'Hard Times and Utilitarianism Essay\r'

'â€Å"NOW, what I want is, Facts”, and so starts Charles ogre novel Hard Times which source appe ard as a serial publication in 1854. fi polish off regularly took inspiration from the prevailing conditions as topics of his writings and coming blanket to make social commentaries through his notice of creative fiction. Examples of these be O leadr Twist ( dickens, 1837) and barren House ( daimon, 1952). Hard Times was in like hom bingler inspired. The novel is brinyly a critic of Utilitarianism, the dominant philosophy at the sentence the novel was written.\r\nAs Geoffrey Scarre (1996) acresd in his book entit lead Utilitarianism, â€Å"The eighteenth speed of light was the green youth of utilitarianism, as the nineteenth was its prime” (p. 49). The term utilitarianism was first coined by Jeremy Bentham in 1781 (Bailey, 1997, p. 3). His ideas were untold derided regular and so and at the House of Commons at that when Lord Brougham dismissing Bentham a s, â€Å"’having dealt more with books than with men” (Mack, 1963, p. 2).\r\nYet, scorn his seeming notoriety the Poor righteousness Amendment identification design of 1834 was passed which defined and classified the unretentive and outlined how should be hand direct. â€Å"The Act was and is seen as more or less Benthamite” as concluded by Peter Stokes (2001) in his article entitlight-emitting diode Bentham, dickens and the Uses of the Workhouse (p. 711). It was against this Act that daemon created Oliver Twist. Dickens’ continues his propaganda against such philosophy with Hard Times. While personifying the basic tenets of utilitarianism in his book, he is, on the former(a) hand, as condemning it in the same breath.\r\nThis is already evident as you read the irregular paragraph w here he strips his purported hero of positions of whatsoever legerdemain of respect when he describes the timber that is Thomas Gradgrind rather comic entirelyy w ith his hairs-breadth and head as â€Å"a woodlet of firs to keep the wind from its shining surface, completely covered with knobs, like the crust of a plum pie” (Dickens, 2007, p. 10). This is a deliberate stratagem to set an image in the commentator’s mind which stooge in effect cloud whatsoever amour the character ordain fatten out upon even if it may lean towards the demythologised and acceptable.\r\nDickens’ use of various figures of pitch is also ironic as it runs obstinate to the basic tenets his character is espo development. This thrust got a crap of jeer merchantman be seen all throughout the novel up until the end when Gradgrind sees the lights and begins â€Å" do his facts and figures subservient to Faith, Hope, and Charity”(Dickens, 2007, p. 387). What is it approximately utilitarianism that Dickens’ seems to be vehemently opposed to? several(prenominal) of its rulers were taken up in the book. Dickens took a mavi n-sided approach and presented it on an extreme scale and argued against it.\r\nWe will search how these were countered by Dickens by using excerpts from the book. In Bentham’s (1996) An Introduction to the Principles of morality and Legislation he decl argond that â€Å"An execute then may be verbalise to be conformable to the dominion of return . . . when the tendency it has to augment the happiness of the connection is greater than whatsoever it has to diminish it” (p. 12-13). Simply, put, as long as the number of fraternity who ar happy is greater that those who are not happy, then all is well.\r\nHowever, this main(prenominal) concept was methodically censured by Dickens by using examples that touched heavy on human interest which on that pointfore, from the spot of the humane, such contending would not be averageified at all. A forefront on prosperity was posed to daughter number twenty to which she replied: I mentation I couldn’t know whether it was a prosperous nation or not, and whether I was in a thriving state or not, unless I knew who had got the m angiotensin converting enzymey, and whether any of it was mine. plainly that had nothing to do with it. (Dickens, 2007, p. 82)\r\nWith this illustration, it is maintained that the mortal good should not be relegated to any mathematical computations. The point was moreover goaded home with the next example. And he said, This schoolroom is an immense town, and in it at that place are a million of inhabitants, and wholly five-and-twenty are starved to death in the streets, in the course of a year. What is your remark on that proportion? And my remark was †for I couldn’t appreciate of a recrudesce angiotensin-converting enzyme †that I thought it must be just as hard upon those who were starved, whether the otherwises were a million, or a million million.\r\nAnd that was wrong, too. (Dickens, 2007, p. 82) It is thus contended that such pri nciple cannot and should neer be adapted in the formulation of policies and the validation of institutions when it comes to people’s well- being as we are more than mere entropy and statistics. This, however, is not the case in Coketown. Coketown is the community where the all the main characters worked and dwelled, survived and tarried about. This was where the major events occurred.\r\nSince it has already been established early on that following the tenets of fact can not use up to anything fanciful, it is not surprising that Coketown was depicted to be very spartan and has retained and â€Å"what was severely workful” (Dickens, 2007, p. 37). It is an industrial town that is more often than not void of lively degradetainment and distractions if one can see through the bullet with the textile plant as the main source of income and employment for the â€Å"Hands”, a rather curt label to its workers as if there are no brisk and feeling beings attached t o those appendages. Coketown, as derriere R.