Steinbeck's 3 Questions

February, 2026

Like many teenagers, I was a reluctant reader of books from the English curriculum - Shakespeare, Dickens, Hemmingway, et al. - all seemed so boring and irrelevant; there were other more exciting things to spend my time on. How wrong I was! It's only later in my life that I've discovered the timeless beauty and relevance of writers like John Steinbeck, Graham Greene and others

I suppose I grew up.

John Steinbeck is now one of my favs. His 1939 novel, The Grapes of Wrath, is in my top 5, all-time novels. And I reckon it's just as relevant as a powerful critique of the capitalist system today, as it was in the 1930's.

Writing for his two young sons in 1952, Steinbeck peers into the future with a keen eye. Does this ring any bells for anyone?

"There are monstrous changes taking place in the world,

forces shaping a future whose face we do not know.

Some of these forces seem evil to us, perhaps not in themselves

but because their tendency is to eliminate other things we hold good.

It is true that two men can lift a bigger stone than one man.

A group can build automobiles quicker and better than one man,

and bread from a huge factory is cheaper and more uniform.

When our food and clothing and housing all are born in the complication of mass production,

mass method is bound to get into our thinking and to eliminate all other thinking.

In our time mass or collective production has entered our economics,

our politics, and even our religion,

so that some nations have substituted the idea collective for the idea God.

This in my time is the danger.

There is great tension in the world, tension toward a breaking point,

and men are unhappy and confused."

He goes on ...

At such a time it seems natural and good to me to ask myself these questions.

What do I believe in?

What must I fight for and what must I fight against?