said.
I agree mostly with Charles Dickens on his thoughts. I beleive that greed and social advancement are very similar things. An example of greed that is social advancement is stealing money from a bank so that you can buy a nice car and a nice house. An example of greed that is not social advancement is stealing food from a street-vendor because you are very hungry.
i agree with Dickens. People live for money. We judge the success of a person in the modern world by the money and possessions that they have, which shows that people in life cherish greed and self- accomplishment. People who are greedy could care less about societal advancement because they only care about themselves and what the rest of society doesn't matter.
I agree with Charles Dickens on this statement.Humanity is characterized by selfishness, originating from the need to protect one’s self interests and needs. It is an important aspect of human life. One has to be selfish sometimes; one has to develop a materialistic focus when it comes to one’s own advancement in professional career and family life, because that is what life is made of essentially. Combined with ambition, such focus has helped many individuals to succeed in life. The ambition and focus on advancement are very important and sometimes, critical, if one comes from a chaotic society where there is serious competition for the few positions in everything if one really wishes to make it in life. If society is chaotic, impoverished, and is mostly left to fend for itself, then you would see the creation of ambitious individuals who are self-driven to a large extent. When one oversteps and brings in the selfishness into his/her characteristics, then that transforms into an “ordained” greed which go through one’s life forever. The soul gets corrupted eventually as one progress in the material world. You would find that you comply to “bribery” requests easily, because the soul ignores your mortal efforts to correct your own behavior. The world today; that we know of is more interested in preparations for waging the next war, rather than on alleviating the miseries around the world and protecting the environment for the future generations of mankind.
I agree with this statement. In society when individuals have money they often feel superior. These feelings can change a person into a snob. These people are usually self centered and rude. When people let money go to their heads, it can change them. Nevertheless, our society today is still bases on money. We see Hollywood movie stars and people of lower classes always want to spend the money to dress and be like them. Even on TV shows like gossip girl and others, they revolve around wealth and money.
I believe that selfish and greedy goals are very much opposed to the goals of society as a whole. A selfish or greedy individual cares only about themselves. That is what it means to be greedy. If someone cares only about themselves, then that means that they do not care about the wellbeing of the other members of their society. A greedy person will go to any means necessary to benefit themselves, regardless of how their actions will affect others. This is not good for society, because if a few greedy penny pinchers control most of the wealth, this means that that wealth won’t be accessible to the people who really need it the most. It is not necessarily bad for society to have wealthy people, but if these people can not share a little bit of their money with the needy, then it most certainly is a bad thing for society.
Dickens does a fine job portraying what individuals will do to succed in life. In this time peroid that we live in, money is very important to people and can some times consume people and make them greedy. Dickens portrays greed and self accomplishment in his novel, Great Expectations. The character Pip is given a large property and is made into a gentlemen, and during his transition into wealth he loses himself and becomes very greedy, forgetting those from his past that cared deeply for him. Capitalistic competition was prominent in the Victorian era, and Dickens portray's that well.
Greed is something all humans are born with. With that said, I believe a persons colors are truly revealed on how greedy they are. As shown in Great Expectations, Pip's desire for money causes him to leave his loved ones. Dickens shows this via his literature, and I believe he does a good job at it. He shows how drastic measures a person will take just to get money.
Dickens is correct in saying that individual greed will prevent societal advancement. If everyone is solely looking out for their own interests then society will never grow. However, Society is built on ambition and competition the need to always do better. Without ambition many advancements we have made like the car, the phone, and even the U.S government would cease to exist. Competition is what drives people to do better and not accept the status quo. For a successful society the citizens much not be greedy but also be ambitious enough to progress it along.
Capitalistic competition was indeed a large issue back in the Victorian days. Charles Dickens portrays this problem various times in the work he has created. This is still a concern now; an example is our recent election. During the election, people were supporting John Mccain based on what would work out for them instead of what would work out for the people of the United States. Mccain was trying to lower taxes for those who are wealthy as for Barack Obama, he was trying to raise them. Therefore most of the wealthy people, based their vote on how much money they were going to keep.
I disagree with Dickins statment because although that statment might apply to a variety of people, it does not necessarily apply to all people. People have a right to be judged as individuals. Just as it is unfair when people are judged based on what types of groups they belong to, instead of based on their merits. It is also unfair to judge humanity as a whole based on the actions of a few or a majority. As humans we should have the liberty of being judged based on our individual personalities, instead of the society to which we belong to.
In some cases, Dickens' perspective often had the two things opposed, an individuals greed vs. societal advancement. Individual's greed throughout life has also lead us to great accomplishments, while societal advancements lead to the moral separation of few people. Those same people ended up being the ones, not wanting to go along with society because their opinions weren't taken in, leading them to a greed filled life. I believe that competition is also necessary within Capitalism, otherwise the human reace would have no expectations, they would not have any goals set forward, to win or to lose would not be an option. Basically, society wouldn't advance as much as it has today. In the USA, we are not aloud to have a monopoly in any business, first being because of econimical reasons, but also because, without competing business, the profit for the nation as a whole would not got here, which would leave no seperation in classes. This basically leading us into a Socialist or Communist government.
This statment is very true because when a person is overshadowed with wealth and money, that person gains a feeling of superiority. Nowadays and even in Dicken's time, everything revolved around money. Most likely the reason for a person becoming greedy is not from over excessive money, but when a person lacks something else important in their life (love, marriage,family). Thus, the person turns to money to fill in that gap of what was lost. Most of Charles Dickens writing reflects back to money and the difference between social classes like in Great Expectations.Money cant get you everything, but it can be a cement to what was lost, even though it is a poor alternative.
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