The story has always been one of my favorites: the nobleman
of a bygone era fights to right the injustices enacted upon his people by the
newly arrived foreign occupiers who were exploiting every avenue to abuse their
new subjects. The beauty of the story is
its simplicity (and the epic sword fights).
The message of the classic story is good versus evil; no complex
characters to speak of. The characters
were either good or they were bad, and we as spectators never felt compassion
or empathy for the bad guys, nor did we feel that they had earned their great
wealth. We saw the wealthy and opulent Norman
rulers of England for what they were (in the story). That is, conquerors living off of the backs
of those they had conquered.
Recently, I was reading while my children watched a modern
retelling of the story of Robin Hood in a daily children’s show on PBS. I was paying little attention except for the occasional
glance until the plot thickened. In
their version, a princess was carrying so many potatoes that she was unable to
lift them while a poor character had only a few potatoes that were going to be
too few to feed her. Both characters
complained about their situation. One naturally
decried her lack of food, while the other bemoaned having too much. As I looked up from my reading to see how
they would handle this travesty against human logic, I noted that Robin’s task
at this point was not one of ‘robbing the rich’ so to speak, but rather helping
the afterwards thankful wealthy character redistribute her burdensome abundance
to her poor compatriot. Everyone left
happy – except me.
This retelling of the classic tail decries the basic flaws
in the thinking of many today. The first
issue is the obvious misunderstanding of the issue at the root of the original
Robin Hood tale. At its heart, the story
is not about an economic system at all.
In 1066, William the Conqueror ushered in a new era in England when he
led his Norman army to victory in the Battle of Hastings. In the years that followed, many French
speaking Normans seeking fortune and status poured across the Slightly-Less-English
Channel to take a place in the newly expanded kingdom. The real history is more complicated, but in
the Robin Hood story, they never earn their wealth in England. They did not work hard to achieve it, but
they did enjoy it. In fact, they put
down every challenge that attempted to take this wealth and status from
them. In short, we did not sympathize
with them as capitalists because they had not earned their wealth – they had
taken it.
A second issue raised by this flaccid reinvention of the
story is the assumption that ‘plenty’ is a burden to those who experience
it. While I am sure there are a precious
few individuals out there who feel undue pressure because of having too much,
the vast majority of people who do well in any area of society are in fact pleased
rather than tortured by the experience.
This does not have to be limited to our understanding of wealth
alone. For example, if a farmer has a
much better than average yield, they are excited – even if it will not all fit
in the barn. They are excited because
this influx means new opportunities for them as well as signaling and affirming
their successful use of farming methods and hard work to get to this
point. If they do chose to give
to their neighbor, it is then done out of generosity and benevolence, not out
of a desire to throw their precious cargo overboard. In a capitalist system, if someone works hard
to gain something, they are very upset if that is taken from them. In fact, the legal system regards this as
theft unless it is due to taxation.
In the classic Robin Hood story, the Normans understood this
ethical conundrum and usurped it by qualifying every illegal seizure as
taxation. This gave them the legal
high ground, despite simultaneously holding court in the moral gutter. A modern understanding of the issue fails to
see the element of injustice as the driving force in what motivated the
fictional Robin Hood and many other actual historical heroes to leave lives of safety
and security to fight for the rights of the downtrodden. Historically, no one risks death, loss of all
status and property, and lack of access to their soul mate on a daily basis to redistribute
wealth. In the real story, and the real
world, everyone does not want to do the right thing, and injustices have
to be righted – be it by fictional vigilantes or by the justice system.
So, Robin Hood was not, nor should he ever be a
socialist. He was never interested in helping
the rich relocate their assets to those around them that were in need. They stole it, he took it back, and they
hated him for it. In the PBS version,
both parties thanked Robin Hood after a successful utilization of Solomonic
wisdom. Our society is selling an attitude
that does not exist in real life, logical humans. A socialist society has no need for a hero,
but glorifies the collective instead. My
question for the children’s television show is: who grew the potatoes? It was never addressed, and I am afraid we as
a society have lost our interest in asking this question in real life as well.
Who grew the potatoes?
No one cares anymore.
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