There’s a (semi)famous play by Pushkin called Feast in the Time of Plague. It’s actually a fairly short play with a very simple plot. A group of intellectuals are having a sumptuous meal in the midst of a plague sweeping the city. The topic of conversation for the evening revolves around what they should do about the tragedy on their hands.
How can they best serve the city?
Every once in a while, they hear the sound of death as people cry out or the clanging of the bell announcing the arrival of the cart of the person collecting dead bodies as he yells out, “Bring out your dead!” (Yes, Monty Python and the Holy Grail imagery quickly comes to mind).
They continue to discuss and discuss, arguing the night away as more and more people slip into the cold hands of death, but they never really feel the effects of it themselves. They reminisce of loved ones who have died and the play ends with the group taking a scolding from a priest for disrespecting the memory of the dead in doing nothing, the sounds a funeral procession in the distance and the group looking off into the distance in deep, transcendant thought. Still sitting. Still doing nothing. [click to continue…]
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