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What's Wrong with the World
Chesterton gives his remarkably perceptive analysis on social and moral issues more relevant today than even in his own time. In his light and humorous style, yet deadly serious and philosophical, he comments on feminism and true womanhood, errors in education, the importance of the child and other issues, using incisive arguments against the trendsetters' assaults against the family.
Chesterton possessed the genius to foresee the dangers if modernist proposals were implemented. He knew that lax moral standards would lead to the dehumanization of man, and in this book he staunchly defends the family, its constituent elements and character over against those ideas and institutions that would subvert it and thereby deliver man into the hands of the servile state. In addressing what is wrong, he also shows clearly what is right, sane and sensible and how to change things in that direction.
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First published January 1, 1910
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About the author
G.K. Chesterton
4,415 books5,690 followersGilbert Keith Chesterton was an English writer, philosopher, lay theologian, and literary and art critic.
He was educated at St. Paul’s, and went to art school at University College London. In 1900, he was asked to contribute a few magazine articles on art criticism, and went on to become one of the most prolific writers of all time. He wrote a hundred books, contributions to 200 more, hundreds of poems, including the epic Ballad of the White Horse, five plays, five novels, and some two hundred short stories, including a popular series featuring the priest-detective, Father Brown. In spite of his literary accomplishments, he considered himself primarily a journalist. He wrote over 4000 newspaper essays, including 30 years worth of weekly columns for the Illustrated London News, and 13 years of weekly columns for the Daily News. He also edited his own newspaper, G.K.’s Weekly.
Chesterton was equally at ease with literary and social criticism, history, politics, economics, philosophy, and theology.
He was educated at St. Paul’s, and went to art school at University College London. In 1900, he was asked to contribute a few magazine articles on art criticism, and went on to become one of the most prolific writers of all time. He wrote a hundred books, contributions to 200 more, hundreds of poems, including the epic Ballad of the White Horse, five plays, five novels, and some two hundred short stories, including a popular series featuring the priest-detective, Father Brown. In spite of his literary accomplishments, he considered himself primarily a journalist. He wrote over 4000 newspaper essays, including 30 years worth of weekly columns for the Illustrated London News, and 13 years of weekly columns for the Daily News. He also edited his own newspaper, G.K.’s Weekly.
Chesterton was equally at ease with literary and social criticism, history, politics, economics, philosophy, and theology.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 338 reviews
June 3, 2016
"...to begin everything with the weather is a sort of pagan way of beginning everything with prayer." ("Location 746" on my Kindle.)
That character from FRASIER springs to mind when I see "G.K. Chesterton"--Gil Leslie Chesterton, snooty restaurant critic at Frasier's radio station. If that's what attracts you to G.K. Chesterton, try him out, you might like him.
Thanks for reading.
That character from FRASIER springs to mind when I see "G.K. Chesterton"--Gil Leslie Chesterton, snooty restaurant critic at Frasier's radio station. If that's what attracts you to G.K. Chesterton, try him out, you might like him.
Thanks for reading.
August 4, 2008
Oh Chesterton.
You are pretty freaking clever guy, and I love how much you love the poor and think women are glorious generalists and men have sort of a rotten lot in life and that democracy can only take us so far and it is ok to drink and be dirty if that is what you want to do sometimes. I would have come to some different conclusions about stuff (like maybe everybody should be more like ladies, not that ladies shouldn't vote), but basing your commentary on the idea that every person is unique and worthwhile and society should work for the good of the person and the family and the Home rather than the other way around was wonderful. Of course, as he says at the end, there's more about what's wrong than how to fix it, but it's good to hear someone who criticizes while remaining essentially optimistic about humankind.
I'll be reading more, then.
You are pretty freaking clever guy, and I love how much you love the poor and think women are glorious generalists and men have sort of a rotten lot in life and that democracy can only take us so far and it is ok to drink and be dirty if that is what you want to do sometimes. I would have come to some different conclusions about stuff (like maybe everybody should be more like ladies, not that ladies shouldn't vote), but basing your commentary on the idea that every person is unique and worthwhile and society should work for the good of the person and the family and the Home rather than the other way around was wonderful. Of course, as he says at the end, there's more about what's wrong than how to fix it, but it's good to hear someone who criticizes while remaining essentially optimistic about humankind.
I'll be reading more, then.
April 3, 2017
"The mind that finds its way to wild places is the poet's; but the mind that never finds its way back is the lunatic's."
- G.K. Chesterton, What's Wrong with the World
Written 107 years ago, Chesterton's 'What's Wrong with the World' is dated on several topics, primarily regarding women. But even if it wasn't dated, that wouldn't change the essentials of why I am always simultaneously thrilled and frustrated by G.K. Chesterton. I may not agree with what he says, but I always adore how he says it. In that way he is like another English writer Christopher Hitchens. I would read Hitchens and practically yell and the book in parts, but God how I loved the gift of Hitch's words. Chesterton, if born 75 years later, may have had a sparing partner in Hitch. They seem very similar in rhetorical boldness.
Chesterton genius was (and probably still is) found in his playful use of paradox. He, I believe, is the master of rhetorical paradox. He doesn't just want to argue the point. He wants to twist the argument, reframe the debate, make a tangle of both sides, and show the world a third-way. He approaches issues of politics, class, sex, education and tries to show how often both sides of the argument are blind. He looks at a chessboard where both black and white pieces are stuck in a perpetual check and instead of suggesting a draw, he adds a couple pieces, or suggests billiards.
What is surprising is not how often I disagree with Chesterton, but how often I agree with a text that was written 107 years ago. It is also surprising (the math is easy here because he was born almost 100 years before me) to discover he was 35 when he wrote this book. It seems a bit curmudgeonly written for a 35 year-old. But that is also one of the charms of Chesterton. Even as a youth, his witty writings and his conservative attitudes seemed like those of a sarcastic, slightly drunk old sage than a haughty young intellectual. I may admire Charles Darwin more, but I'd probably want to drink with G.K. Chesterton.
