#The Soul of Man Under Socialism

[philosophybits]

A man who does not think for himself does not think at all.

Oscar Wilde, The Soul of Man Under Socialism

[lostcarnations]

At least three 35 year old American centrist (conservative) women have hung this quote up on their wall in blissful ignorance, calling it rn

[philosophybitmaps]

[dozydawn]

[bleuetfane]

happy birthday to oscar wilde, irish writer, poet and critic, born on this day in 1854

excerpt from the soul of man under socialism, 1891

[quotessentially]

From Oscar Wilde’s The Soul of Man Under Socialism

[blackponderer]

"The Soul of Man under Socialism" by Oscar Wilde

[cavernouscontemplation]

We are often told that the poor are grateful for charity. Some of them are, no doubt, but the best amongst the poor are never grateful. They are ungrateful, discontented, disobedient, and rebellious. They are quite right to be so. Charity they feel to be a ridiculously inadequate mode of partial restitution, or a sentimental dole, usually accompanied by some impertinent attempt on the part of the sentimentalist to tyrannise over their private lives. Why should they be grateful for the crumbs that fall from the rich man’s table? They should be seated at the board, and are beginning to know it. As for being discontented, a man who would not be discontented with such surroundings and such a low mode of life would be a perfect brute. Disobedience, in the eyes of anyone who has read history, is man’s original virtue. It is through disobedience that progress has been made, through disobedience and through rebellion. Sometimes the poor are praised for being thrifty. But to recommend thrift to the poor is both grotesque and insulting. It is like advising a man who is starving to eat less. For a town or country labourer to practise thrift would be absolutely immoral. Man should not be ready to show that he can live like a badly-fed animal. He should decline to live like that, and should either steal or go on the rates, which is considered by many to be a form of stealing. As for begging, it is safer to beg than to take, but it is finer to take than to beg. No: a poor man who is ungrateful, unthrifty, discontented, and rebellious, is probably a real personality, and has much in him.

“The Soul of Man Under Socialism”, Oscar Wilde

[be-harmony]

“The only thing that one really knows about human nature is that it changes.  Change is the one quality we can predicate of it.  The systems that fail are those that rely on the permanency of human nature, and not on its growth and development.”

Oscar Wilde, The Soul of Man under Socialism

[philosophybits]

With the abolition of private property, then, we shall have true, beautiful, healthy Individualism. Nobody will waste his life in accumulating things, and the symbols for things. One will live. To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.

Oscar Wilde, The Soul of Man Under Socialism

[shro-omiey]

There’s this quote by Oscar Wilde, from his essay The Soul of Man Under Socialism:

"It is at once too easy and too difficult to be a popular novelist. It is too easy, because the requirements of the public as far as plot, style, psychology, treatment of life and treatment of literature are concerned, are within the reach of the very meanest capacity and the most uncultivated mind.

It is too difficult, because to meet such requirements the artist would have to do violence to his temperament, would have to write not for the artistic joy of writing, but for the amusement of half-educated people, and so would have to suppress his individualism, forget his culture, annihilate his style, and surrender everything that is valuable in him." (O. Wilde, The Soul Of Man Under Socialism, 1891)

The idea is that it’s difficult to be a creator in the society we live in.

Because you can do things that are popular, and have the eye of whoever is looking at your work, but not be happy with what you've made because it isn’t what you WANT to make, or it isn't how you WANT it to look or who you are as a person. And with this type of work, you can be popular.

Or, you can make what you want to make, and have the joy of making it. But it won’t be popular with society.

You’d be popular. But not happy.

I really hope that one day in the entertainment industry people dont have to feel like they have to hide their identity simply because of the fact it will have effects on their career

[philosophybitmaps]

[wordswithloveee]

[cryinglookingatsoulages]

🤍

[quotessentially]

From Oscar Wilde’s The Soul of Man Under Socialism

[blackponderer]

"The Soul of Man under Socialism" by Oscar Wilde