1 00:00:18,399 --> 00:00:22,160 We're back with another edition of the Federalist Radio Hour. I'm Emily Trshenski, 2 00:00:22,199 --> 00:00:24,879 culture editor here at the Federalist. As always, you can email the show 3 00:00:24,879 --> 00:00:29,000 at radio at the Federalist dot com, follow us on Twitter at fdr LST. 4 00:00:29,280 --> 00:00:32,759 Make sure to subscribe wherever you download your podcasts, and to the premium 5 00:00:32,799 --> 00:00:37,079 version of our website as well. Today we are joined by Hillsdale College Professor 6 00:00:37,200 --> 00:00:43,479 Dwight Lindley, who is currently running an online course teaching an online course called 7 00:00:43,560 --> 00:00:48,759 Charles Dickens a Christmas Carol. And you can, by the way, go 8 00:00:48,799 --> 00:00:53,200 to Hillsdale dot edu not just to learn more, but also to sign up 9 00:00:53,200 --> 00:00:55,759 for the course, because, as I mentioned earlier, it is online, 10 00:00:55,759 --> 00:00:59,079 so it's accessible. You don't have to be in little Hillsdale, Michigan to 11 00:00:59,200 --> 00:01:02,960 take the course. So Professor Lindley, thank you so much for joining us. 12 00:01:03,759 --> 00:01:07,079 Thank you, Emily. Happy to be here. Of course, would 13 00:01:07,120 --> 00:01:10,840 you mind telling us just a little bit more about the course and what you're 14 00:01:10,840 --> 00:01:15,640 hoping to sort of get across with it? Sure, it's a short thing. 15 00:01:15,879 --> 00:01:21,640 It just has one little bit of a little lecture for historical introduction and 16 00:01:21,719 --> 00:01:26,480 then one lecture about each of the so called staves of the book, which 17 00:01:26,480 --> 00:01:36,319 are like little chapters, And so it's meant to be a brief but compelling 18 00:01:36,480 --> 00:01:44,239 take on something that is probably familiar to most people from seeing the countless film 19 00:01:44,680 --> 00:01:49,959 and TV versions, But who would like to go a little deeper and see 20 00:01:49,599 --> 00:01:57,079 something more there, especially through a kind of literary close reading of it that 21 00:01:59,040 --> 00:02:01,959 really unearthed the text and brings brings out some of the magic that's there in 22 00:02:02,000 --> 00:02:07,240 the deeper, the deeper senses. So I'm really just trying to refresh an 23 00:02:07,319 --> 00:02:16,439 old and beloved story for people and take them deeper. And what are some 24 00:02:16,520 --> 00:02:24,479 of those things that come through about the text when it's studied through this uh 25 00:02:25,039 --> 00:02:32,159 kind of deeper analysis. Are there some really critical differences between maybe the cartoonified 26 00:02:32,840 --> 00:02:38,560 version of the very familiar by now story that we get from some of the 27 00:02:38,599 --> 00:02:45,159 Hollywood depictions or even you know, simplified narratives for children. Are there are 28 00:02:45,159 --> 00:02:50,680 there key things that you get missed about the story? Yeah, that's a 29 00:02:50,680 --> 00:02:57,240 good question. I mean the things that the Hollywood Hollywood Dickens kind of gets 30 00:02:57,280 --> 00:03:01,639 are the humor, that the scariness, the uncanniness. I mean, it 31 00:03:01,680 --> 00:03:08,800 is ghost story and everything the concern for the poor and the critique of of 32 00:03:08,879 --> 00:03:14,280 Scrooge's narrow materialism and things like this. That's all, you know, there's 33 00:03:14,319 --> 00:03:19,560 no problem that that comes through in the in the the versions that you can 34 00:03:19,599 --> 00:03:27,560 see on video. The things that don't come through as much are, for 35 00:03:27,680 --> 00:03:36,680 my money, the the sheer brilliance of the wordplay and the verbal wit that 36 00:03:36,680 --> 00:03:45,159 that really fills the story as it's written. And and so I that's one 37 00:03:45,319 --> 00:03:50,800 one service I hope that my class can can provide is to introduce people to 38 00:03:52,759 --> 00:03:58,439 some of the hilarious and deep and thoughtful descriptions of things that really come to 39 00:03:58,520 --> 00:04:03,919 life and have tremendous energy. Another couple of things that I think come through 40 00:04:04,400 --> 00:04:14,479 that I'm hoping to bring out in this course. One the kind of childlikeness 41 00:04:15,479 --> 00:04:19,160 that is so important to the story. I think a lot of the Scrooges 42 00:04:19,480 --> 00:04:30,199 and the productions we get from recent years tend to give us a more cynical 43 00:04:30,439 --> 00:04:39,199 and adult picture. I recently watched the trailer to a version from a few 44 00:04:39,279 --> 00:04:46,600 years ago with Tom Hardy and oh what was the other guy's name, but 45 00:04:46,600 --> 00:04:49,560 anyways, a few years ago Christmas Carol, and it was just it was 46 00:04:49,639 --> 00:04:57,079 like this macabre horror story version of a Christmas Carol. But I think there's 47 00:04:57,160 --> 00:05:03,839 this mystery of childlikeness at the heart of it. Scrooge is in a way 48 00:05:06,199 --> 00:05:13,480 becoming a child again in an almost mystical way in the story, and it's 49 00:05:12,879 --> 00:05:16,240 very beautiful and there's a tremendous innocence about it. And then that's related to 50 00:05:16,279 --> 00:05:20,360 the last thing I would say, which is that there's just a profoundly religious 51 00:05:20,360 --> 00:05:28,120 dimension and even like Christian incarnational dimension to the story, which is almost entirely 52 00:05:28,199 --> 00:05:39,000 lost in film adaptations and the common ways of seeing this do you have, 53 00:05:39,120 --> 00:05:42,120 