The mistake about Chesterton

As a convert to Christianity and to Catholicism I have encountered many people who enthusiastically (or matter-of-factly) quoted, or more often, name-dropped Mr. Gilbert Keith (G.K.) Chesterton.

One fact that has become more and more apparent to me, though, is that pretty much no-one actually reads him any more. I mean, no-one reads what he wrote in its its entirety or even in its context. A snappy, paradoxical-sounding (and probably very “traditional”, in the mind of the citator) quote does not equal a vivid insight into the great writer’s mind… or into anything else, really.

What struck me about reading this man’s books (and for the last 5 or 6 years, I really have managed to read pretty much all the main non-fiction and novels) is that they really are not paradoxical, nor are they “understated” and “Englishy”, as appears to be the popular impression.

Yes,  Chesterton does make lots of paradoxes, but they are consciously made and almost always have a point, or are consciously light-hearted. In various writings he demonstates that he was aware of this reputation at the time; as he was aware of (and strenuously denied) the charges of anti-semitism that were and are still levelled at him.

Yes, Chesterton was a “traditional Catholic” (but even having to use the word “traditional” begs the question, what is a Catholic anyhow) but he wasn’t particularly interested in defending a particular, much less a personally-approved-lifestyle-version of Catholicism.

No, what shocks the more-than-casual reader of Chesterton is his almost fanatical focus on a couple of issues which are very often neglected.

One is science – he expended a huge river of ink talking about sociology and evolutionary theory. He makes some good points about positivist theories of society replacing experience of actual personal relationships, and at one point suggests the seed of the solution to the mindlessly-grinding modern argument over Genesis and Darwin (which most Catholics realise is a waste of time but which few bother to solve explicitly). The suggestion is simply that God made Adam through an evolutionary process and then infused the immortal soul, making him the image of God  (in an analogous way to the “descent” of God assuming human nature in Christ who is the Image of God). But then the whole of “Everlasting Man” is one long, fascinating answer to this tedious “debate”.

He harps on questions of eugenics and “birth control” a great deal, and again, it’s fascinating and not at all understated. Yet it is civilised and concerned with civilisation and humanity; it’s not the strident tones of modern anti-abortion moral panic. He is genuinely “pro-life”, he’s a sort of “fan” of life itself. The issue is important to him becase he cares if people live, and live humanly.

Finally, like another more famous person, he constantly harps on God, death and money. Specifically, he develops the theme known at the time as “distributism” and rejects both capitalism and its younger brother, socialism, both of which were sort of fiercely advocated last century in England. Together with Belloc, he devoted himself and his own money to “propaganda” (as he put it) in behalf of the principle of private ownership and personal responsibility of as many citizens as possible as the basis for a good society (note: not just “private property”, but widely-distributed; and not “good citizens” but just plain real citizens!).

Chesterton’s politics was based not on complex theories nor on “tradition” as modern “traditionalists” (whose traditions are usually pretty modern) conceive it – it was based firmly in a vision of English and European history. That it was an ephemeral vision does not detract from its validity, or its applicability – as meticulous a historian as John R. R. Tolkien could cite Chesterton (who also wrote sprawling epic poems of Anglo-Saxon times) as a major influence. It was a valid approach because it was a rational approach; it was grounded in appreciation for the people involved in the history, rather than intended as a bolster for a modern ideology (as Victorian and Edwardian histories had been).

So what to make of all this? No-one, not even the actual “Chesterton Society” – which has risen recently Phoenix-like from a long lull – here in the UK has promoted a general appreciation of GKC in the UK.

In my opinion, quite simply, he was the last living exponent of all the “trivial” liberal arts in the public life of the UK – he was a true “artist” (in fact he studied art and only went into journalism as a secondary career; his artist’s eye makes him a master of description, or should we say, recognition?). He was the English master (or teacher) of the liberal arts of listening, speaking; reading, reasoning, writing. You can either know Chesterton or remain ignorant of England and the English language.

His virtue lies in the fact that he recognised what was happening (as Terry Pratchett says in a dedication in one of his fantasy novels!) – his eyes were open. He saw something terrible coming over society, saw the end of his world happening all around him, and within all of this, saw something which gave him hope beyond hope. This is why he is pertinent to our modern problems. This we need to “recover”.

The ongoing collapse of the Irish Catholic Church

With the publication of the report today, there is bound to be more erosion of the public standing of the Irish Catholic Church.

It is a sorry bloody story, and there is no possible excuse for the evil things done.

SOURCE: www.capehart.org/station3.html

To balance this, it must be said that many Catholics generally will get a bad name for something they didn’t know about and couldn’t have stopped.

God knows what it must have been like “inside” the Irish Church of the last century. Ireland itself was being systematically repressed by the UK up until very, very recently. The Church was looked on as a bulwark of national identity, and the British State, whose ideological identity now lies in tatters with the collapse of organised Protestantism, ironically fostered a particularly repressed form of militant popular  Catholicism.

The Catholic Church, unlike its Protestant version, is very much a family affair; and in a severely dysfunctional family some of the worst miseries can occur. That is the only way I can make head or tail of the tragedies which are about to be trawled through the media.

I would never have become a Christian (and later a confirmed Catholic) unless I had accepted that “in order to become a Christian you must first forgive all the other Christians”. And indeed, every single day we beg to be forgiven “as we forgive” – this is an explicit condition in the Gospels, and one particularly uncompromising saying of Christ’s. Maybe it is the logic of the Cross. Even though many Catholics who, like me, are lucky enough to live a relatively comfortable life, are pretty ignorant of the details, our religion tells us that this evil and suffering (and the great – and tragic – Simone Weil says they both exist in the abuser and the abused) affects us all.

The outpourings of unforgiveness have already begun. Once again, perhaps the biggest scandal for “the modern world” (read: the media elites and those who follow them like sheep) may be mercy shown to those who clearly don’t deserve it (unlike the rest of us, for whom it’s merely less clear).