Christmas & TOTJO Anniversary Meditation 2019

From A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

(Scrooge is with The Ghost of Christmas Present)

“Forgive me if I am not justified in what I ask,” said Scrooge, looking intently at the Spirit’s robe, “but I see something strange, and not belonging to yourself, protruding from your skirts. Is it a foot or a claw?”

“It might be a claw, for the flesh there is upon it,” was the Spirit’s sorrowful reply. “Look here.”

From the foldings of its robe, it brought two children; wretched, abject, frightful, hideous, miserable. They knelt down at its feet, and clung upon the outside of its garment.

“Oh, Man! look here. Look, look, down here!” exclaimed the Ghost.

They were a boy and girl. Yellow, meagre, ragged, scowling, wolfish; but prostrate, too, in their humility. Where graceful youth should have filled their features out, and touched them with its freshest tints, a stale and shrivelled hand, like that of age, had pinched, and twisted them, and pulled them into shreds. Where angels might have sat enthroned, devils lurked, and glared out menacing. No change, no degradation, no perversion of humanity, in any grade, through all the mysteries of wonderful creation, has monsters half so horrible and dread.



Scrooge started back, appalled. Having them shown to him in this way, he tried to say they were fine children, but the words choked themselves, rather than be parties to a lie of such enormous magnitude.

“Spirit! are they yours?” Scrooge could say no more.

“They are Man’s,” said the Spirit, looking down upon them. “And they cling to me, appealing from their fathers. This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased. Deny it!” cried the Spirit, stretching out its hand towards the city. “Slander those who tell it ye! Admit it for your factious purposes, and make it worse. And bide the end!”

[hr]

Rephrasing what the spirit says about Ignorance in contemporary English:

If you deny him [Ignorance], slander those who tell others about him, admit he exists but do nothing about it, then doom will engulf you all!

Gentle Reader, what does the spirit mean by this?

Want and Ignorance are what is most commonly shared by a vast confrerie of humanity.

From my hearth to your brother John - Thank you for this place and for the faith in me.
Happy birthday Temple
To all members new and old what a joy it is to be here with you as I continue to grow and learn. I could have done it without ya but it wouldn’t have been as fun!
Thank you Temple for listening and speaking back. I am always a servant for you , as you have served me over the years.

What does the Spirit mean by the warning about the boy Ignorance ?

Since Dickens used the images of these 'children of Man' symbolically, then the response to the question has to be hermeneutically intuited from what the Spirit says :

“They are Man’s,” said the Spirit, looking down upon them. “And they cling to me, appealing from their fathers. This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased. Deny it!” cried the Spirit, stretching out its hand towards the city. “Slander those who tell it ye! Admit it for your factious purposes, and make it worse. And bide the end!”

First, let's consider why the effigies of Ignorance and Want would be shown as feral children. Part of it could undoubtedly be a reflection of the state of children in 19^th Century England, where poor families often had to "sell" their children as labourers. These children were often treated in such a pitifully cruel way. The "jails" and "workhouses" referred to in the video I posted (too soon -- sorry, John), echo what Scrooge said to gentlemen collecting for charities the eve before his hauntings began :



Indeed, poverty and the greed that caused it were very much the cruel reality of life in this not so long ago era. And indeed much of it was caused by Ignorance (of the reality of human suffering) and Want (the want of excess, of greed, but also the "lack" of vital necessities - shelter, food, clothing - that drove the poor to "jails and workhouses," if not madness and/or crime.) There were parts of the Poor Laws that existed up 'til 1967 against debt. Thus, the Spirit indicated the city, the abode of Man whose avarice breeds Ignorance and Want.

The counsel here is that "like breeds like" ; Man breeds Ignorance in his fellow Man ("Man" being employed here as "Humankind"). Ignorance has many contextual meanings : from ignoring that which is meaningful to ignoring others' needs (including affective needs) and even the ignorance of Ignorance itself. This brings to mind the notion of Hubris, of the arrogance and self-importance wrought by excessive egotism (modern day "individuality" is a grandchild...). To beware of Ignorance (and Want) in "all of their degree" emphasises that there is not an acceptable degree of either. To feel that one knows "enough" especially concerning the understanding of Others, or about responsible distributive justice is part of this admonition. To "know" who deserves what, who is entitled or not, are warning signals that one is marching toward "Doom", not merely one's own demise, but that of civilisation itself. It is through Ignorance (to Ignore) that we have plunged into over-production, over-consummation, over-spending, debt-based economic growth (?), over-pollution, global warming, a succession of financial crises. Ignorance feeds Want, Want feeds Ignorance, and through their feasting, Mankind is condemned to beastial behaviour (does the footage of shopping centres at Black Friday seem "civilised" to anyone ?) Every Hubris - singular or collective - meets its Nemesis, its downfall, its incapacity to sustain itself.

Ye is the old plural form of "thou" (so was "you" the plural form until a couple of centuries ago). Thus, the Spirit saying "ye" was not merely to Scrooge, but to all Mankind, whose children cling to him. (...) "appealing from their fathers" then could be the plea that their 'fathers' wisen, grow in understanding not simply of their "own business", but the business of common community :




Think of the greed and self-promoting, self-aggrandising behaviours we witness nowadays, with many more degrees of Ignorance and many more ways to Want. It is particularly evident that the 'writing was not erased' from the brow of Ignorance. If we don't get out the sponge soon, all the "biding", in the sense of 'waiting for' will become "biding" in the sense of enduring.

Br. John wrote: Rephrasing what the spirit says about Ignorance in contemporary English:

If you deny him [Ignorance], slander those who tell others about him, admit he exists but do nothing about it, then doom will engulf you all!

Gentle Reader, what does the spirit mean by this?

I think a part of J Peterson’s message hits upon this point, exactly. To summarize; we tilt a small piece of the world a little bit further towards hell (unnecessary misery/suffering) when we ignore the truth. We help hell to grow when we refuse to acknowledge the truths of our lives and environments. From the personal truths of our own beings, to the health or dysfunction of our closest relationships, to the injustices of world around us. By ignoring the truth, we become an accomplice of hell.

He adds that we are imperfect and our efforts at recognizing and speaking truth will often fall short of the mark, so we have to be mindful of our own capacity to misjudge or misunderstand. We have to allow for the fact that others will correct us and be open to their rebuttals. Doing this ultimately helps us reach a better and more powerful understanding. Even where our understanding is still low, the bare minimum of the rule is at least that we must not cooperate with something that we sense is a lie.

So when i read the OP question, what i got out of it was that ignorance is lack of awareness of that which is true or worse, refusal or denial to recognize that which is true. The greater this ignorance is in a society, the greater the misery and suffering (hell) it will experience and “the truth is what redeems the world from hell”.




https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkiv10F3THI&t=297s