By the way, what just while we're on the subject of favorite adaptation, 54 00:05:42,319 --> 00:05:46,519 is there one that you think does the best job? Well, I mean 55 00:05:46,560 --> 00:05:53,040 I like several. I think I mean it's actually hard to beat the Muppets 56 00:05:53,240 --> 00:05:59,680 in some ways. I actually like several. I think you don't really want 57 00:05:59,800 --> 00:06:05,240 just one because they tend to get different things. Well, I like, 58 00:06:05,759 --> 00:06:11,920 there's one so the Muppets, and then there was one from the nineties with 59 00:06:12,120 --> 00:06:16,360 Patrick Stewart as Scrooge. Those two both actually get a fair amount of the 60 00:06:17,439 --> 00:06:24,199 narrator's voice and the kind of text of the story. I also like the 61 00:06:24,240 --> 00:06:29,319 one with Alistair sim from the middle of the twentieth centuries is Black and White 62 00:06:29,959 --> 00:06:35,360 nineteen fifties. That one is that one actually really captures that that spirit of 63 00:06:35,519 --> 00:06:43,680 kind of childlikeness, which I think is so important to the story. I 64 00:06:43,680 --> 00:06:48,639 can mention others. I'm kind of ecumenical. I like different ones. Well, 65 00:06:48,839 --> 00:06:55,959 as you were preparing to teach the course, is there any historical context 66 00:06:56,399 --> 00:07:00,800 that is important to the era of the time that Dick is writing in that 67 00:07:00,839 --> 00:07:05,240 you felt needed to be conveyed or should be conveyed. Is there anything about 68 00:07:05,240 --> 00:07:12,560 this particular time and history when a Christmas Carol is initially published that you think 69 00:07:12,639 --> 00:07:15,399 is really helpful to kind of understanding the story instead of its message. Oh 70 00:07:15,480 --> 00:07:20,040 yeah, yeah, yeah. As I said, my first lecture is on 71 00:07:20,800 --> 00:07:27,959 that question, and I think this is eighteen forty three in England. The 72 00:07:28,399 --> 00:07:34,199 main historical events and kind of movements that you want to know about are the 73 00:07:34,240 --> 00:07:42,959 industrialization of the British and the world economy, and the related phenomenon of the 74 00:07:43,360 --> 00:07:47,639 urbanization of their population. So you just had a bunch of a bunch of 75 00:07:47,680 --> 00:07:55,519 poor laborers moved into the city and living in really destitute shandy towns. You 76 00:07:55,560 --> 00:08:01,199 know, and we still have these invarious parts of the world, but we're 77 00:08:01,199 --> 00:08:07,560 not used to them being in London in the in the kind of in the 78 00:08:07,600 --> 00:08:15,519 anglosphere in the same way that they were then. And so that kind of 79 00:08:15,720 --> 00:08:24,160 setting of of cultural upheaval and massive, you know, unhoused poverty was was 80 00:08:24,240 --> 00:08:31,480 a big one. And along with that, just I mean, another factor 81 00:08:31,519 --> 00:08:39,000 that goes along with both of those, both of those details is this capacity. 82 00:08:39,120 --> 00:08:46,759 So in a new urbanized, industrialized world, there's more wealth, and 83 00:08:46,879 --> 00:08:52,080 yet there's also this destabilization because everybody's moved away from their families, and so 84 00:08:52,120 --> 00:09:00,639 there are the old supports support systems of family and church and community that you 85 00:09:00,679 --> 00:09:05,080 could just rely on to be your safety net in the eighteenth century and before, 86 00:09:05,279 --> 00:09:13,679 basically in all pre modern periods. That's all gone now and people are 87 00:09:13,799 --> 00:09:18,679 living cheek by jowel in the new urban world, and yet they don't know 88 00:09:18,720 --> 00:09:22,639 how to take care of each other and are not taking care of each other. 89 00:09:22,799 --> 00:09:28,879 That's part of why Dickens wrote this. He's trying to write a Christmas 90 00:09:28,919 --> 00:09:39,440 story that will that will warm people's hearts to this need to dramatically encounter Christ 91 00:09:39,960 --> 00:09:45,840 in the poor and in elite of these in that setting, it almost reminds 92 00:09:45,840 --> 00:09:48,639 me of someone else who was living in Victoria in London around the same time, 93 00:09:48,759 --> 00:09:54,759 and that would be Karl Marx writing about alienation and the sort of ravages 94 00:09:54,000 --> 00:10:01,879 of urban industrialization. Seriously, I mean, if you read friedrich Ingel book 95 00:10:01,120 --> 00:10:07,600 on the State of I'm trying to remember the name of his texts where he 96 00:10:07,679 --> 00:10:13,759 basically went up to Liverpool and Manchester and walked around is like and looked at 97 00:10:13,799 --> 00:10:16,879 the plight of the Irish who had been brought over to work in the mills. 98 00:10:18,639 --> 00:10:22,080 And I mean, you know, there's like a lot of uh, 99 00:10:22,679 --> 00:10:26,960 there's a lot of over driven rhetoric in there, but he's actually talking about 100 00:10:26,000 --> 00:10:31,120 a real problem, you know, the condition of the working class in England. 101 00:10:31,120 --> 00:10:37,159 That's what it's called. And you know it's yeah, they're they're responding 102 00:10:37,200 --> 00:10:46,480 to the same issues with you know, with some different approaches. And Marx 103 00:10:46,559 --> 00:10:48,360 is, you know, maybe more complicated on religion than people realize, although 104 00:10:48,399 --> 00:10:52,519 obviously it sort of lands in the same space that people commonly understand Marx being 105 00:10:52,519 --> 00:10:58,120 in when it comes to religion, but Dickens in religion very very different. 