"There are many statues of men slaying lions, but if the lions were sculptors, there might be quite a different set of statues.' - Aesop
If only there were more popular books and films from the perspectives of the poor majority and slaves rather than the fabulously rich oppressors, perhaps we wouldn't today lionize the 'lions' of the Gilded Age so much...
We read those books and watch those movies and identify ourselves with those 'have' 'heroes', but if most of us were to get transported back to that era, we'd most likely be the slaves and the poor, working more hours than we sleep just to pay rent for the month.
Oh, wait... maybe getting transported back in time wouldn't be necessary to get to experience that now, after all.
When I was younger I sometimes fantasized about living as a trapper/hunter in the wild American West or in Vienna during the time of Mozart (in Amadeus, even the 'poor' Mozart had a maid... it didn't look so bad). Or living in the wild and being healthy and prolific like Hawkeye in the Last of the Mohicans.
But then... back in those days most people didn't live past their late 40s (so I'd be dead already). Their teeth would have fallen out well before then from lack of hygiene, among other health problems and all the many pandemics. There was no antibiotics or vaccines or serums, or even analgesics if you needed any invasive medical cares. And so on and so forth..
In fact, even today we aren't that far removed from that sort of life. I'm just about finished reading Jennifer Worth's Call the Midwife books. It's her reminiscence of her time serving as nurse midwife in the slums of London's East End in the 1950s. Pretty appalling what condition so many people lived in just one lifetime ago, and only miles from the prosperous side of London.
Class warfare is here, and most of us really aren't billionaires.