- G.K. Chesterton, What's Wrong with the World
Written 107 years ago, Chesterton's 'What's Wrong with the World' is dated on several topics, primarily regarding women. But even if it wasn't dated, that wouldn't change the essentials of why I am always simultaneously thrilled and frustrated by G.K. Chesterton. I may not agree with what he says, but I always adore how he says it. In that way he is like another English writer Christopher Hitchens. I would read Hitchens and practically yell and the book in parts, but God how I loved the gift of Hitch's words. Chesterton, if born 75 years later, may have had a sparing partner in Hitch. They seem very similar in rhetorical boldness.
Chesterton genius was (and probably still is) found in his playful use of paradox. He, I believe, is the master of rhetorical paradox. He doesn't just want to argue the point. He wants to twist the argument, reframe the debate, make a tangle of both sides, and show the world a third-way. He approaches issues of politics, class, sex, education and tries to show how often both sides of the argument are blind. He looks at a chessboard where both black and white pieces are stuck in a perpetual check and instead of suggesting a draw, he adds a couple pieces, or suggests billiards.
What is surprising is not how often I disagree with Chesterton, but how often I agree with a text that was written 107 years ago. It is also surprising (the math is easy here because he was born almost 100 years before me) to discover he was 35 when he wrote this book. It seems a bit curmudgeonly written for a 35 year-old. But that is also one of the charms of Chesterton. Even as a youth, his witty writings and his conservative attitudes seemed like those of a sarcastic, slightly drunk old sage than a haughty young intellectual. I may admire Charles Darwin more, but I'd probably want to drink with G.K. Chesterton.
July 26, 2007
This book provides near to irrefutable evidence that Chesterton was a prophet, a seer of the future. The truth, however, is more pedestrian -- that Chesterton could immediately recognize the foibles, follies, and lies that eventually poison and kill a culture.
So, in this work, Chesterton repeatedly startles and shocks us, for he reads as if he were commenting on the latest issue of the New York Times rather than the press of his day (early 20th Century). Sex, education, feminism -- his trenchant and damning critique of early 21st Century culture in the West is all there a hundred years ago in this book. Amaze yourself and read it.
So, in this work, Chesterton repeatedly startles and shocks us, for he reads as if he were commenting on the latest issue of the New York Times rather than the press of his day (early 20th Century). Sex, education, feminism -- his trenchant and damning critique of early 21st Century culture in the West is all there a hundred years ago in this book. Amaze yourself and read it.
February 26, 2023
[…] the point is that Man does what he likes. He claims the right to take his mother Nature under his control; he claims the right to make his child the Superman, in his image […]
I would say it is something startlingly and chokingly courageous to remain aloof when G.K. Chesterton is breathed in the atmosphere. I like him a lot, based on having read this bunch of very interesting essays, so I am not courageous enough to keep my distance.
I would say it is something startlingly and chokingly courageous to remain aloof when G.K. Chesterton is breathed in the atmosphere. I like him a lot, based on having read this bunch of very interesting essays, so I am not courageous enough to keep my distance.
February 3, 2010
G.K. Chesterton is such an amusing and clever writer that I do believe he could convince me of almost anything. Why, he nearly convinced me that women should never have bothered to obtain the right to vote. I am such an obstinate person, and so inclined to disagree with arguments even before I am certain that I disagree with them, that I am completely in awe of the skill of any writer who can make me half-agree with a position I do not, in fact, agree with. I’d say I tremble before the brilliance of Chesterton, but he’s far too jovial and entertaining for anyone to ever tremble before him.
I particularly enjoyed what he had to say about modern education, and I was also entertained by his musings on the domestic sphere and the differences between men and women, as rife with stereotypes as they may have been. (Alas, stereotypes arise for a reason, and, despite what it is politically popular to say, that reason is seldom ignorance, but more often experience.)
Not long ago, I read Dr. Laura’s In Praise of Stay-at-home Moms, because I wanted to feel good about my current calling in life. I didn’t like the book because I wasn’t so much interested in watching working moms get torn down as I was interested in watching stay-at-home moms get built up. Fortunately, this one short selection from Chesterton did me more good than that entire book:
“When people begin to talk about this domestic duty as not merely difficult but trivial and dreary, I simply give up the question. For I cannot with the utmost energy of imagination conceive what they mean. When domesticity, for instance, is called drudgery, all the difficulty arises from a double meaning in the word. If drudgery only means dreadfully hard work, I admit the woman drudges in the home…But if it means that the hard work is more heavy because it is trifling, colorless, and of small import to the soul, then as I say, I give it up; I do not know what the words mean. To be Queen Elizabeth within a definite area, deciding sales, banquets, labors, and holidays; to be Whiteley within a certain area, providing toys, boots, sheet cakes, and books; to be Aristotle within a certain area, teaching morals, manners, theology, and hygiene; I can understand how this might exhaust the mind, but I cannot imagine how it could narrow it. How can it be a large career to tell other people’s children about the Rule of Three, and a small career to tell one’s own children about the universe? How can it be broad to be the same thing to everyone, and narrow to be everything to someone? No; a woman’s function is laborious, but because it is gigantic, not because it is minute, I will pity Mrs. Jones for the hugeness of her task; I will never pity her for its smallness.”
I don’t even really know what this book is about. It seems to be all over the map. It’s about men, women, family, marriage, the home, politics, the right to vote, Calvinism, Mr. Shaw, specialism, commerce, Catholicism, tradition, the future, the past, modern education, socialism…oh, I remember what it’s about. “What’s Wrong with the World.”
The thing about Chesterton is that his insights seem surprisingly contemporary. Although he wrote in the early 1900’s, he might as well have been writing today. His barbs are as poignant for our generation as they were for his.
I particularly enjoyed what he had to say about modern education, and I was also entertained by his musings on the domestic sphere and the differences between men and women, as rife with stereotypes as they may have been. (Alas, stereotypes arise for a reason, and, despite what it is politically popular to say, that reason is seldom ignorance, but more often experience.)