106 00:10:58,039 --> 00:11:03,000 How is how is dickens from a Christian perspective, from a religious perspective, 107 00:11:05,399 --> 00:11:11,279 how is he sort of processing these up the societal upheavals from that background. 108 00:11:13,080 --> 00:11:18,720 Yeah, that's a good question. I mean, he personally, you know, 109 00:11:18,000 --> 00:11:22,480 was kind of his own man. Theologically, he's not he's not kind 110 00:11:22,480 --> 00:11:28,080 of a card carrying Christian of this or that stripe. But he read the 111 00:11:28,080 --> 00:11:37,559 Gospel his entire life and dearly loved Christ. And the moral vision that comes 112 00:11:37,600 --> 00:11:41,759 out of the New Testament was you know, like searingly important to him and 113 00:11:43,399 --> 00:11:46,600 shaped his whole way of seeing the world, not just the moral vision like 114 00:11:46,639 --> 00:11:52,039 he thought. You know, he believed it even though, like I said, 115 00:11:50,759 --> 00:12:00,000 he didn't fit in any place, you know, particularly church wise. 116 00:12:01,120 --> 00:12:07,240 But okay, his how did how did that shape his response to to poverty 117 00:12:07,279 --> 00:12:13,000 and things like this? Basically he thought that, like the test of your 118 00:12:13,039 --> 00:12:18,240 life is how how well will you love those you have been given to love? 119 00:12:18,120 --> 00:12:24,600 And he thought that, you know, the way that you love the 120 00:12:24,720 --> 00:12:31,200 least of these is kind of the most important subset of those. And you 121 00:12:31,240 --> 00:12:35,120 know, he is sincerely believed like that's that's where you're going to meet Christ, 122 00:12:35,600 --> 00:12:43,559 is whatsoever you do to the least of these. And and so I 123 00:12:43,600 --> 00:12:46,840 mean he thought is like, this is this is the one truth I need 124 00:12:46,879 --> 00:12:50,720 to tell in a certain sense. And I think if you, if you 125 00:12:50,759 --> 00:12:52,480 look for that, you see it all over his novels too, his big, 126 00:12:52,600 --> 00:12:58,399 his big fat novels that that people probably don't read as often as they 127 00:12:58,440 --> 00:13:07,919 read a Chriss Carrol. Is this importance of encountering Christ in the poor, 128 00:13:07,159 --> 00:13:16,320 the widows, the orphans, the children, and so on. The Watchdot 129 00:13:16,399 --> 00:13:20,279 on Wall Street podcast with Chris Markowski. Every day Chris helps unpack the connection 130 00:13:20,360 --> 00:13:24,000 between politics and the economy and how it affects your wallet. Where's the fastest 131 00:13:24,039 --> 00:13:28,919 rising area for commercial real estate? Train stations Another huge effect of COVID are 132 00:13:28,960 --> 00:13:33,120 people's chim meets too and from their office. While office buildings in major cities 133 00:13:33,159 --> 00:13:37,159 are getting cleared out, the only parts of cities that are growing are train 134 00:13:37,240 --> 00:13:39,279 stations. Whether it's happening in DC or down on Wall Street, it's affecting 135 00:13:39,320 --> 00:13:43,480 you financially. Be informed. Check out the Watchdot on Wall Street podcast with 136 00:13:43,600 --> 00:13:48,919 Chris Markowski on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Yeah, 137 00:13:48,960 --> 00:13:56,840 and I guess the sort of broader West has you've just gone through so 138 00:13:58,000 --> 00:14:00,600 much. It was going through a lot what it was published, but has 139 00:14:00,600 --> 00:14:03,519 gone through a lot since. I'm thinking right now, just off the top 140 00:14:03,559 --> 00:14:09,039 of my head about Ian hersee Ali's recent conversion to Christianity and how she cited 141 00:14:09,360 --> 00:14:13,279 Tom Holland, who we've had on this program fairly recently, his book Dominion 142 00:14:13,799 --> 00:14:18,440 about sort of the emergence of Christian ethics and how it's the water that we're 143 00:14:18,440 --> 00:14:22,120 swimming in in ways that people don't even you know, it's sort of does 144 00:14:22,120 --> 00:14:26,720 the western fish know that it's wet? The water? Being kind of Christian 145 00:14:26,759 --> 00:14:31,799 ethics and all of that. Is this book sort of a reflection of the 146 00:14:31,840 --> 00:14:35,320 way in which, you know, even when we see the way that both 147 00:14:35,360 --> 00:14:41,399 the left and the right approached Dickens in an ideological sense today even the left 148 00:14:41,639 --> 00:14:48,039 kind of claims Dickens from that perspective of social welfare, it seems to me 149 00:14:48,080 --> 00:14:54,320 there's a dynamic involved actually from the kind of Holland Esque Dominion esque perspective there 150 00:14:54,399 --> 00:14:58,399 when it comes to the through line as you were just explaining of Dickens's message 151 00:14:58,399 --> 00:15:07,840 in a Christmas Carol, Yeah, I mean I think that he he Dickens 152 00:15:09,080 --> 00:15:16,200 took the the I don't know the centrality of the Gospel and its vision to 153 00:15:16,720 --> 00:15:20,679 for his morality like he took it for granted. I mean, he would 154 00:15:20,679 --> 00:15:26,919 never call into question and he repeated it over and over again in his life. 155 00:15:26,399 --> 00:15:31,320 So for him, it was like he would never want to divorce his 156 00:15:31,480 --> 00:15:37,480 social understanding or his his sense of morality from from the Gospel the way that 157 00:15:39,519 --> 00:15:46,120 I don't know, like progressive readers or was a socialist people, yeah, 158 00:15:46,960 --> 00:15:52,559 aggressive people from our own