House with a Mezzanine by Anton Chekhov

Every now and then i come across people who believe that change in a government policy or more development, roads, infrastructure, better healthcare, more policing...will make this world a better place. I find it hard to argue since am then accused of being a nihilist anarchist anti-establishment (which btw according to me is a good thing)...so i shall allow Anton Chekhov (considered one of the best short story writer) to make this straightforward dumbass point that "fuck u humans u have only screwed things up, go get a life and give every1 a break"

"THE PRINCE is on a visit to Malozyomov and sends you his regards,"
said Lyda to her mother, as she came in and took off her gloves. "He
told me many interesting things. He promised to bring forward in the
Zemstvo Council the question of a medical station at Malozyomov, but
he says there is little hope." And turning to me, she said: "Forgive me, I
keep forgetting that you are not interested."
I felt irritated.
"Why not?" I asked and shrugged my shoulders. "You don't care
about my opinion, but I assure you, the question greatly interests me."
"Yes?"
"In my opinion there is absolutely no need for a medical station at
Malozyomov. "
My irritation affected her: she gave a glance at me, half closed her
eyes and said:
"What is wanted then? Landscapes?"
"Not landscapes either. Nothing is wanted there."
She finished taking off her gloves and took up a newspaper which had
just come by post; a moment later, she said quietly, apparently
controlling herself:
"Last week Anna died in childbirth, and if a medical man had been
available she would have lived. However, I suppose landscape-painters
are entitled to their opinions."
"I have a very definite opinion, I assure you," said I, and she took
refuge behind the newspaper, as though she did not wish to listen. "In
my opinion medical stations, schools, libraries, pharmacies, under
existing conditions, only lead to slavery. The masses are caught in a
vast chain: you do not cut it but only add new links to it. That is my.
opinion."
She looked at me and smiled mockingly, and I went on, striving to
catch the thread of my ideas.
"It does not matter that Anna should die in childbirth, but it does
matter that all these Annas, Marfas, Pelagueyas, from dawn to sunset
should be grinding away, ill from overwork, all their lives worried about
their starving sickly children; all their lives they are afraid of death and
disease, and have to be looking after themselves; they fade in youth,
grow old very early, and die in filth and dirt; their children as they grow
up go the same way and hundreds of years slip by and millions of people
live worse than animals-in constant dread of never having a crust to
eat; but the horror of their position is that they have no time to think of
their souls, no time to remember that they are made in the likeness of
God; hunger, cold, animal fear, incessant work, like drifts of snow
block all the ways to spiritual activity, to the very thing that
distinguishes man from the animals, and is the only thing indeed that
makes life worth living. You come to their assistance with hospitals and
schools, but you do not free them from their fetters; on the contrary,
you enslave them even more, since by introducing new prejudices into
their lives, you increase the number of their demands, not to mention
the fact that they have to pay the Zemstvo for their drugs and
pamphlets, and therefore, have to work harder than ever."
"I will not argue with you," said Lyda. "I have heard all that." She
put down her paper. "I will only tell you one thing, it is no good sitting
with folded hands. It is true, we do not save mankind, and perhaps we
do make mistakes, but we do what we can and we are right. The highest
and most sacred truth for an educated being-is to help his neighbours,
and we do what we can to help. You do not like it, but it is impossible to
please everybody."
"True, Lyda, true," said her mother.
In Lyda's presence her courage always failed her, and as she talked
she would look timidly at her, for she was afraid of saying something
foolish or out of place: and she never contradicted, but would always
agree: "True, Lyda, true."
"Teaching peasants to read and write, giving them little moral
pamphlets and medical assistance, cannot decrease either ignorance or
mortality, just as the light from your windows cannot illuminate this
huge garden," I said. "You give nothing by your interference in the
lives of these people. You only create new demands, and a new
compulsion to work."
"Ah! My God, but we must do something!" said Lyda exasperatedly,
and I could tell by her voice that she thought my opinions negligible
and despised me.
