{Victorian Values}[12th December 1987]

[Redbook4:216-217][19871212:2250f]{Victorian Values}[12th December 1987]

19871212.2250

[continued]

We have an idea of the Victorians as hypocritical and materialistic. So far as hypocrisy is concerned, the Victorians at least had a clear idea of what was right and wrong for them, and stuck to it: when they did wrong, they did it discreetly because they knew it was wrong. When we want to do wrong, we reclassify it as right, on the basis that nothing we want sincerely to do can really be wrong.*

On materialistic concerns – it is we, and not the Victorians, who believe that the standard of living of everyone is of primary importance. It was precisely because the Victorian culture regarded material prosperity as secondary in importance to spiritual welfare, that they were able to tolerate a degree of public squalor and private poverty which we would find unacceptable.**

*(I may owe this idea to someone else.)

**{(I believe)}

[continues]

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