Not long ago, I read Dr. Laura’s In Praise of Stay-at-home Moms, because I wanted to feel good about my current calling in life. I didn’t like the book because I wasn’t so much interested in watching working moms get torn down as I was interested in watching stay-at-home moms get built up. Fortunately, this one short selection from Chesterton did me more good than that entire book:
“When people begin to talk about this domestic duty as not merely difficult but trivial and dreary, I simply give up the question. For I cannot with the utmost energy of imagination conceive what they mean. When domesticity, for instance, is called drudgery, all the difficulty arises from a double meaning in the word. If drudgery only means dreadfully hard work, I admit the woman drudges in the home…But if it means that the hard work is more heavy because it is trifling, colorless, and of small import to the soul, then as I say, I give it up; I do not know what the words mean. To be Queen Elizabeth within a definite area, deciding sales, banquets, labors, and holidays; to be Whiteley within a certain area, providing toys, boots, sheet cakes, and books; to be Aristotle within a certain area, teaching morals, manners, theology, and hygiene; I can understand how this might exhaust the mind, but I cannot imagine how it could narrow it. How can it be a large career to tell other people’s children about the Rule of Three, and a small career to tell one’s own children about the universe? How can it be broad to be the same thing to everyone, and narrow to be everything to someone? No; a woman’s function is laborious, but because it is gigantic, not because it is minute, I will pity Mrs. Jones for the hugeness of her task; I will never pity her for its smallness.”
I don’t even really know what this book is about. It seems to be all over the map. It’s about men, women, family, marriage, the home, politics, the right to vote, Calvinism, Mr. Shaw, specialism, commerce, Catholicism, tradition, the future, the past, modern education, socialism…oh, I remember what it’s about. “What’s Wrong with the World.”
The thing about Chesterton is that his insights seem surprisingly contemporary. Although he wrote in the early 1900’s, he might as well have been writing today. His barbs are as poignant for our generation as they were for his.
November 7, 2022
I listened to this on audiobook before going to bed for a few nights. I loved it. Very relevant for today. The more Chesterton that I digest the more that I love the guy.
July 24, 2012
What is wrong with the world? As James V. Schall points out in his introduction to Chesterton’s collection of essays, the popular Christian writer never hesitated ‘to challenge something because it was popular or widely accepted. Indeed, he suspected that a refusal to consider something as questionable because it was popular was itself a prejudice of the worst sort.’
What’s Wrong with the World is a collection of essays which can be read independently or as building on and supporting each other. There is a certain amount of repetition and overlap. There is also a great deal of humor and many memorable quotes. At some point in time, I’d like to go back and reread/re-listen to this book with highlighter and/or pen in hand to make a list all the different things Chesterton identified as being wrong with the world. A few examples would be: 1.) While we may agree about a social evil, we do not agree about the corresponding corrective good; 2.) We need more theorists and less strictly ‘practical’ men; 3.) Our prejudices are necessarily private and keep us from discussing social solutions in open and honest forums; 4.) We are in fact afraid of our past and therefore unable to learn from it; 5.) Revered social ideals from the past are endangered, especially marriage, the family and the home; 6.) Modern industrialism dehumanizes; and 7.) We have sacrificed the human being to the commercial venture.
In Part 3 when Chesterton begins his discussion about women, I find myself a bit at sea. Not that I entirely disagree with him—far from it! Would that the world he envisions were possible!
When is the last time you—as a woman—considered your own ‘womanliness’? Can you even recall ever hearing the word used in ordinary conversation?! As a girl I remember older women talking about acting ‘like a lady’ or saying this or that was or wasn’t ‘ladylike’, but that was many years ago. Today’s women have far different concerns beginning with their age, health, economic status, physical appearance, desirability to men, marketable job skills, personality and yes, ‘reputation’, but none of these is the same thing. Do we know what makes a woman ‘womanly’? Do we even care? Considering the endangered state of marriage and the family, can we even be called a society which values its wives and mothers?
Chesterton is talking about the womanly arts and the universality of feminine concerns v. those of her male counterpart. As such, he claims these women don’t want to vote. This may have been true for his time period. I cannot say, although I wish I knew more about the situation of British women at the time of this book’s publication. Speaking for myself, as a 21st century American woman, I don’t see anything unfeminine in women voting and I wasn’t persuaded by this book, although I enjoyed it immensely.
All in all, there is a great deal here worth reading at least several times.
Included below is a selection from Chapter 27: The Modern Slave which I found especially interesting!
'If there be something against nature in the idea of a horde of wild women governing, there is something truly intolerable in the idea of a herd of tame women being governed. And there are elements in human psychology that make this situation particularly poignant or ignominous. The ugly exactitudes of business, the bells and clocks the fixed hours and rigid departments, were all meant for the male: who, as a rule, can only do one thing and can only with the greatest difficulty be induced to do that. If clerks do not try to shirk their work, our whole great commercial system breaks down. It is breaking down, under the inroad of women who are adopting the unprecedented and impossible course of taking the system seriously and doing it well.
Their very efficiency is the definition of their slavery. It is generally a very bad sign when one is trusted very much by one's employers. And if the evasive clerks have a look of being blackguards, the earnest ladies are often something very like blacklegs. But the more immediate point is that the modern working woman bears a double burden, for she endures both the grinding officialism of the new office and the distracting scrupulosity of the old home. Few men understand what conscientiousness is. They understand duty, which generally means one duty; but conscientiousness is the duty of the universalist. It is limited by no work days or holidays; it is a lawless, limitless, devouring decorum. If women are to be subjected to the dull rule of commerce, we must find some way of emancipating them from the wild rule of conscience. But I rather fancy you will find it easier to leave the conscience and knock off the commerce. As it is, the modern clerk or secretary exhausts herself to put one thing straight in the ledger and then goes home to put everything straight in the house.
This condition (described by some as emancipated) is at least the reverse of my ideal. I would give woman, not more rights, but more privileges.'
