Some critics believed "Man of Aran" socially irrelevant. Instead of returning with a film about Island poverty and an indictment of the absentee landlord, they claim Flaherty brought back a film about dewy-eyed urchins. Grierson argues that Flaherty’s 'NeoRousseauism', the glorification of a simpler and more primitive way of life, meant he could not develop a form adequate to the more immediate material in the modern world. Paul Rotha faulted "Man of Aran" for its alleged avoidance of economic and social reality. At the time of "Man of Aran"’s release, socialist critic Ralph Bond commented “…we are more concerned with what Flaherty has left out than with what he has put in…Flaherty would have us believe that there is no class struggle on Aran despite ample evidence to the contrary.” It is claimed that Flaherty ignored the effects of such worldwide events as the depression of the 1930s, suggesting to the audience that the Aran Islands were isolated economically as they were geographically.