day who would much more carefully want to separate the 159 00:15:52,600 --> 00:15:56,879 two. So he wouldn't have even imagined wanting to do it. But I 160 00:15:56,879 --> 00:16:02,240 mean, yeah, it's it's it's really is true what Tom Holland says that 161 00:16:03,120 --> 00:16:11,000 the poor and and children. I mean, we could add women don't really 162 00:16:11,360 --> 00:16:18,440 have that don't don't really start to attain a place of importance until Jesus gives 163 00:16:18,440 --> 00:16:22,159 it to them. I mean, I think I think you can you can 164 00:16:22,200 --> 00:16:29,960 see uh, really important directions that are already pointing there in the in the 165 00:16:30,000 --> 00:16:36,559 Old Testament, but especially in the New Testament, you know Jesus. I 166 00:16:36,559 --> 00:16:40,720 mean, like in Paul, I often talk about this in my classes that 167 00:16:41,039 --> 00:16:45,120 if you don't like we take for granted so many things. But Paul in 168 00:16:45,240 --> 00:16:51,759 Galatians three says there's no now, no longer June or Greek slave, nor 169 00:16:51,799 --> 00:16:56,559 free male nor female. All there one in Christ Jesus. And there's this 170 00:16:56,720 --> 00:17:03,200 kind of equality across all of these old lines that the pagan world took for 171 00:17:03,279 --> 00:17:11,839 granted of tribe, ethnicity, class, sex, and so on. And 172 00:17:11,200 --> 00:17:15,880 Paul says, no, there's a kind of equality of persons across these lines 173 00:17:15,880 --> 00:17:22,920 which before God, right, and just that's such a challenging thing to the 174 00:17:22,960 --> 00:17:27,839 old world. And then the same thing with children and poor as as we 175 00:17:27,880 --> 00:17:33,680 can see elsewhere in the Gospel. And so anyway, I think that that 176 00:17:33,799 --> 00:17:40,920 kind of Christian revolution in moral thinking is definitely at the heart of Dickens's vision 177 00:17:41,000 --> 00:17:48,000 and something that people today don't necessarily understand. Yeah, could you speak to 178 00:17:48,079 --> 00:17:52,000 women in a Christmas carol and the role that they play just in this narrative 179 00:17:52,039 --> 00:17:57,319 alone, that's a good question. There's not much to say, unfortunately. 180 00:17:59,759 --> 00:18:03,519 I mean, for anybody who's read it, you know that it's you know, 181 00:18:03,599 --> 00:18:11,720 it's it's mostly guys. There are There is a Scrooge's fiance whom he 182 00:18:11,279 --> 00:18:18,279 left years ago. He in my reading of Scrooge is that he has basically 183 00:18:18,039 --> 00:18:26,119 decided years back to retreat into a kind of moral and personal isolation in order 184 00:18:26,200 --> 00:18:33,240 to defend himself, in order to avoid vulnerability and to protect himself from you 185 00:18:33,279 --> 00:18:37,559 know, being hurt and uh, and to kind of attain this sort of 186 00:18:37,680 --> 00:18:42,640 control of his life. But that that enables that it forces him to not 187 00:18:42,759 --> 00:18:48,400 to make room for other people. So so he loses a fiance over this, 188 00:18:48,319 --> 00:18:52,160 and that's uh, you know, part of a short backstory we get 189 00:18:52,799 --> 00:19:00,400 in Dave number two, the Ghost of Christmas Past. So this a little 190 00:19:00,440 --> 00:19:03,720 bit of a female presence there, and then there's a definitely a female presence 191 00:19:03,720 --> 00:19:10,400 in the Cratchett family where I don't know, we see Missus Cratchett as a 192 00:19:10,400 --> 00:19:15,160 homemaker, and then there's his nephew, Freddy's wife. Yeah, I was 193 00:19:15,160 --> 00:19:19,359 gonna say, Fred's wife is the only other one. And there it's very 194 00:19:19,440 --> 00:19:25,440 much in the context of the home. I mean, the Victorian period didn't 195 00:19:25,480 --> 00:19:29,799 really I mean didn't really envision a lot of roles for women outside of the 196 00:19:29,880 --> 00:19:37,720 home, with some important exceptions, but it was a time when I mean, 197 00:19:37,759 --> 00:19:40,440 this is one of the I don't know, this is a huge conversation, 198 00:19:41,319 --> 00:19:44,480 So forgive me, but just to touch on it, please touch on 199 00:19:44,519 --> 00:19:51,759 it very briefly. But you know, the industrializing urbanizing economy had moved out 200 00:19:51,799 --> 00:20:00,160 of the old world sort of household system of economy which was there in the 201 00:20:00,200 --> 00:20:07,839 eighteenth century at all previous centuries where families were working together in the household, 202 00:20:07,319 --> 00:20:11,759 which is where you ran your business, and so you had your the father, 203 00:20:11,920 --> 00:20:15,960 the mother, and children would all be part of the same economic project, 204 00:20:15,039 --> 00:20:22,759 which is you know, either agricultural or you know, weaving or running 205 00:20:22,759 --> 00:20:26,599 a store or whatever it is. Everybody would be part of it, and 206 00:20:26,599 --> 00:20:30,279 it was sort of run out of the family. So there was this kind 207 00:20:30,319 --> 00:20:37,559 of more porous, porous boundary between work and family, and and women were 208 00:20:37,640 --> 00:20:41,839 like never not part of that. You know, when in the nineteenth century 209 00:20:41,880 --> 00:20:49,839 with industrialized industrialization and urbanization, you have you have the jobs moving out of 210 00:20:49,880 --> 00:20:53,400 the family. You're going to go work in that factory over there, or 211 00:20:53,440 --> 00:20:57,599 in management over here, or in the or over this shop, and then 212 00:20:57,640 --> 00:21:00,680 