I think nowadays the term is "Supermom", but she's not new.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
I found this in among the Quotes:
“Dear Sir: Regarding your article 'What's Wrong with the World?' I am. Yours truly,”
― G.K. Chesterton
☺
What’s Wrong with the World is a collection of essays which can be read independently or as building on and supporting each other. There is a certain amount of repetition and overlap. There is also a great deal of humor and many memorable quotes. At some point in time, I’d like to go back and reread/re-listen to this book with highlighter and/or pen in hand to make a list all the different things Chesterton identified as being wrong with the world. A few examples would be: 1.) While we may agree about a social evil, we do not agree about the corresponding corrective good; 2.) We need more theorists and less strictly ‘practical’ men; 3.) Our prejudices are necessarily private and keep us from discussing social solutions in open and honest forums; 4.) We are in fact afraid of our past and therefore unable to learn from it; 5.) Revered social ideals from the past are endangered, especially marriage, the family and the home; 6.) Modern industrialism dehumanizes; and 7.) We have sacrificed the human being to the commercial venture.
In Part 3 when Chesterton begins his discussion about women, I find myself a bit at sea. Not that I entirely disagree with him—far from it! Would that the world he envisions were possible!
When is the last time you—as a woman—considered your own ‘womanliness’? Can you even recall ever hearing the word used in ordinary conversation?! As a girl I remember older women talking about acting ‘like a lady’ or saying this or that was or wasn’t ‘ladylike’, but that was many years ago. Today’s women have far different concerns beginning with their age, health, economic status, physical appearance, desirability to men, marketable job skills, personality and yes, ‘reputation’, but none of these is the same thing. Do we know what makes a woman ‘womanly’? Do we even care? Considering the endangered state of marriage and the family, can we even be called a society which values its wives and mothers?
Chesterton is talking about the womanly arts and the universality of feminine concerns v. those of her male counterpart. As such, he claims these women don’t want to vote. This may have been true for his time period. I cannot say, although I wish I knew more about the situation of British women at the time of this book’s publication. Speaking for myself, as a 21st century American woman, I don’t see anything unfeminine in women voting and I wasn’t persuaded by this book, although I enjoyed it immensely.
All in all, there is a great deal here worth reading at least several times.
Included below is a selection from Chapter 27: The Modern Slave which I found especially interesting!
'If there be something against nature in the idea of a horde of wild women governing, there is something truly intolerable in the idea of a herd of tame women being governed. And there are elements in human psychology that make this situation particularly poignant or ignominous. The ugly exactitudes of business, the bells and clocks the fixed hours and rigid departments, were all meant for the male: who, as a rule, can only do one thing and can only with the greatest difficulty be induced to do that. If clerks do not try to shirk their work, our whole great commercial system breaks down. It is breaking down, under the inroad of women who are adopting the unprecedented and impossible course of taking the system seriously and doing it well.
Their very efficiency is the definition of their slavery. It is generally a very bad sign when one is trusted very much by one's employers. And if the evasive clerks have a look of being blackguards, the earnest ladies are often something very like blacklegs. But the more immediate point is that the modern working woman bears a double burden, for she endures both the grinding officialism of the new office and the distracting scrupulosity of the old home. Few men understand what conscientiousness is. They understand duty, which generally means one duty; but conscientiousness is the duty of the universalist. It is limited by no work days or holidays; it is a lawless, limitless, devouring decorum. If women are to be subjected to the dull rule of commerce, we must find some way of emancipating them from the wild rule of conscience. But I rather fancy you will find it easier to leave the conscience and knock off the commerce. As it is, the modern clerk or secretary exhausts herself to put one thing straight in the ledger and then goes home to put everything straight in the house.
This condition (described by some as emancipated) is at least the reverse of my ideal. I would give woman, not more rights, but more privileges.'
I think nowadays the term is "Supermom", but she's not new.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
I found this in among the Quotes:
“Dear Sir: Regarding your article 'What's Wrong with the World?' I am. Yours truly,”
― G.K. Chesterton
☺
November 8, 2016
Brilliant. Also listened to it on Audible, and finished it in November of 2016.
March 6, 2025
Chesterton is always great as long as you ignore whatever he says about the Reformation, Calvinism, or the French Revolution.
September 29, 2021
Chesterton is his usual pithy, brilliant self in this book. Though his conclusions do not always follow from his arguments, their style and substance nonetheless make for an entertaining and mind-stretching read. He exposes wrong-headed thinking in education theory, politics disguised as policy, the idea of the "human animal," systematic repression of the poor, and women's suffrage, and most of it is surprisingly relevant despite the intervening century or so since the book was written.
However, he fails to convincingly explain why women should not have the vote.
However, he fails to convincingly explain why women should not have the vote.
December 2, 2020
This collection of social and political essays is filled with the wit, wisdom, and whimsy that makes Chesterton such a joy to read. But it is not all light-hearted. He is a powerful, and often forceful, writer. In it he addresses the social ills brought about by the two primary political solutions of the West - Capitalism & Socialism. His take on both, per usual, is to turn them on their heads. Where both seek to present a more “logical” form of government, Chesterton looks more deeply at what it is to be more fully human. By centering his essays around this perspective he presents Distributism as a means to center governance on the basic building block of society - the family. This revolts against Capitalistic anarchy and oppression through wage, tenement housing, and the need for a family to be enslaved to labor in order to survive; it also revolts against the notion of a state created family that dictates and overrules the boundaries of public/private life as proposed by Socialism. In fact, Chesterton presents these two extremes as not quite combative so much as two sides of a single coin. But the real power in his argument is made clear in the final paragraph of his concluding essay:
“Now the whole parable and purpose of these last pages, and indeed of all these pages, is this: to assert that we must instantly begin all over again, and begin at the other end. I begin with a little girl’s hair. That I know is a good thing at any rate. Whatever else is evil, the pride of a good mother in the beauty of her daughter is good. It is one of those adamantine tenderness es which are touchstones of every age and race. If other things are against it, other things must go down. If landlords and laws and sciences are against it, landlords and laws and sciences must go down. With the red hair of one she-urchin in the gutter I will set fire to all modern civilisation. Because a girl should have long hair, she should have clean hair; because she should have clean hair, she should not have an unclean home; because she should not have an unclean home, she should have a free and leisured mother; because she should have a free mother, she should not have a usurious landlord; because there should not be a usurious landlord, there should be a redistribution of property; because there should be a redistribution of property, there should be a revolution. That little urchin with the gold-red hair (whom I have just watched toddling past my house), she shall not be looped and lamed and altered; her hair shall not be cut short like a convict’s. No, all kingdoms of the earth shall be hacked and mutilated to suit her. The winds of the world shall be tempered to that lamb unshorn. All crowns that cannot fit her head shall be broken; all raiment and building that does not harmonise with her glory shall waste away. Her mother may bid her bind her hair, for that is natural authority; but the Emperor of the Planet shall not bid her to cut it off. She is the human and sacred image; all around her the social fabric shall sway and split and fall; the pillars of society shall be shaken, and the roofs of ages come rushing down; and not one hair of her head shall be harmed.”
