How to see the world like Jane Austen

• Feast countdown = 48
• Current craving = Chocolate gelato from Paulo's Gelato Italiano & Desserts
• Current craving distraction = Discussing politics with friends

A good friend recently bought me the DVD set of A&E's Pride and Prejudice mini series, including all 5 hours of witty, breathtaking repartee.  It's my favorite movie by a long stretch, given that I've watched it probably a dozen times, mostly during high school while sighing and rewinding certain scenes with Colin Firth alongside girl friends (see below).  Not to hype it up or anything, but it's worth all the hype.



The original story of Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy always stirs up something new for me each time I read or watch it.  It's a timeless classic for a number of reasons -- the personification of pride and blind prejudice, the difficult process of breaking down first impressions and misconceptions, true love in the form of quiet sacrifice and persistence, contrasts of shallow and meaningful relationships...  On the other hand, I am also reminded that it is a distinct time piece hearkening back to a difficult era, particularly regarding women and men.  Without directly assaulting people's sensibilities or openly asserting her opinions, Jane Austen pushed carefully against social norms with the use of satire, irony, and sometimes wrenching examples of injustice.  Remember Charlotte Church, who married out of desperation for financial security?  Or the Bennets' unfortunate estate dealings, since they had no son to inherit the assets?  As difficult as it may be to believe now, her writing was progressive for its day.

Like many people, I look back at the mixture of historical injustices and revolutions that corrected for them, and I wonder about the issues today where most of us are blind.  Across the developed world, we have already started moving toward equal rights for homosexuals, and we continue to refine our treatment of women and minorities, but what areas are we missing altogether?  What injustice sits right under our noses but we ignore it, to the chagrin of future generations?

In the United States, I start thinking of areas where we are too comfortable or agnostic with our actions now -- such as criminal punishment and prison conditions, treatment of animals and meat preparation, handling of illegal immigrants at our borders, and care of the environment and our consumption levels.  Who is today's Jane Austen, gently pricking at our sense of rightness?

I said before that we are already acting on many salient issues "across the developed world", yet it is undeniable that so much of the world lags painfully behind on social justice.  Nicholas Kristof and his wife Sheryl WuDunn won't let us forget it in their new book, Half the Sky.  Their stories highlight women who are treated far worse today than in Jane Austen's 1800s England.  The reason I bring this up is not to detract from the next generation of issues, but rather to emphasize how important it is to act on them much sooner, because we see how big of a lag effect already exists.  Many developing nations are beginning to see the incredible waste of excluding women from the economy -- a realization that is pivotal for empowering women and extending them greater rights -- and they are just picking up a battle that has been waging for centuries.

I challenge myself to think 100 years in advance while observing the world in 2010, and to do my part to speed up the journey to broader social justice.