you're going to live in this other place, and the men are out and 213 00:21:00,720 --> 00:21:04,880 the women are in with the children, and all of a sudden, it's 214 00:21:06,000 --> 00:21:11,920 like it's separated where it used to be together, and that creates a kind 215 00:21:11,920 --> 00:21:18,039 of crisis for women's vocations, women's roles, because Okay, so my only 216 00:21:18,119 --> 00:21:23,440 work is now in the home, and I have to choose between loving my 217 00:21:23,559 --> 00:21:27,480 family this way and well, I mean, what it becomes in the twentieth 218 00:21:27,519 --> 00:21:32,400 centuries, do I have to choose between the home and work and all of 219 00:21:32,400 --> 00:21:37,680 these questions that we've been preoccupied with for the last hundred years. So part 220 00:21:37,680 --> 00:21:41,920 of that is like still dealing with the after effects of this urbanized, industrialized 221 00:21:41,960 --> 00:21:48,519 economy. This is not something that Dickens writes about too much, although I 222 00:21:48,519 --> 00:21:52,839 think you can see it if you start looking that there are some good books 223 00:21:52,839 --> 00:21:56,319 about this recently, thinking of okay, what is her name? It came 224 00:21:56,319 --> 00:22:00,440 out from Notre Dame Press and she's an Italian last name. Oh yes, 225 00:22:00,480 --> 00:22:07,599 that's a fantastic book, Erica. Yep, that is fantastic. Yes, 226 00:22:07,680 --> 00:22:11,920 yeah, So she really addresses some of these some of these issues I think, 227 00:22:11,960 --> 00:22:15,279 really profoundly. And she's not the only one, so I think it's 228 00:22:15,319 --> 00:22:19,519 getting attention. Yeah. Mary Harrington sort of from a Marxist perspective exactly too. 229 00:22:19,640 --> 00:22:25,519 Yeah, the division of labors is kind of a post industrial Mary Harrington 230 00:22:25,559 --> 00:22:30,039 writes about it hilariously. I mean, she's very talented, right yeah, 231 00:22:30,119 --> 00:22:36,359 and that's it's due, you know, it should be written about. And 232 00:22:36,440 --> 00:22:37,480 I have to imagine, actually, you know, sort of teaching this. 233 00:22:38,000 --> 00:22:42,960 There are a lot of priors that go unchallenged in our political discourse and our 234 00:22:44,000 --> 00:22:48,519 cultural discourse. And I have to imagine you started teaching this and putting into 235 00:22:48,519 --> 00:22:51,440 a course format, and then even you know, in other classes as you 236 00:22:51,839 --> 00:22:56,119 talk about some of this with students, all those hills, those students are 237 00:22:56,359 --> 00:23:00,720 obviously some of the very best around. Still again, the sort of cultural 238 00:23:00,759 --> 00:23:04,680 waters that we swim in, certain things we really do take for granted. 239 00:23:04,720 --> 00:23:11,000 It has to be pretty interesting teaching some of the stuff right now. Yeah, 240 00:23:11,039 --> 00:23:14,960 I think so. I mean, I thought a whole class on Dickens's 241 00:23:15,039 --> 00:23:21,839 Last Fall, and it's really kind of looking at some of the issues that 242 00:23:21,960 --> 00:23:26,680 have blossomed and in some cases exploded in our own days that are going crazy 243 00:23:26,720 --> 00:23:33,599 in sideways. You're seeing them in a kind of earlier form, when they 244 00:23:33,640 --> 00:23:41,440 were a lot fresher and closer to the to their beginnings. I mean, 245 00:23:41,720 --> 00:23:48,400 I basically just think it's an earlier stage in late modernities development where you can. 246 00:23:48,200 --> 00:23:52,319 It really is enables us to face our own questions in a fresh way. 247 00:23:53,359 --> 00:23:56,400 And the students definitely do see that. Right. I was going to 248 00:23:56,440 --> 00:24:02,880 say, actually, in some ways the marriage subplot feels incredibly modern. It 249 00:24:03,039 --> 00:24:06,359 just it is so and in some cases, you know, you kind of 250 00:24:06,359 --> 00:24:11,359 have the flipped sexes. But I mean either way, actually this priority supplot 251 00:24:11,440 --> 00:24:17,079 in general, like across novels. Oh with Scrooge, but yes, in 252 00:24:17,119 --> 00:24:22,759 general. But yeah, in Scrooge's case, you sart prioritizing work over marriage 253 00:24:22,799 --> 00:24:26,880 and looking back. Oh yeah, at the emptiness in your life is in 254 00:24:26,960 --> 00:24:29,720 some I mean that is just you cold. That could be ripped from the 255 00:24:29,720 --> 00:24:33,839 pages of or I should say, from this day and age more the ripped 256 00:24:33,839 --> 00:24:40,559 from the video and audio of any TV show, because it's it's almost in 257 00:24:40,599 --> 00:24:44,759 its proto form, as you were saying in Christmas currently. No, I 258 00:24:44,799 --> 00:24:48,559 totally agree, and I mean, he's well, this this story is kind 259 00:24:48,599 --> 00:24:52,160 of a story of him waking up and realizing what has my life been about? 