He calls for our perception of good society to re-orient from efficiency and governance to a deep valuing of the human being. In it he wishes to bestow both freedom and a sense of responsibility to one another.
Now, there are certainly some essays that will read as outdated (particularly when it comes to his view of women and men), and not every entry is the strongest or most compelling, but the overall effect and perspective shift from systems to people (not systems for people’s benefit) makes it well worth the read.
“Now the whole parable and purpose of these last pages, and indeed of all these pages, is this: to assert that we must instantly begin all over again, and begin at the other end. I begin with a little girl’s hair. That I know is a good thing at any rate. Whatever else is evil, the pride of a good mother in the beauty of her daughter is good. It is one of those adamantine tenderness es which are touchstones of every age and race. If other things are against it, other things must go down. If landlords and laws and sciences are against it, landlords and laws and sciences must go down. With the red hair of one she-urchin in the gutter I will set fire to all modern civilisation. Because a girl should have long hair, she should have clean hair; because she should have clean hair, she should not have an unclean home; because she should not have an unclean home, she should have a free and leisured mother; because she should have a free mother, she should not have a usurious landlord; because there should not be a usurious landlord, there should be a redistribution of property; because there should be a redistribution of property, there should be a revolution. That little urchin with the gold-red hair (whom I have just watched toddling past my house), she shall not be looped and lamed and altered; her hair shall not be cut short like a convict’s. No, all kingdoms of the earth shall be hacked and mutilated to suit her. The winds of the world shall be tempered to that lamb unshorn. All crowns that cannot fit her head shall be broken; all raiment and building that does not harmonise with her glory shall waste away. Her mother may bid her bind her hair, for that is natural authority; but the Emperor of the Planet shall not bid her to cut it off. She is the human and sacred image; all around her the social fabric shall sway and split and fall; the pillars of society shall be shaken, and the roofs of ages come rushing down; and not one hair of her head shall be harmed.”
He calls for our perception of good society to re-orient from efficiency and governance to a deep valuing of the human being. In it he wishes to bestow both freedom and a sense of responsibility to one another.
Now, there are certainly some essays that will read as outdated (particularly when it comes to his view of women and men), and not every entry is the strongest or most compelling, but the overall effect and perspective shift from systems to people (not systems for people’s benefit) makes it well worth the read.
July 18, 2021
Ah, Chesterton, my man. Here, I fear, our paths diverge.
I mean, not very far. I still highlighted most of the book. And speaking of highlights, I didn't realize one of my favorite quotes came from this book:
“The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried.”
The first two chapters lay out such sensible, striking arguments for what's wrong with the way we approach policy issues, even 111 years later! It is thought-shifting stuff.
But then we get to the question of the suffragettes. And I must agree with Tori's review: your "thoughts on the matter, while wonderfully worded, were wobbly founded."
In effect, you say ladies don't need the vote. The vote is a tiresome duty. A messy use of corrosion on the part of the state. It dehumanizes! Why would men want women to experience such a thing? Why would women want to experience such a thing? Well, most women don't! Just a radical few. Men not voting is unmanly. Women not voting is just...womanly!
And don't even get me started on your opinions about women having careers. Women are too efficient, you say! Women should not give up the wonderful opportunities they possess to be generalists in the home to be specialists in the workforce. Men must take up that tiresome duty. Let the women, at least, be free!
I have a few vulgar responses to that reasoning but thankfully, I could hear Dorothy L. Sayers in my head. Are Women Human? Astute and Witty Essays on the Role of Women in Society quite properly answered your arguments.
But while I steamed mad at you for your insult to my gender, I kept reading and the next chapter on education won me over with the arguments for parental engagement in the education process! Hurrah!
Until I got to the chapter about educating women and got mad at you again.
But then you make such an interesting case for private ownership and creativity. You say, in effect, "God creates from nothing. Humans from everything." And I can see your influence (in a good way, this time) on Sayers again.
So, I'm still mad at you for being horrendously Victorian. But also I forgive you because once again I'm utterly intrigued by some of the opinions that emerge from this book.
I mean, not very far. I still highlighted most of the book. And speaking of highlights, I didn't realize one of my favorite quotes came from this book:
“The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried.”
The first two chapters lay out such sensible, striking arguments for what's wrong with the way we approach policy issues, even 111 years later! It is thought-shifting stuff.
But then we get to the question of the suffragettes. And I must agree with Tori's review: your "thoughts on the matter, while wonderfully worded, were wobbly founded."
In effect, you say ladies don't need the vote. The vote is a tiresome duty. A messy use of corrosion on the part of the state. It dehumanizes! Why would men want women to experience such a thing? Why would women want to experience such a thing? Well, most women don't! Just a radical few. Men not voting is unmanly. Women not voting is just...womanly!