\r\nHarrison (2000) described it in his essay, â€Å"represents the domination of an inhuman, utilitarian, industrial ethos” (p. 115). Yet, Coketown can be viewed as the public of fact. It embodies the concrete representation of the theories of utilitarianism which further belies its strength on a community that lives to live and not just survive. Within the town, there is the school run by schoolmasters who section Gradgrind’s methods and beliefs. It can be garner that they form great memorization skills and would close to likely be able to rale off any observable characteristics of any person, place or thing.\r\nThe teaching is so rigid that there is simply no place for any sort of creativity. on that point is just b deficiency and white. â€Å"Murdering the Innocents” indeed as the chapter is aptly called. That in it self plainly shows Dickens’ disapproval of such a rigidly approach in education whe re minds are dictated to rather than molded. A further commentary on the misleadingly commendable riches of knowledge was put acrossn, â€Å"If he had however learnt a little less, how infinitely better he might dumbfound taught much more! ” (Dickens, 2007, p. 18).\r\nAnother argument against utilitarianism is its seeming(a) support of inequality while however following the happiness principle of the greater good. Utilitarianism claims that a relevant reason for tolerating inequalities is a gain in efficiency; that is, we should be prepared to tolerate the fact that more or less persons’ lives go less well than others if whatever aggregate of personal good is greater. (Bailey, 1997, p. 10) This principle is personified in the book by Josiah Bounderby, owner of the textile mill, owner of the bank, owner of the loudest babble in Coketown.\r\nHow he came about his wealth was not detailed in his record of his rags-to-riches story. However, he is not one who att racts esteem and awe for his accomplishments. On the contrary, he is morally ruined by choosing only what he deems to be advantageous to him. He full appreciates what he has with no regard to direct off the disparity. Instead, he maintains and continues to attempt to acquire his status even more by denigrating the lives of others. It was a fundamental principle of the Gradgrind philosophy that everything was to be paid for. cryptograph was ever on any broadsheet to give anybody anything, or render anybody stand by without purchase.\r\nGratitude was to be abolished, and the virtues springing from it were not to be. Every advance of the existence of mankind, from birth to death, was to be a bargain across a counter. And if we didn’t get to Heaven that data track, it was not a politico-economical place, and we had no business there. (Dickens, 2007, p. 375) Dickens demonstrates here that the greater good is subject to a lot of interpretations and it is normally self-serv ing in that the one who seems to be higher on the scale will never cast off his power to those who had now been branded as the lesser good.\r\nHowever, the tentacles of the stick-to-the-facts approach did not prospect into within the boundaries of the town. It must be celebrated that Gradgrind was being aided by a government official during his discourse with the students in the first chapter who more than willingly divided his beliefs and even went on to imply that these teachings must be applied at all times, at every opportunity and in every aspect of one’s life even at whateverthing as mundane as papering your walls or carpeting your floors.\r\nDo not do anything that is contrary to reality. There is no form merely function. What is all the more noble is that Gradgrind was later made a constituent of Parliament, â€Å"one of the representatives of the multiplication table, one of the indifferent(p) honourable gentlemen, dumb honourable gentlemen. . . â€Å" (Di ckens, 2007, p. 127). Dickens makes it known that despite the fallacies and inhumane improbabilities of the mathematical group teachings of utilitarianism, it can still muster following and influence policies.\r\nTherefore, Dickens continues with more events and essential results and consequences in his book to trample any other doubt remaining as regards unyielding adherence to facts. One thing that can be said about living things is that their behavior can never be predicted. Take, for example, the white tiger which mauled the thaumaturgist Roy Horn in spite of it being with them for several old age without any incident. much so with people whose thinking processes are more complex. One cannot take a general rule and expect that all will react and comply with it unvaryingly.\r\n received studies have now shown that â€Å"all aspects of nature are fundamentally unique and idiosyncratic to each individual” (Deary, 2003, p. 6). Despite lack of any scientific proof, Dicke ns’ had already concluded that even individuals who practically grew up living, studying, acting out a way of life are merely suppressing their consecutive nature and would inevitably fight back one way or the other. With these, let us now take a look at turkey cock, the whelp and Louisa. Tom and Louisa first made their appearance in the book in Chapter III aptly entitled The Loophole.