260 00:24:52,200 --> 00:24:56,680 It's not actually about the most important things. And I think there are 261 00:24:56,720 --> 00:25:00,839 so many people like that who we see who are in their you know, 262 00:25:02,640 --> 00:25:07,279 late thirties, forties, maybe fifties, maybe later trying to start over again, 263 00:25:07,400 --> 00:25:15,480 or starting a late family, or you know, somehow beginning again and 264 00:25:15,519 --> 00:25:23,920 reorienting because their first their first X many decades where they were working hard, 265 00:25:25,000 --> 00:25:26,319 and yet what is it? Was it? What is it all for? 266 00:25:29,680 --> 00:25:32,640 You know? Actually that's a great segue into a question I wanted to ask 267 00:25:32,680 --> 00:25:37,680 as well, which is why a Christmas Carol? You know you said this 268 00:25:37,720 --> 00:25:42,359 earlier. There are all of these other rich Dickens stories that has stuck with 269 00:25:42,480 --> 00:25:47,599 us, that are still familiar, that are still popular, but probably none 270 00:25:47,680 --> 00:25:51,799 as much as Christmas Carol. Why do you think it is that this one 271 00:25:51,920 --> 00:25:56,440 continues to have such resonance with people year after year after year in a way 272 00:25:56,480 --> 00:26:02,039 that you know, the others well popular, don't quite you know, they 273 00:26:02,039 --> 00:26:06,440 don't quite have this level of popularity. That's a really good question. I 274 00:26:06,519 --> 00:26:10,839 think there are a few, uh, sort of reasons for that that are 275 00:26:10,880 --> 00:26:15,599 all converging in this in this little book. One is that it's little Unlike 276 00:26:15,640 --> 00:26:21,160 his other books, or a lot of his other books, people just don't 277 00:26:21,200 --> 00:26:26,240 have long attention spans anymore. We can watch and people will watch the mini 278 00:26:26,279 --> 00:26:33,079 series for Bleak House or or whatever, Little Dorrit. But they're not, 279 00:26:33,720 --> 00:26:37,440 you know, they're not going to read the book. I think a lot, 280 00:26:37,440 --> 00:26:42,640 at least most people, so that the brevity. But I think maybe 281 00:26:42,759 --> 00:26:48,960 more to the point is is just the fact that in late December, you 282 00:26:49,000 --> 00:26:55,680 know, in midwinter. I think it's a it's a it's a time when 283 00:26:55,720 --> 00:27:00,440 a lot of people struggle with depression. And I think that in turn has 284 00:27:00,519 --> 00:27:07,839 to do with the sense that there should be a meaning here like this, 285 00:27:07,839 --> 00:27:14,319 this is the time we associate with Christmas in the old Christian way of seeing 286 00:27:14,359 --> 00:27:18,240 the world. This is the time where like the secret of the of the 287 00:27:18,279 --> 00:27:25,319 divine entering the human and giving a radical new hope and meaning to to all 288 00:27:25,400 --> 00:27:30,160 of reality. Right like that, it's it's a living, open secret at 289 00:27:30,200 --> 00:27:37,119 the heart of things. Well, I think we late moderns and postmoderns still 290 00:27:37,240 --> 00:27:42,279 have the ghost of that memory no pun intended, present with us, and 291 00:27:42,720 --> 00:27:47,079 you can't quite forget it, you know. I mean. Tom Hollins talks 292 00:27:47,119 --> 00:27:53,480 about the way that Christianity has informed our moral sense and our I don't know, 293 00:27:53,519 --> 00:27:59,680 our frame, our inherited frameworks for justice and other other questions like that 294 00:28:00,079 --> 00:28:04,519 apology. We can also talk about this inherited sense even of time and of 295 00:28:04,559 --> 00:28:10,480 the time of year. I think there's this expectation for profundity of meaning, 296 00:28:11,480 --> 00:28:14,000 a light in the darkness, you know, in the midst of the dark 297 00:28:14,039 --> 00:28:18,759 time of the year. And we get together with our families, and you 298 00:28:18,759 --> 00:28:22,319 know, it's hard to get together with your family for you know, more 299 00:28:22,440 --> 00:28:26,279 or less depending on what your family is and what it's like. But it's 300 00:28:26,440 --> 00:28:30,680 you know, oftentimes it just doesn't pay back. Okay. So what I'm 301 00:28:30,720 --> 00:28:33,799 saying is, I think one of the reasons people go to Christmas Carol over 302 00:28:33,839 --> 00:28:41,880 and over again is because it actually provides some access to that mysterious meaning at 303 00:28:41,880 --> 00:28:45,920 the heart of at the heart of things, and at the heart of this 304 00:28:45,920 --> 00:28:49,960 this time of the year that we have we feel a profound need for. 305 00:28:51,839 --> 00:28:56,200 Does that make sense? Oh? Absolutely, that makes sense. And that 306 00:28:56,240 --> 00:28:59,279 reminds me of another question I wanted to ask in a weird way. I 307 00:28:59,319 --> 00:29:03,400 think maybe you know, ten years after this book comes out, Queen Victoria 308 00:29:03,480 --> 00:29:10,680 herself, is you reported to be using mediums and the question of religion again 309 00:29:10,720 --> 00:29:17,799 and Christianity and the question of sort of spiritualism that is emerging in the Victorian 310 00:29:18,359 --> 00:29:23,759 West at that time. Obviously there has to be some technological aspect to that. 311 00:29:23,799 --> 00:29:29,720 You know, people are doing very early versions of photoshop, and as 312 00:29:29,759 --> 00:29:32,960 it relates to ghosts and all of that stuff. Because photography has just been 313 00:29:33,000 --> 00:29:37,279 invented, you can have so much fun with it. But also there's this 314 00:29:37,000 --> 00:29:45,920 mingling of Christian culture, spiritualism, and the supernatural. How is this book 315 00:29:45,000 --> 00:29:48,799 kind of if it is part of that or is it part of that? 316 00:29:48,000 --> 00:29:53,920 And if it is, how is it part of that kind of cultural conversation 317 00:29:53,960 --> 00:30:00,200 that was happening at the time. Yeah, that's a good question. Yeah, 318 00:30:00,880 --> 00:30:08,000 I mean it's it's a complicated issue. I think the advent of spiritualism 319 00:30:08,160 --> 00:30:15,880 and in the later nineteenth century you get all this funny business about seances and 320 00:30:17,039 --> 00:30:23,519 occult questions. I