And don't even get me started on your opinions about women having careers. Women are too efficient, you say! Women should not give up the wonderful opportunities they possess to be generalists in the home to be specialists in the workforce. Men must take up that tiresome duty. Let the women, at least, be free!
I have a few vulgar responses to that reasoning but thankfully, I could hear Dorothy L. Sayers in my head. Are Women Human? Astute and Witty Essays on the Role of Women in Society quite properly answered your arguments.
But while I steamed mad at you for your insult to my gender, I kept reading and the next chapter on education won me over with the arguments for parental engagement in the education process! Hurrah!
Until I got to the chapter about educating women and got mad at you again.
But then you make such an interesting case for private ownership and creativity. You say, in effect, "God creates from nothing. Humans from everything." And I can see your influence (in a good way, this time) on Sayers again.
So, I'm still mad at you for being horrendously Victorian. But also I forgive you because once again I'm utterly intrigued by some of the opinions that emerge from this book.
July 21, 2021
Na gíria corrente diríamos que este livro está cheio de "opiniões impopulares", mas é isso que o torna um monumento de resistência à superficialidade. O que o torna tão especial é o sentido de humor refinado do autor. O cidadão do século XXI não pode, em bom rigor, subscrever todas as concepções do autor (outras há que, orgulhosamente, pode tornar suas, também), mas pode debater as suas ideias sob um novo prisma.
Os temas são variados e o humor malicioso do autor é um verdadeiro hino à arte de se dizer o que se pensa sem ceder à hipocrisia (e este problema é particularmente notório na nossa sociedade contemporânea, que é higiénica e fria como um bloco operatório.)
As obras de Chesterton nunca desiludem. Se por um lado nos fazem sorrir pela intemporalidade das crises humanas, por outro revelam que todas as coisas são muito fugazes; tivemos a sorte de tudo isso se ter materializado nesta excelente obra.
Muito bom!
----
"De uma maneira geral, pode-se dizer que a classe culta esperneia a pedir que a deixem sair de casa, enquanto a classe operária grita a pedir que a deixem entrar em casa.”
“O princípio é o seguinte: que em todas as coisas que valem a pena, incluindo os prazeres, há um momento de dor e de tédio a que é necessário resistir, para que o prazer possa reviver e durar. A alegria da batalha vem depois do primeiro medo da morte; a alegria de ler Virgílio vem depois do enfado de o ler; a radiância do banhista ocorre depois do primeiro choque gelado do banho de mar; e o êxito no casamento ocorre depois do fracasso da lua-de-mel."
Os temas são variados e o humor malicioso do autor é um verdadeiro hino à arte de se dizer o que se pensa sem ceder à hipocrisia (e este problema é particularmente notório na nossa sociedade contemporânea, que é higiénica e fria como um bloco operatório.)
As obras de Chesterton nunca desiludem. Se por um lado nos fazem sorrir pela intemporalidade das crises humanas, por outro revelam que todas as coisas são muito fugazes; tivemos a sorte de tudo isso se ter materializado nesta excelente obra.
Muito bom!
----
"De uma maneira geral, pode-se dizer que a classe culta esperneia a pedir que a deixem sair de casa, enquanto a classe operária grita a pedir que a deixem entrar em casa.”
“O princípio é o seguinte: que em todas as coisas que valem a pena, incluindo os prazeres, há um momento de dor e de tédio a que é necessário resistir, para que o prazer possa reviver e durar. A alegria da batalha vem depois do primeiro medo da morte; a alegria de ler Virgílio vem depois do enfado de o ler; a radiância do banhista ocorre depois do primeiro choque gelado do banho de mar; e o êxito no casamento ocorre depois do fracasso da lua-de-mel."
July 29, 2010
I listened to the Librivox version of this book driving to and from work over the course of a week or so. While the content is everything the other high-raters say it is, the quality of the recordings were mixed with a couple chapters being almost unintelligible because of the accents of the reader. I guess I can't complain too much since the price was right. I'll probably eventually get the hardcopy and re-read this but as a way to get some more Chesterton under my belt during my commute it was an inexpensive and somewhat painless avenue.
January 30, 2020
Mejor ensayo que he leído jamás. ¡Que descubrimiento de Chesterton como ensayista, más allá de sus artículos periodísticos y sus novelas!.
April 14, 2012
Chesterton is Quite Wrong here, but he is quite wrong in an interesting way. Most of his problems revolve around his conclusions concerning women, but the bases for his conclusions are quite interesting in themselves.
He believes that women are naturally generalists, whereas men are specialists. A specialist is one who must perform a trade, whereas a generalist is one who should rule the home. To ask a woman to perform a trade is something that is inherently unjust and would destroy society as a whole. Chesterton of course uses many wonderful metaphors to illustrate what a universalist is.
I'm not sure his analysis holds out in real life, however. I have met far too many men who function better as univeraslists and women who were, interestingly, definitely specializing in one thing. I rarely meet, for instance, a man who is supremely good in accounting alone, or a lady who can engage moderately well in all of the prerequisites in keeping a home. It would seem that this specialist/universalist distinction is borne more from upbringing than natural proclivities.
But his reasons for asserting this are interesting. He begins the book with emphasizing that each person needs a home - a place to call their own, and a place they shoot out from. A home is the only true place in the world where anarchy can reign. If one lives a riotous lifestyle of wandering from bar to bar and hotel to hotel, one must certainly abide by certain rules. One must drink in a certain way, observe certain hours, and even obey traffic laws. Whereas, at home, one my certainly elect to put the carpet on the ceiling and the drapes on the floor.
Thus, the home is the universal good for the person, and all other things, the state, the working life, and even voting rights, are merely attenuations that exist for the good of the home. They are, as we would say nowadays, necessary evils.
Chesterton, on this basis, asserts that thrusting women into such necessary evils makes no sense. But his conception of the home - that is the only place in the world where anarchy(in the sense of freedom) may dwell - is quite interesting.
It is also anti socialist - it implies property rights. But it is also anti corporation; Chesterton strongly implies that large plots of land ought be broken up and given to individuals.
