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# Dickens and Rousseau on Caring for the Distant at the Expense of the Near, and a Remark by an American Blogger
- URL: https://theparnassian.com/en/vstretil-u-amerikanskoi-konservativnoi-blogershi-takuiu-frazu/
- Published: 2026-11-13T08:49:49.000Z
- Updated: 2026-11-13T09:20:06.000Z
- Author: Alexandr Radayev
- Tags: Books, Observations, Society

Do you remember the heroine of Dickens's *Bleak House* who saved an African tribe while her own children were tumbling down the stairs? Today, apropos of this, I came across the following remark by an American conservative blogger:

> The very people who refuse to make any sacrifice for the sake of family or children demand that we sacrifice civilisation for the sake of strangers

The thought describes a social ailment of our time known to everyone, and in essence as old as the world, one that troubled, for example, Rousseau too, who once urged us to beware of those cosmopolitans who seek out distant duties in their books while neglecting their neighbours, and who observed that a certain sort of philosopher loves the Tartars so as to be excused from loving those next door