mean, I think it all registers just a profound hunger 321 00:30:23,799 --> 00:30:37,440 for spiritual meaning and that the more that traditional Christianity is not presumed to supply 322 00:30:37,759 --> 00:30:45,519 that that kind of mystical spiritual hunger. More the traditional Christianity is not taken 323 00:30:45,519 --> 00:30:48,839 to meet that need or that desire, that sense of things that that side 324 00:30:48,880 --> 00:30:53,880 of the world, people are going to explore other options. They're going to 325 00:30:55,079 --> 00:30:59,559 find that somewhere. They're going to search for it. Because you know, 326 00:30:59,640 --> 00:31:02,480 I mean, command is a mystical animal in some ways, like we have 327 00:31:02,519 --> 00:31:11,599 this sense that there is an invisible reality which is somehow impinging upon my material 328 00:31:11,000 --> 00:31:17,119 experience. I mean, that's just as old as human beings, and it 329 00:31:17,160 --> 00:31:19,599 will always be here, you know. And so what I'm saying, I 330 00:31:19,599 --> 00:31:30,839 guess is over the nineteenth century you have a waning of influence beginning of traditional 331 00:31:30,920 --> 00:31:37,720 Christianity, especially among the educated set. There's just already a kind of deconstruction 332 00:31:37,920 --> 00:31:45,319 of the Bible and of I don't know, like Christian history. You know, 333 00:31:45,720 --> 00:31:48,880 people starting to look back at history and look at the formulation of a 334 00:31:49,000 --> 00:31:53,920 doctrine of the trinity for example, or the incarnation and the nature of Christ. 335 00:31:55,039 --> 00:31:57,559 All these kinds of things. You look back there and it's actually pretty 336 00:31:57,599 --> 00:32:07,640 messy. And the so called Higher Criticism is a movement for the interpretation of 337 00:32:07,680 --> 00:32:15,240 the Bible and Christian theology out of Germany, very very influential on liberal Protestantism 338 00:32:15,200 --> 00:32:20,839 in the nineteenth century in England. And like I said, it and other 339 00:32:20,920 --> 00:32:23,960 forces, you know, also we can talk about Darwinism and other challenges. 340 00:32:25,680 --> 00:32:32,359 But these these multiple convergent forces are influencing a lot of educated set to lose 341 00:32:32,400 --> 00:32:39,559 their faith and yet they're still spiritually seeking. You know, Queen Victoria, 342 00:32:39,759 --> 00:32:45,200 as far as I know, never never lost her faith, but you know, 343 00:32:45,680 --> 00:32:54,000 she's she's surrounded by people in the zeitgeist. And right, go ahead, 344 00:32:54,279 --> 00:32:58,119 what it was you actually get into that question of Darwinism, because that 345 00:32:58,279 --> 00:33:04,960 does seem really interesting everything we started talked about here. Okay, so origin 346 00:33:05,000 --> 00:33:12,200 of species is I believe eighteen fifty eight. I'm doubting myself whether it's forty 347 00:33:12,240 --> 00:33:15,920 eight right now, but I think it's fifty eight. And even before that, 348 00:33:15,640 --> 00:33:22,400 people were already talking about you were already talking about evolution as a possible 349 00:33:22,480 --> 00:33:27,359 theory. But that's that was the bombshell in fifty eight. Already, in 350 00:33:27,599 --> 00:33:32,160 I think eighteen thirty, another guy named Sir Charles Lyle, who was a 351 00:33:32,240 --> 00:33:38,640 geologist, he had already advanced this theory of the age of the Earth based 352 00:33:38,680 --> 00:33:45,680 on his analysis of you know, strata of strata of soil and rock, 353 00:33:45,240 --> 00:33:49,319 and he was saying, look, the world has to be much older than 354 00:33:49,359 --> 00:33:57,279 six thousand years which was one dominant traditional way of dating the earth, you 355 00:33:57,319 --> 00:34:00,160 know, just using the Bible was oh, it's six thousand years old, 356 00:34:00,200 --> 00:34:02,839 and this guy, Sir Charles Lylyy teen thirty. No, there's no way. 357 00:34:02,839 --> 00:34:06,799 In heck, it's six thousand years old. It's got to be millions 358 00:34:06,839 --> 00:34:10,239 of years old. And so people are starting to I mean that already is 359 00:34:10,280 --> 00:34:17,039 shake, like it's already shaking the foundation of a certain kind of simple faith 360 00:34:17,679 --> 00:34:22,800 in the Bible as a measurement of time. And then the origin of species 361 00:34:24,480 --> 00:34:29,880 goes like works along with that and says, okay, so we've got we 362 00:34:30,000 --> 00:34:35,239 have like these eons of time over the course of which we are actually gradually 363 00:34:35,280 --> 00:34:40,639 becoming who we are as a species. That like even more drastically challenges the 364 00:34:40,639 --> 00:34:45,239 Biblical account not only of time, but of of I don't know, like 365 00:34:45,440 --> 00:34:53,840 of creation. And I don't know. It's just it's hard to exaggerate what 366 00:34:55,159 --> 00:35:04,519 a horrifying shock that it is to the intellectuals, right, the people who 367 00:35:04,559 --> 00:35:08,000 are going to college, the people who want to think about things, even 368 00:35:08,039 --> 00:35:12,960 if they're just going into business or going into the law, whatever. They 369 00:35:12,960 --> 00:35:15,119 want to think about things, and they want to have reasons for things. 