And that latter point is what makes Chesterton so interesting. He is conservative, but not conservative enough for conservatives. And liberal too. But not liberal enough for liberals. The only real question is if Chesterton is moderate or really a thinker caught out of time.
He believes that women are naturally generalists, whereas men are specialists. A specialist is one who must perform a trade, whereas a generalist is one who should rule the home. To ask a woman to perform a trade is something that is inherently unjust and would destroy society as a whole. Chesterton of course uses many wonderful metaphors to illustrate what a universalist is.
I'm not sure his analysis holds out in real life, however. I have met far too many men who function better as univeraslists and women who were, interestingly, definitely specializing in one thing. I rarely meet, for instance, a man who is supremely good in accounting alone, or a lady who can engage moderately well in all of the prerequisites in keeping a home. It would seem that this specialist/universalist distinction is borne more from upbringing than natural proclivities.
But his reasons for asserting this are interesting. He begins the book with emphasizing that each person needs a home - a place to call their own, and a place they shoot out from. A home is the only true place in the world where anarchy can reign. If one lives a riotous lifestyle of wandering from bar to bar and hotel to hotel, one must certainly abide by certain rules. One must drink in a certain way, observe certain hours, and even obey traffic laws. Whereas, at home, one my certainly elect to put the carpet on the ceiling and the drapes on the floor.
Thus, the home is the universal good for the person, and all other things, the state, the working life, and even voting rights, are merely attenuations that exist for the good of the home. They are, as we would say nowadays, necessary evils.
Chesterton, on this basis, asserts that thrusting women into such necessary evils makes no sense. But his conception of the home - that is the only place in the world where anarchy(in the sense of freedom) may dwell - is quite interesting.
It is also anti socialist - it implies property rights. But it is also anti corporation; Chesterton strongly implies that large plots of land ought be broken up and given to individuals.
And that latter point is what makes Chesterton so interesting. He is conservative, but not conservative enough for conservatives. And liberal too. But not liberal enough for liberals. The only real question is if Chesterton is moderate or really a thinker caught out of time.
June 26, 2017
Chesterton, as always, has one of the most beautiful, engaging, and interesting writing styles I have ever had the pleasure to read. This book, which is simply him pointing out what he perceives to be societies ills, is no exception.
But I found his actual thoughts on the matter, while wonderfully worded, were wobbly founded. It wasn't so much that he didn't believe women should have the right to vote, or other rather dated ideas which for the most part can simply be ignored as the arguments of a different era. All his arguments were founded on generalizations. Women are like x. Men are like y. Therefore society should be z. He presents this simple math as being a simple truth, and founds all his arguments on some format of this. Yet he never stops to wonder if there might be deviations from this formula, if maybe the world is not so black and white as he perceives, or more correctly perhaps, wants it to be.
Regardless of the generalization, there were some interesting thoughts that came of Chesterton's musings. While I can't say I agreed with them all, I can say that his process made me think. Overall the book is not a bad read, as long as one takes it with quite a bit of salt.
But I found his actual thoughts on the matter, while wonderfully worded, were wobbly founded. It wasn't so much that he didn't believe women should have the right to vote, or other rather dated ideas which for the most part can simply be ignored as the arguments of a different era. All his arguments were founded on generalizations. Women are like x. Men are like y. Therefore society should be z. He presents this simple math as being a simple truth, and founds all his arguments on some format of this. Yet he never stops to wonder if there might be deviations from this formula, if maybe the world is not so black and white as he perceives, or more correctly perhaps, wants it to be.
Regardless of the generalization, there were some interesting thoughts that came of Chesterton's musings. While I can't say I agreed with them all, I can say that his process made me think. Overall the book is not a bad read, as long as one takes it with quite a bit of salt.
February 15, 2016
I didn't understand everything in this (e.g., the ins and outs of British public schools), and there were points where I disagreed (e.g., any time his bigotry against Calvinism raised its silly head), but the book is just so jollily...well...Chestertonian that I couldn't help but enjoy it very much. As always, if I'd read it on paper, I'd have notes and underlinings to support a more substantive review, but since I did it via audio, I have instead a (forgive my immodesty) very pretty afghan created largely during my listening.
The reader was practically perfect in every way. I think I'dn't've understood nearly as much as I did if he hadn't provided the perfect voice for the job and performed it with perfect modulation. May his tribe increase, and also that of the powers that be who selected his talent for the task.
The reader was practically perfect in every way. I think I'dn't've understood nearly as much as I did if he hadn't provided the perfect voice for the job and performed it with perfect modulation. May his tribe increase, and also that of the powers that be who selected his talent for the task.
January 9, 2013
I don't think this is the best of Chesterton. On the one hand I deeply appreciated his basic thesis that many of our efforts at social engineering are solutions in search of (or ignorant of) the problem. He argues that we should fit our solutions to the real nature of people rather than making people fit our solutions. On the other hand, I find Chesterton very much a creature of his time in his view of women and his effort to deny them suffrage or access to the workplace because this would diminish them and make them just like men. This argument seems disingenuous to me and contradictory to his main thesis in fitting women into his own social strait-jacket.
October 23, 2010
Marvelous -- right up there with Christopher Lasch's, Haven in a Heartless World and Huxley's, Brave New World. Obviously very different in many repects from those writers. His insight into the structural connections between captialism and socialism (the Yin and Yang of modernity) is spot on. Now if we could only get the message out to the mindless minions on Left and Right. We need a complete overhaul -- a return to the Household as the intergrating, universal institution -- fundamentally a polity and an economy in harmony with nature and the basis of society.
