All Over the Place: A Christmas Carol

A Socratic Discussion

By Michael H. Brownstein

Monday morning. Reading. We’re doing Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol, and I’m way up for this. I have divided my classes into small five to six people focus groups. We’re discussing the segment with the Spirit of Christmas Yet to Come.
    And it’s great.
    “Do they have the right to steal?” I ask.

    My students search the text. They spout their own opinions. Yes, they feel, in this case it can be justified.
    But does the text justify it? Is there any rationale offered that allows for stealing?
    Scrooge is laid out on his bed. He’s dead. The three individuals he employs are rifling through his stuff. He’s dead. What will he care?
    When is stealing OK?
    And we go all over the place. One group justifies the stealing because of poverty and greed. Who will get Scrooge’s stuff? Why can’t it be them?
    A second group hears a strong argument for when stealing is OK. If it’s on the ground, why can’t you just take it? But what if you know who it belongs to?
    Doesn’t matter. They left it on the ground. It’s up for grabs. But isn’t your book bag in the closet on the ground? According to you, it’s OK for me to take it and keep it.
    And each group goes around and around.
    I have to prompt some groups and others I just sit back and listen.
    In the end every group concurs: Stealing is wrong. There is no justification for it. It does not matter how evil Scrooge was. It doesn’t matter how moral and/or Christian his workers are. All that matters is stealing is wrong.

And then I ask: Is Scrooge responsible for Tiny Tim’s death?
    And everything begins again.
    A great day!

Copyright © 2020 by Michael H. Brownstein Michael H. Brownstein’s volumes of poetry, A Slipknot Into Somewhere Else and How Do We Create Love?, were published by Cholla Needles Press in 2018 & 2019, respectively.