370 00:35:15,159 --> 00:35:20,960 They want to look into the reasons for their beliefs. And like I said, 371 00:35:21,000 --> 00:35:25,159 you just have a hemorrhaging of those that educated set from there from the 372 00:35:25,239 --> 00:35:36,400 church churches throughout the century. I don't know if that helps absolutely. Is 373 00:35:36,440 --> 00:35:40,920 there anything that we haven't talked about that you emphasize in the course that you 374 00:35:42,000 --> 00:35:45,000 want to kind of leave listeners with, or you think is really important to 375 00:35:45,119 --> 00:35:49,000 understand about this text. I think the one thing that I would want to 376 00:35:49,480 --> 00:35:54,920 turn to real quick is one passage that I just think is at the heart 377 00:35:55,000 --> 00:36:00,039 of the meaning of the book and yet tends to be missed in all of 378 00:36:00,119 --> 00:36:07,800 the video versions that people are used to. And this comes from Stave four, 379 00:36:07,920 --> 00:36:12,639 you know, instead of chapters that are arranged as staves or like musical 380 00:36:12,679 --> 00:36:16,639 staffs, because it's a Christmas Carol. So in Stave four, this is 381 00:36:16,639 --> 00:36:21,639 the visit from the last of the Three Spirits, Ghost of Christmas yet to 382 00:36:21,639 --> 00:36:29,199 come. Scrooge goes to see the Cratchett family and tiny Tim has died in 383 00:36:29,239 --> 00:36:34,159 this possible future that he's viewing here, and the Cratchett family is sitting around 384 00:36:34,159 --> 00:36:37,079 and they're actually reading the Bible. The oldest Cratchett boy, Peter Cratchett, 385 00:36:37,079 --> 00:36:43,199 is reading from the Gospel and he reads this line says and he took a 386 00:36:43,320 --> 00:36:45,840 child and set him in the midst of them? Right, So this is 387 00:36:45,920 --> 00:36:50,280 very kind of has a lot of pathos to it because tiny Tim is dead. 388 00:36:51,000 --> 00:36:54,639 But then Scrooge says where the narrator says, where had Scrooge heard those 389 00:36:54,679 --> 00:36:59,400 words? He had not dreamed them. The boy must have read them out 390 00:36:59,719 --> 00:37:01,920 as he and the spirit crossed the threshold. Why did he not go on? 391 00:37:02,920 --> 00:37:07,199 Okay? So the interesting thing about it, it is the Bible verse 392 00:37:07,239 --> 00:37:13,039 is from Mark nine thirty six, and Scrooge hears it and thinks, now, 393 00:37:13,079 --> 00:37:15,880 what's right? Like why does he not going on? Like? What's 394 00:37:15,000 --> 00:37:22,199 next? And so the text there is actually leading us to is leading its 395 00:37:22,639 --> 00:37:27,159 its audience, which is much more biblically literate than ours is today, which 396 00:37:27,199 --> 00:37:30,679 would not be hard, right, leading this biblically literate audience to think, 397 00:37:30,719 --> 00:37:35,280 well, what is the next verse in the scripture? If you look at 398 00:37:35,440 --> 00:37:39,320 Mark nine thirty seven, the next verse it says, whosoever shall receive one 399 00:37:39,360 --> 00:37:45,119 of such children in my name, receiveth me. Okay. So not only 400 00:37:45,320 --> 00:37:50,360 is the book about taking a child and setting him in the midst of them, 401 00:37:50,719 --> 00:37:55,559 which this book is definitely like, it's a succession of children and poor 402 00:37:55,840 --> 00:38:01,239 and widows and someone who are put into Scrooge's life. That's definitely happening. 403 00:38:01,840 --> 00:38:09,840 But the other suggestion, like the the implicit suggestion in this passage and elsewhere, 404 00:38:10,440 --> 00:38:15,280 is that in encountering that those the least of these, Scrooge is encountering 405 00:38:15,320 --> 00:38:22,800 God whatever you know, whoever receives them, receives me. And so I 406 00:38:22,840 --> 00:38:27,119 think the core message at the heart of the whole story, and what's so 407 00:38:27,199 --> 00:38:35,159 compelling about it, is in in encountering the poor, the widows, the 408 00:38:35,280 --> 00:38:39,480 orphans, the children, the least of these with love, you're encountering God 409 00:38:39,639 --> 00:38:45,639 like you have this encounter with the divine, which is profoundly meaningful in life 410 00:38:45,760 --> 00:38:55,639 changing. And that's that's the truth. I think that people long to hear 411 00:38:57,159 --> 00:39:00,880 and that they come back to this story for whether they spell it out for 412 00:39:00,920 --> 00:39:06,519 themselves that way or not. This has just been so fascinating. On a 413 00:39:06,519 --> 00:39:13,280 personal note, my mom and my grandma used to take me to the Milwaukee 414 00:39:13,400 --> 00:39:20,519 Repertory Theaters production of Christmas Carol at the beautiful Gilded Past Theater in downtown Milwaukee 415 00:39:20,559 --> 00:39:22,679 every year growing up, and my mom and I still try to go every 416 00:39:22,719 --> 00:39:27,159 single year. It's just a wonderful tradition, not just for my family, 417 00:39:27,199 --> 00:39:30,119 but of course for many families. So I just really appreciate this opportunity, 418 00:39:30,199 --> 00:39:34,480 professor, to dig a little deeper into it. And again, folks can 419 00:39:34,559 --> 00:39:38,159 find more about this course at Hillsdale dot edu. Right, yes, that's 420 00:39:38,239 --> 00:39:43,400 right, well, fantastic, Thank you so much for joining us. Thank 421 00:39:43,440 --> 00:39:45,719 you, Emily, it's been a great of course. Dwight Lindley is a 422 00:39:45,760 --> 00:39:51,280 professor at Hillsdale College. Again to learn more Hillsdale dot Edu. I'm Emily 423 00:39:51,320 --> 00:39:53,280 Dashchenski, culture editor here at The Federalist. We will be back soon with 424 00:39:53,360 --> 00:39:57,920 more. Until then, be lovers of freedom and anxious for the friend. 425 00:40:00,000 --> 00:40:07,599 You got me ride, but you won't scrap