Overstewed!

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Ah, the perceptivity of novelists. I am reading The Idiot by Dostoevsky and there is an incredible dialogue that happens among all the mad characters drunk off wine and champagne about industry and humanitarian efforts. Lebedev is speaking seriously as the voice of Fydor but is being laughed at by his fellow partiers ... he is making a legal case that we were better off in the 12th century than we are today (even though he states that plauges and famines were a yearly occurrence). Here he is at the beginning:

"Hurrying, clanging, banging, and speeding, they say for the happiness of mankind! 'It's getting much too noisy and industrial in mankind, there is too little spiritual peace,' complains a secluded thinker. 'Yes, but the banging of carts delivering bread for hungry mankind may be better than spiritual peace,' triumphantly replies another, a widely traveled thinker, and walks off vaingloriously. I, the vile Lebedev, do not believe in the carts that deliver bread to mankind!"

He goes on commenting further on the supposed "friend of mankind." Malthus that he mentions is an English economist writing around 1800 and first perceived the threat posed by the increase of human population (I know this only from the notes in the back of the novel)...

"There has already been Malthus, the friend of mankind. But a friend of mankind with shaky moral foundations is a cannibal of mankind, to say nothing of his vainglory; insult the vainglory of one of these numberless friends of mankind, and he is ready at once to set fire to the four corners of the world out of petty vengeance..."

This is a great danger for all of us, especially in the church. How often is any attempt at humanitarian effort, philanthropy, justice ministry, benevolence for the giver more than the givee. We must watch closely for pride which is the chief of all sins.

Lebedev continues: "Show me something resembling such a force in our age of crime and railways ... Show me a thought binding present-day mankind together that is half as strong as in those centuries [preceding ones] ... And don't try and frighten me with your prosperity, your wealth, the rarity of famines, and the speed of your communication! There is greater wealth, but less force; the binding idea is gone; everything has turned soft, everything is overstewed, everyone is overstewed!"

Wealth without force or force that is all wrong. Overstewed!

Lord make haste to help us!

Comments

Jeff Luce said…
"How often is any attempt at humanitarian effort, philanthropy, justice ministry, benevolence for the giver more than the givee."

A great point Jay! Reminds me of some of what Tony Campolo has written about short term mission work. In addition to pride, I would add unhealthy consumer guilt as a driver for this type of giving.
January 4, 2009 at 4:51 AM
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