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Aula Virtual Prof. Jorge Converso

Europe’s new Victorians
By: Ivan Briscoe
(1)THE HAGUE — Seth Pecksniff, despite his name, looms large over the syndrome
of today’s Europe. Preaching the highest moral values, Pecksniff is nevertheless
unsure whether it would be in the general interest to provide everyone with a sound
evening meal. “If everyone were warm and well fed,” he opines, “we should lose the
satisfaction of admiring the fortitude with which certain conditions of men bear cold and
hunger.”
(7)Who would ever wish to forego the stirring fortitude of the soup kitchen? Or the sight
of a malnourished child completing his or her homework, preferably under a streetlight?
Against such character and grit, all our cozy divans give us is sheer tedium.
(10)As you may know, Pecksniff is not real. He is not even contemporary. Instead, he
occupies the reams of printed pages that make up Charles Dickens’ most concentrated
meditation on selfishness, Martin Chuzzlewit. For an author who spent most of his
writing life dissecting the constituents that go to make up blinkered, egotistical and
insensitive behaviour, or to exploring the existential innards of hunger (“there are
people in the world so hungry, that God cannot appear to them except in the form of
bread”), devoting an entire work to this unappetizing theme might seem excessive.
(17)But Dickens inhabited the greatest age of progress and inhumanity: the Victorian
era of Britain. And although the country and the continent has spent the best part of
over a 100 years mocking that epoch for its corsets, self-flagellating prime minister
(William Ewart Gladstone), and oceans of hypocrisy, not least in a smog-filled London
where fierce public morality and mass prostitution co-existed, reading Dickens now
also serves to show how the aura of that epoch lingers in the air.
(23)The impression from last week is that the grip of Victoriana is probably tighter than
previously thought. Two new opinion polls, one British and the other Europe-wide,
appear to show that the years of austerity since 2008 have not led to greater
understanding between rich and poor, but a virulent and spreading mistrust of the least
well-off. Nodding sagely, Dickens would know exactly where the public now stands,
obsessively separating deserving poor people from the undeserving sorts,
distinguishing the residuum from the upstanding proletariat, and re-inventing the work
house.
(31)Parents’ failings
First was a new study in Britain by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, established by
one of the Victorian era’s outstanding philanthropists. The survey underlines what
many other polls have already noted: a growing belief that children are poor because of
their parents’ failings (66 per cent), or that unemployed people could find a job if they
really wanted (56 per cent agree). Perhaps most significantly for the political
landscape, it also flags the fact that centre-left voters are increasingly inclined to view
poverty as the result of individual failings, not the effect of systemic injustice.
(39)The second piece of evidence is even more extraordinary. Based on interviews
across eight countries, the survey from Pew Research revealed a chasm in the centre
of the currency union, whereby every country but Germany is staggeringly fed-up and
pessimistic. Yet at the very same time, a majority in every country but Greece regards
the best way forward as continuing budget cuts: 67 per cent in Spain support cuts over
fiscal stimulus. In every land there is a strong majority behind staying in the euro.
(45)An upbeat reading of these two polls would doubtless suggest they prove a
European readiness to slim and flex in order to enter competitive economic combat
with the Chinese or Brazilians. Yet this seeming eagerness to please the global market
sits uneasily with the findings that many more people are short of food (the number of
French who lacked money at some time to buy food has tripled to 20 per cent), that
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inequality is a primary continental concern, or that most populations are unhappy with
their national and EU leaders. It is as if the entire European continent has severed the
bridge between its two cerebral hemispheres: it knows something is wrong in the social
and political mix, but somehow it cannot escape approving of it.
(54)The distant whiff of Pecksniff is now unmistakable. What is best for the poor, the
British and European majorities hold, is to be redeemed through their own efforts; even
if they fail, the sight will satisfy everyone else. Meanwhile, we should all continue to
complain about our governments and the economy, but without offering anything by the
way of alternative.
(59)Now, there is no doubt that managing large debt loads is an economic priority. Just
as important is correcting the irrational exuberance that generated the economic crisis
in the first place, above all in the financial industry and real estate. Yet the preferred
target for blame and correction for many Europeans has simply become the cunning
and indolent poor, whose crimes pepper the British tabloid press or the barstool
conversations of supporters of the latest popular attraction in political life, the UK
Independence Party.
(66)It takes limitless ignorance and a serious hardening of the arteries for compassion
to believe that Europe’s welfare claimants are all tricksters. So it may be worth
repeating the obvious. Some are poor because of a mental or physical ailment. They
may have suffered a sudden job loss, divorce, or a sudden family death. Presumably,
in these cases, they might be the “deserving” poor. But unsure of whether they deserve
anything or not, and accustomed to being mistrusted, they may instead turn to cheap
and cheery food, grow obese, or, according to a new book by leading health
economists (The Body Economic), simply kill themselves: an estimated 10,000 extra
suicides have been recorded in Europe and North America since the crisis began,
alongside a million more cases of depression.
(75)But for now, just as the Victorians, we tell the poor that they can do it. And only
they are to blame if they cannot.

Source: The Buenos Aires Herald, May 22, 2013

ACTIVIDAD I

Responder:

1) ¿Quién es Seth Pecksniff? Buscar información fuera del texto.

2) ¿Qué afirma Pecksniff en el primer párrafo? ¿Qué señala el autor
del texto al respecto? ¿En qué tono lo hace?
3) ¿Qué temas exploró Dickens en la mayor parte de su obra?
4) ¿Por qué el autor utiliza el adjetivo unappetizing (“this
unappetizing theme”) al final del tercer párrafo?
5) ¿Cómo se describe la época victoriana?
6) ¿Por qué es útil leer a Dickens en la actualidad?
7) ¿Qué muestran dos sondeos de opinión recientes en términos
generales?
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8) Referirse específicamente a la encuesta de la Fundación Joseph

Roundtree.
9) Detallar los resultados de la encuesta de Pew Research.
10) ¿Qué paradoja se plantea en Europa en la actualidad según el
texto?
11) ¿Quiénes constituyen el principal blanco de ataque de los
europeos? ¿Qué motivos esgrimen estos para justificar su actitud?
12) ¿A qué hace referencia la expresión the British tabloid press?
13) ¿Quiénes son los new victorians de Europa a quienes se
menciona en el título del artículo?

ACTIVIDAD II
a) Leer las oraciones subrayadas. Determinar cuál es el sujeto y el
predicado en cada una.
b) ¿Qué función cumple el pronombre it en ambas oraciones?
c) Traducir las oraciones.

ACTIVIDAD III

Proponer un equivalente en castellano de los conectores en

negrita según el contexto en el que aparecen.

ACTIVIDAD IV

Afijación.

Observe las siguientes palabras que contienen a) prefijos y b) sufijos.

Sugiera un equivalente en castellano de acuerdo con el contexto.

a) Prefijos:
 unsure (renglón 3)
 malnourished (renglón 8)
 insensitive (renglón 14)
 unappetizing (renglón 16)
 inhumanity (renglón 17)
 self-flagellating (renglón 19)
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 undeserving (renglón 28)

 re-inventing (renglón 29)
 underlines (renglón 33)
 unemployed (renglón 35)
 injustice (renglón 38)
 uneasily (renglón 48)
 inequality (renglón 50)
 unhappy (renglón 50)
 unmistakable (renglón 54)
 irrational (renglón 60)
 mistrusted (renglón 71)

b) Sufijos:
 selfishness (renglón 12)
 doubtless (renglón 45)
 eagerness (renglón 47)