British historian Anthony Seldon argues that Hard Times is “the most important 19th-century novel for today’s world of AI.” He explains, “For Thomas Gradgrind, read the rock-faced, stone-hearted creators of our schools today where the arts and creativity are all but banished and one third, already the most disadvantaged, fail to jump the exam hurdles. For Dickens’s mill owner Josiah Bounderby, read the tech bros squeezing meaning out of work, facilitating a world of viral hate and atomisation. … Dickens’s subject is the human heart, how to liberate it in a world that would suppress it.”
I think Selon is just joking about his goal of turning Hard Times into a musical (elsewhere in the piece), but I appreciate his praise for and insight into what I consider one of the best and most underrated Dickens novels.
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