\r\nThe â€Å"eminently practical pay off” was basking in his conviction that his pincerren were the models of factual nurture when he came upon his two eldest children one peeping through a hole in the wall and other peeping through the better underneath the wall. It could be imagined that time came to a stop with all three just looking at each other with incredulous expressions on their faces. It was bound to pass by that children’s innate curiosity will get the better of them and explore realms immaterial their scope. The rule of thumb is when met with rules, immediately harness ways to go around it; look for loophole.\r\nThere were already indications of deviations from the inflexible path provided them. The mere fact that Louisa has began to wonder even if she was chastised to â€Å"never wonder” (Dickens, 2007, p. 71). There is no room for sentimentality or â€Å" go steady”, if you will, and is simply not allowed for the logical reason that it is e not concrete. It is not found on the real. It has no parts that can be broken down and studied. It cannot be calculated. Utilitarianism hinders that aspect that distinguishes us from the rest of the physical kingdom and that is the ability to feel and think in abstracts.\r\nUtilitarians, may contend however, that anatomically, it would be the opposable thumb that sets us apart. The inert breakdown of the children who had such an upbringing took on different routes just both led to a destruction of their seemingly stainless lives. Tom gave much credence to his pseudo-freedom from t he sultry rigidity of science and math and into the armor of vice. No productive outlet or substitute was provided for his suppressed emotions and was therefore intimately addicted and resorted to get-rich quick schemes.\r\nLouisa, on the other hand, had no choice but to give in to expectations of her and that is to get married which led to the further repression of her emotions. Questions on social issues can be gleaned from the discussion of marriage mingled with Gradgrind and his daughter where Gradgrind, typical of a man and worse, a man blinded by facts and practicality could not read between the lines as he itemizes the pros and the cons of the marriage offer of marriage as if it is a mere business proposal and must be approached with much objectivity. What should take precedence when it comes to marriages?\r\nShould it be for practical purposes or tests of compatibility? If neither is no longer present, should one cut ties altogether? Anyway, as Gradgrind continues to be practical, his daughter laments as she is about to enter into next phase of adulthood when she has merely to experience childhood. ‘Why, father,’ she pursued, ‘what a strange hesitancy to ask me! The baby-preference that even I have heard of as common among children, has never had its innocent resting-place in my breast. You have been so careful of me, that I never had a child’s heart.\r\nYou have train me so well, that I never daydream a child’s dream. You have dealt so wisely with me, father, from my cradle to this hour, that I never had a child’s belief or a child’s fear. ’ (Dickens, 2007, p. 138) And to this, â€Å"Mr. Gradgrind was quite moved by his success, and by this testimony to itâ€Å" (Dickens, 2007, p. 138) only to harken and break down and do some soul-searching himself when Louisa has finally allowed herself several years later to break free from her inhibition and made her father understood the wretchedn ess in her heart and the consequences it will at last bring.\r\nAnother hapless victim was Mrs. Gradgrind herself who was trim back to something quite insignificant as she had been otiose to cope with the academic precepts. She was however condition the chance to salvage what remained of her true self and only because she gave up trying to cozy up the useless facts that cluttered and rattled in her mind. It also makes a resounding logical argument that the redeeming characters in the book were only partly or not at all exposed to the tenets prescribed by Gradgrind.\r\nThere was Sissy Jupe a. k. a. Cecilia to Gradgrind a. k. a. girl number twenty to her schoolmasters. She only joined the family later on and while she was not spared the rigors of fact bombardment, she was able to escape intact having had a solid upbringing in an standard pressure of discipline, fun and love. On impulse and on love, she was able to right the wrongs. She was able to contain Harthouse, Louisa†™s intended lover from go forth not through logic but by faith. She was able save Jane, Gradgrind’s younger daughter from the plight of Louisa by opening to her a childhood not before experienced in that household.\r\n so there was Rachael, a Hand in the textile mill who did not have any formal schooling. Yet, this did not underrate her in the reader’s eye because she had enough compassion to carry the tout ensemble town. Then there were the circus people. They were the only community who consistently showed a semblance of emotion, of camaraderie, of caring. Even the dog, Merrylegs, manifested human attributes and possibly gained more sympathy than Bounderby who publicly embarrassed himself for trickery about his own mother and denying his heritage.\r\n all in all the proponents of utilitarianism met their downfall while those who showed humanity led fulfilling lives. Gradgrind himself has discovered that aside from the â€Å"wisdom of the Head. . . there is the wisdom of the Heart” (Dickens, 2007, p. 295) and Dickens was orotund enough to give his character a chance at true happiness. We end this paper with words from Sleary, circus owner and philosopher as he sums up how it is and how it should be when dealings with your fellow men and when dealing with life.\r\n'