The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists

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You would think his thoughts toward the people he is trying to help would be just a little bit nicer than his. However, it's not only the workers he seems to hate, he has spared plenty of hatred for the "bosses" too: This is an ideological book, and it is a work of fiction. Part of me believes that fiction and ideology make bad bedfellows. Part of the reason for that is that fiction nearly always allows (and frequently implies) an ironic reading, and ideology doesn’t really expect that and so is undermined by not seeing the possible ironic reading. But this book is perhaps a little too didactic to allow an ironic reading. I’ve certainly read my fair share of gritty and depressing literature in my time, yet I found myself quite unprepared for the bleak and desolate nature of Robert Tresswell’s The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists – number 72 in the BBC’s Big Read.

Illustrated The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists - Calton

He hated and despised them because they calmly saw their children condemned to hard labour and poverty for life, and deliberately refused to make any effort to secure for them better conditions than those they had themselves." Note: The rest of this review has been withdrawn due to the changes in Goodreads policy and enforcement. You can read why I came to this decision here. And the message ...that society's repeated failure to fairly distribute the necessities of human life, and a pathalogical tendency towards corruption and vain consumption are so prevalent, so manifestly routine, that our doom is all but certain. Our very survival as a species may lie in re-organizing our affairs efficiently for the benefit of all, rather than the priviledge of few. I first came across this while reading the Secret Diary of Adrian Mole - a "sacred text" of mine when I was about 12. Adrian, wanting to be an intellectual, had got hold of the book but - I think - wasn´t sure he wanted to read a book about badly dressed stamp collectors. Now this book itself has become something of a sacred text to a lot of people and - finally getting around to reading it at 44 years young - I can see why.

William Morris said that we should have nothing in our homes that is not either useful or beautiful. As this book is both beautiful and useful, I'd suggest that every home should have one. And not just every home, but every school, college and prison library. To this end, the #RaggedEducation project allows readers to donate a copy and make the book available in all these places. Helping young people to think about the economic system which now blights our world, and which may be having a very negative impact on their own wellbeing and life chances, seems to be a very worthwhile thing to do. It Was Wonderful to Connect with Others Who Are in My Place”– Rachael Smith Talks New Motherhood and ‘Nap Comix’ October 30, 2023 A 6 x 60-minute radio adaptation was transmitted as a "Classic Serial" on BBC Radio 4 in 1989. It starred Sean Barrett, Brian Glover and Peter Vaughan. It was produced by Michael Bakewell and dramatised by Gregory Evans.

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A searing insider's account of ten extraordinary years in Parliament from Rory Stewart, former Cabinet minister and co-presenter of breakout hit podcast The Rest Is Politics Johnson, Mark (31 October 2018). "Liverpool MP Dan Carden to host performance of The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists in Parliament during Budget week to highlight the economy's "systematic flaws" ". Liverpool Echo. As Owen thought of his child's future there sprung up within him a feeling of hatred and fury against the majority of his fellow workmen." THEY WERE THE REAL OPPRESSORS--the men who spoke of themselves as 'The likes of us,' who, having lived in poverty and degradation all their lives considered that what had been good enough for them was good enough for the children they had been the cause of bringing into existence." Perhaps that is the book's secret strength. It is not a picture of extreme hardship but it's working class characters are boxed in a trap from which there will only be one escape (or two if you include socialism so only one escape then - one involving a wooden box just to be clear).

Written round about 110 years ago some of the bosses-grinding-the-faces-of-the-poor stuff might sound a little over the top. Because one of the developments of capitalism that RT did not foresee was the increasing affluence of Western societies. When I was a tiny infant there were only about five or six cars on the street where I lived. Kids played football in the road all day long, no problem. Now the same street is jammed bumper to bumper with cars, some 4 by 4s, and no kids ever play in the street. There is no comparison between the material wealth of an ordinary English working class family in 1910 and one in 2022*. But we just need to raise our eyes to more distant horizons to find very similar ragged trousered philanthropists working 16 hour days in other countries making stuff for Western people to sell to each other. They have not yet got their big cars. A lot of them don’t even have running water and sanitation. This book makes me feel like a bad leftie. I wanted to like it so much more than I did, and while parts of it are very powerful, the book is overlong, and treads the same ground so often that I had to force myself to finish it. According to George Orwell, The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists is a book everyone should read. It is often named by people on the left as the book which has had the greatest influence on their politics. Readers may realise and underscore the moral message of this novel. Not only because (given the circumstances of Tressle's life), it is remarkably balanced, but also because driven to despair by poverty, the author almost destroyed his amazing work, and ultimately died from TB, a disease suffered by the impoverished and the down-trodden. And what is particularly interesting about this book is that all of the excuses and explanations and victimisations and lies that were told then to justify why we have poverty and unemployment and hardship are exactly the same ones that are used today. For this alone, it is worth reading this book.

Review: The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists graphic novel

What we call civilisation—the accumulation of knowledge which has come down to us from our forefathers—is the fruit of thousands of years of human thought and toil. It is not the result of the labour of the ancestors of any separate class of people who exist today, and therefore it is by right the common heritage of all. Every little child that is born into the world, no matter whether he is clever or dull, whether he is physically perfect or lame, or blind; no matter how much he may excel or fall short of his fellows in other respects, in one thing at least he is their equal—he is one of the heirs of all the ages that have gone before. [11] Critical reception [ edit ] I read the complete, unedited text, after being given it as a rather thoughtful Christmas present. It is rightly heralded as a classic piece of working-class literature, as it takes you into the brutish yet everyday horrors endured by the British working-class, at a time when socialism was beginning to gain ground. Have ever hear of the joke about watching paint dry. This the book that sets right This union book not an easy read but very rewarding one it is like The Grapes of Wrath set in wallpaper. Confront the spectre of failure, the wraith of social media, and other supernatural enemies of the author Over-population!' cried Owen, 'when there's thousands of acres of uncultivated land in England without a house or human being to be seen. Is over-population the cause of poverty in France? Is over-population the cause of poverty in Ireland? Within the last fifty years the population of Ireland has been reduced by more than half. Four millions of people have been exterminated by famine or got rid of by emigration, but they haven't got rid of poverty. P'raps you think that half the people in this country ought to be exterminated as well."Launching a new project to get the book into schools, colleges and prison libraries, he said “If you just buy one book, god knows how many kids you’ll be helping.” Five Ways to Compute the Relative Value of a U.K. Pound Amount, 1270 to present". MeasuringWorth, 2022. 14 December 2022 . Retrieved 14 December 2022.