"It is necessary," I said, "to free people from hard physical work. It
is necessary to relieve them of their yoke, to give them breathing space,
to save them from spending their whole lives in the kitchen or the byre,
in the fields; they should have time to take thought of their souls, of
God and to develop their spiritual capacities. Every human being's
salvation lies in spiritual activity-in his continual search for truth and
the meaning of life. Give them some relief from rough, animal labour ,
let them feel free, then you will see how ridiculous at bottom your
pamphlets and pharmacies are. Once a human being is aware of his
vocation, then he can only be satisfied with religion, service, art, and
not with trifles like that."
"Free them from work?" Lyda gave a smile. "Is that possible?"
"Yes .... Take upon yourself a part of their work. If we all, in town
and country, without exception, agreed to share the work which is
being spent by mankind in the satisfaction of physical demands, then
none of us would have to work mare than two or three hours a day. If all
of us, rich and poor, worked three hours a day the rest of our time
would be free. And then to be still less dependent an our bodies, we
should invent machines to do the work and we should try to reduce our demands to the minimum.
We should toughen ourselves and our
children should not be afraid of hunger and cold, and we should not be
anxious about their health, as Anna, Maria, Pelagueya were anxious.
Then supposing we did not bother about doctors and pharmacies, and
did away with tobacco factories and distilleries-what a lot of free time
we should have! We should give our leisure to service and the arts. Just
as peasants all work together to repair the roads, so the whole
community would work together to seek truth and the meaning of life,
and, I am sure of it-truth would be found very soon, man would get rid
of his continual, poignant, depressing fear of death and even of death
itself. "
"But yo.u contradict yourself," said Lyda. "You talk about service
and deny education."
"I deny the education of a man who can only use it to read the signs
on the public houses and possibly a pamphlet which he is incapable of
understanding-the kind of education we have had from the time of
Rurik: and village life has remained exactly as it was then. Not
education is wanted but freedom for the full development of spir-itual
capacities. Not schools are wanted but universities."
"You deny medicine too."
"Yes. It should only be used for the investigation of diseases, as
natural phenomena, not far their cure. It is no good curing diseases if
you don't cure their causes. Remove the chief cause-physical labour,
and there will be no diseases. I don't acknowledge the science which
cures," I went on excitedly. "Science and art, when they are true, are
directed not to temporary or private purposes, but to the eternal and
the general-they seek the truth and the meaning of life, they seek
God, the soul, and when they are harnessed to passing needs and
activities, like pharmacies and libraries, then they only complicate and
encumber life. We have any number of doctors, pharmacists, lawyers,
and highly educated people, but we have no biologists, mathematicians,
philosophers, poets. All our intellectual and spiritual energy is wasted
an temporary passing needs .... Scientists, writers, painters work and
work, and thanks to them the comforts of life grow greater every day,
the demands ofthe body multiply, but we are still a long way from the
truth and man still remains the mast rapacious and unseemly of
animals, and everything tends to make the majority of mankind
degenerate and more and more lacking in vitality. Under such
conditions the life of an artist has no meaning and the more talented he
is, the more strange and incomprehensible his position is, since it only
amounts to his working for the amusement ofthe predatory, disgusting
animal, man, and supporting the existing state of things. And I don't
want to work and will not... Nothing is wanted, so let the world go to
hell."
"Missyuss, go away," said Lyda to her sister, evidently thinking my
wards dangerous to so young a girl.
Genya looked sadly at her sister and mother and went out.
"People generally talk like that," said Lyda, "when they want to
excuse their indifference. It is easier to deny hospitals and schools than
to came and teach."
"True, Lyda, true," her mather agreed.
"You say you will not work," Lyda went an. "Apparently you set a
high price an your work, but do stop arguing. We shall never agree,
since I value the most imperfect library or pharmacy, of which you
spoke so scornfully just now, mare than all the landscapes in the
world." And at once she turned to her mother and began to talk in quite
. a different tone: "The Prince has got very thin, and is much changed
since the last time he was here. The doctors are sending him to Vichy."
She talked to her mother about the Prince to avoid talking to me. Her
face was burning, and, in order to co.nceal her agitation, she bent aver
the table as if she were short-sighted and made a show of reading the
newspaper. My presence was distasteful to her. I took my leave and
went home.