News from Nowhere

“Pleasure begets pleasure” is the rallying cry of 21st-century society (75), and that pleasure is enabled, at its root, by the relinquishing of private property. Morris returns to this theme throughout the novel, pointing out how natural human emotions and inclinations are distorted when property enters the scene. Dick, for instance, recalls the “disease” of “idleness” that was common in the days soon after the civil war. People were afflicted because their ancestors forced other people to do work for them, and they became so ugly that they had to start working. In the absence of coercion, idleness could only be overcome by pleasure. Guest comes to hold a similar idea. When Ellen asks him what the buildings looked like on the river in old times, he responds that they were ugly and vulgar because of the sordidness they forced upon the working class (226). When explaining the change in their society, Hammond states that the purpose of revolution is to make people happy. If it does not, then there will naturally be another revolution. Hammond phrases this as a rhetorical question to emphasize its obviousness: “What! Shall we expect peace and stability from unhappiness?” (110).