Description
Excerpt from The Quandary: A Play in Three Acts
Strange as it may seem, we employ none of the excellent means of killing at our disposal. Instead We choose to employ methods that involve the maximum of cost, the maximum of suffering to the subjects, the maximum of danger to the survivors, and which are, in point of ugliness, unsurpassed by the most highly evolved products of ugliness in the entire history of savagery, barbarism and civiliza tion. We torture our weak; we hound and starve and poison them slowly. In truth, the slower the process, the greater our satisfaction. We make indeed slowness the chief point; and the efforts of the legion of our well-intentioned philanthropists, professional moralists and prescribers (read pre scribers, not proscribers) of virtue, are all directed towards this one point - to make the execution of the weak among us as slow a process as possible. To protract the agonies of a weak boy for only SO much as one year is considered by us a deed com pensable by the profoundest sense of moral satis faction. A single Christmas dinner, dished out once a year to a half-starved cannery employee on half time - a potion that may protract her suffer ings for but a few hours - is regarded as an action engendering, much piety and virtue.
In order to show that these lines are not written in a spirit of bias or bitterness, let a word be said in favor of this method. It has the Virtue of saving us the trouble of a diagnosis - the perplexing and difficult task of separating the weak from the strong that a speedy method of execution would necessitate. We merely subject all'the children of our species to atest of strength, to be presently explained, somewhat after the manner of the cold bath administered by the Spartans to their newly born infants. The strong are expected to escape the test. And the weak to succumb to it. Being on a higher plane Of civilization, however, and in possession of the advantages of nineteen centuries of Christianity, our test is superior to that of the Spartans in that it is somewhat more extended, more complex, and rather more - costly.
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This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
Strange as it may seem, we employ none of the excellent means of killing at our disposal. Instead We choose to employ methods that involve the maximum of cost, the maximum of suffering to the subjects, the maximum of danger to the survivors, and which are, in point of ugliness, unsurpassed by the most highly evolved products of ugliness in the entire history of savagery, barbarism and civiliza tion. We torture our weak; we hound and starve and poison them slowly. In truth, the slower the process, the greater our satisfaction. We make indeed slowness the chief point; and the efforts of the legion of our well-intentioned philanthropists, professional moralists and prescribers (read pre scribers, not proscribers) of virtue, are all directed towards this one point - to make the execution of the weak among us as slow a process as possible. To protract the agonies of a weak boy for only SO much as one year is considered by us a deed com pensable by the profoundest sense of moral satis faction. A single Christmas dinner, dished out once a year to a half-starved cannery employee on half time - a potion that may protract her suffer ings for but a few hours - is regarded as an action engendering, much piety and virtue.
In order to show that these lines are not written in a spirit of bias or bitterness, let a word be said in favor of this method. It has the Virtue of saving us the trouble of a diagnosis - the perplexing and difficult task of separating the weak from the strong that a speedy method of execution would necessitate. We merely subject all'the children of our species to atest of strength, to be presently explained, somewhat after the manner of the cold bath administered by the Spartans to their newly born infants. The strong are expected to escape the test. And the weak to succumb to it. Being on a higher plane Of civilization, however, and in possession of the advantages of nineteen centuries of Christianity, our test is superior to that of the Spartans in that it is somewhat more extended, more complex, and rather more - costly.
About the Publisher
Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com
This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
Details
Publisher - Forgotten Books
Author(s) - J. Rosett
Hardback
Published Date -
ISBN - 9780483995475
Dimensions - 22.9 x 15.2 x 1.4 cm
Page Count - 193
Paperback
Published Date -
ISBN - 9781331791133
Dimensions - 22.9 x 15.2 x 1.1 cm
Page Count - 195
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