Some Things Never Change

Recently I read "A Christmas Carol" during the holidays.  The commentary at the beginning of the edition I read focused a great deal on how Dickens used the story to illustrate the idea of there being no difference between "good poor" and "bad poor" and the unwillingness of those more fortunate to help others.  As I read the commentary, I couldn't help but think things are still the same in modern society 167 years later.

At the time Dickens wrote "A Christmas Carol" the Industrial Revolution was well under way (or had just passed, my history recall isn't always so great) and many had lost their jobs or experienced financial hardship from it.  The society at that time considered itself to be extremely advanced and cutting edge because of the industrial advances of the age.  Now flash forward and consider where we are now.  Even 10 years ago, did any of us image we'd be running our lives on mobile phones and so completely tied to technology by our phones and the likes of Facebook?  Not to mention the impact that world-wide financial crises have had on our society the last couple of years.  Interesting parallel with pre-Victorian England, isn't it?

Now consider the prevailing attitudes to the homeless and those who have had to severely downsize their lifestyles the last couple of years.  Do we look on them universally with compassion?  Or do we judge and pick and choose who deserves our sympathy and help in their hardships and who doesn't?  It's a hard call, isn't it?  I know I'm guilty of picking and choosing for a variety of reasons and prejudices. 

Seems as though no matter how advanced we think we are, the problems of humanity never change.  Or maybe we never learn from them.  In the end, I wonder if the lesson from all of this is to never assume that living in an advanced society makes us better or immune to the problems of the past and to look within ourselves and decide how we can get past our own ideas and become the change that Dickens and those in our day and age would like to see in  the world.