Pessimism

 "We had progress by poverty in the face of accumulating wealth, and that poverty was not simply the poverty of the slaves of Africa and the peons of Asia, but the poverty of the mass of workers in England, France, Germany, and the United States. Literature became realistic and therefore pessimistic. Religion became organized in social clubs where well-bred people met in luxurious churches and gave alms to the poor. On Sunday they listened to sermons--'Blessed are the meek'; 'Do unto others even as you would that others do unto you'; 'If thine enemy smite thee, turn the other cheek'; 'It is more blessed to give than to receive'--listened and acted as though they had read, as in very truth they ought to have read--'Might is right'; 'Do others before they do you'; 'Kill your enemies or be killed'; 'Make profits by any methods and at any cost so long as you can escape the lenient law.' This is a fair picture of the decadence of that Europe which led human civilization during the nineteenth century and looked unmoved on the writhing of Asia and of Africa."

-W.E.B. Du Bois, The World and Africa