Hilaire Bello This And The Other

This and That and the Other, an essay by Hilaire Belloc, displays who the barbarian is and how he is exploiting society. The barbarian is anyone who is using people for their own benefit. Belloc is trying to show how materialism is deteriorating and destroying society. A barbarian thinks “that he can have his cake and eat it too.” He is not worried about how his actions will affect the people around him. He just wants to take and take no matter where his “cake” is coming from. Belloc writes that a civilized person takes discipline when needed. The civilized understand that resources are not never-ending and people should not be overworked. They recognize that people are people and should be treated with respect. Furthermore, the barbarian mocks the discipline
They do not care what he does as long as it will not affect them in the short run. As long as the barbarian is not threatening the people’s civilization, the people are willing to turn the other direction. The “awful faces from beyond” are the people who have to deal with the barbarian. They are forced to work longs hours doing hard labor just to be able to feed their families at night. Then, they wake up the next morning to do it all again. Men, women, children who cannot go to school, are forced to work strenuously everyday. They are not smiling because they are tired and angry at the barbarian. These barbarians are the materialists of the 19th and 20th century. Belloc is exposing the thought processes of Freud, Marx, and Darwin. He finds it to be extremely dehumanizing that these leaders would quantify and analyze people. Belloc believes these type of people are the barbarians. Finally, I agree somewhat with Belloc’s thought process. I believe that it is slightly dehumanizing to compute every aspect of humanity, but it is also needed. People need scientific fact to help them understand