February 2, 2011
The wife is like the fire, or to put things in their proper proportion, the fire is like the wife. Like the fire, the woman is expected to cook: not to excel in cooking, but to cook; to cook better than her husband who is earning the coke by lecturing on botany or breaking stones. Like the fire, the woman is expected to tell tales to the children, not original and artistic tales, but tales—better tales than would probably be told by a first-class cook. Like the fire, the woman is expected to illuminate and ventilate, not by the most startling revelations or the wildest winds of thought, but better than a man can do it after breaking stones or lecturing. But she cannot be expected to endure anything like this universal duty if she is also to endure the direct cruelty of competitive or bureaucratic toil. Woman must be a cook, but not a competitive cook; a school mistress, but not a competitive schoolmistress; a house-decorator but not a competitive house-decorator; a dressmaker, but not a competitive dressmaker. She should have not one trade but twenty hobbies; she, unlike the man, may develop all her second bests. This is what has been really aimed at from the first in what is called the seclusion, or even the oppression, of women. Women were not kept at home in order to keep them narrow; on the contrary, they were kept at home in order to keep them broad. The world outside the home was one mass of narrowness, a maze of cramped paths, a madhouse of monomaniacs. It was only by partly limiting and protecting the woman that she was enabled to play at five or six professions and so come almost as near to God as the child when he plays at a hundred trades.
...the world must keep one great amateur, lest we all become artists and perish. Somebody must renounce all specialist conquests, that she may conquer all the conquerors. That she may be a queen of life, she must not be a private soldier in it.
It seems really to be supposed that a Trimmer means a cowardly person who always goes over to the stronger side. It really means a highly chivalrous person who always goes over to the weaker side; like one who trims a boat by sitting where there are few people seated. Woman is a trimmer; and it is a generous, dangerous and romantic trade.
When people begin to talk about this domestic duty as not merely difficult but trivial and dreary, I simply give up the question. For I cannot with the utmost energy of imagination conceive what they mean. When domesticity, for instance, is called drudgery, all the difficulty arises from a double meaning in the word. If drudgery only means dreadfully hard work, I admit the woman drudges in the home…But if it means that the hard work is more heavy because it is trifling, colorless, and of small import to the soul, then as I say, I give it up; I do not know what the words mean. To be Queen Elizabeth within a definite area, deciding sales, banquets, labors, and holidays; to be Whiteley within a certain area, providing toys, boots, sheet cakes, and books; to be Aristotle within a certain area, teaching morals, manners, theology, and hygiene; I can understand how this might exhaust the mind, but I cannot imagine how it could narrow it. How can it be a large career to tell other people’s children about the Rule of Three, and a small career to tell one’s own children about the universe? How can it be broad to be the same thing to everyone, and narrow to be everything to someone? No; a woman’s function is laborious, but because it is gigantic, not because it is minute, I will pity Mrs. Jones for the hugeness of her task; I will never pity her for its smallness.
Modern education means handing down the customs of the minority, and rooting out the customs of the majority.
...the prime truth of woman, the universal mother: that if a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing badly.
In resisting this horrible theory of the Soul of the Hive, we of Christendom stand not for ourselves, but for all humanity; for the essential and distinctive human idea that one good and happy man is an end in himself, that a soul is worth saving.
"Do you want to keep the family at all?" [Then] he must be prepared for the natural restraints, distinctions and divisions of labor in the family. He must brace himself up to bear the idea of the woman having a preference for the private house and a man for the public house. He must manage to endure somehow the idea of a woman being womanly, which does not mean soft and yielding, but handy, thrifty, rather hard, and very humorous. He must confront without a quiver the notion of a child who shall be childish, that is, full of energy, but without an idea of independence; fundamentally as eager for authority as for information and butter-scotch. If a man, a woman and a child live together any more in free and sovereign households, these ancient relations will recur; and [he] must put up with it. He can only avoid it by destroying the family, driving both sexes into sexless hives and hordes, and bringing up all children as the children of the state—like Oliver Twist.
...the world must keep one great amateur, lest we all become artists and perish. Somebody must renounce all specialist conquests, that she may conquer all the conquerors. That she may be a queen of life, she must not be a private soldier in it.
It seems really to be supposed that a Trimmer means a cowardly person who always goes over to the stronger side. It really means a highly chivalrous person who always goes over to the weaker side; like one who trims a boat by sitting where there are few people seated. Woman is a trimmer; and it is a generous, dangerous and romantic trade.
When people begin to talk about this domestic duty as not merely difficult but trivial and dreary, I simply give up the question. For I cannot with the utmost energy of imagination conceive what they mean. When domesticity, for instance, is called drudgery, all the difficulty arises from a double meaning in the word. If drudgery only means dreadfully hard work, I admit the woman drudges in the home…But if it means that the hard work is more heavy because it is trifling, colorless, and of small import to the soul, then as I say, I give it up; I do not know what the words mean. To be Queen Elizabeth within a definite area, deciding sales, banquets, labors, and holidays; to be Whiteley within a certain area, providing toys, boots, sheet cakes, and books; to be Aristotle within a certain area, teaching morals, manners, theology, and hygiene; I can understand how this might exhaust the mind, but I cannot imagine how it could narrow it. How can it be a large career to tell other people’s children about the Rule of Three, and a small career to tell one’s own children about the universe? How can it be broad to be the same thing to everyone, and narrow to be everything to someone? No; a woman’s function is laborious, but because it is gigantic, not because it is minute, I will pity Mrs. Jones for the hugeness of her task; I will never pity her for its smallness.
Modern education means handing down the customs of the minority, and rooting out the customs of the majority.
...the prime truth of woman, the universal mother: that if a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing badly.
In resisting this horrible theory of the Soul of the Hive, we of Christendom stand not for ourselves, but for all humanity; for the essential and distinctive human idea that one good and happy man is an end in himself, that a soul is worth saving.
"Do you want to keep the family at all?" [Then] he must be prepared for the natural restraints, distinctions and divisions of labor in the family. He must brace himself up to bear the idea of the woman having a preference for the private house and a man for the public house. He must manage to endure somehow the idea of a woman being womanly, which does not mean soft and yielding, but handy, thrifty, rather hard, and very humorous. He must confront without a quiver the notion of a child who shall be childish, that is, full of energy, but without an idea of independence; fundamentally as eager for authority as for information and butter-scotch. If a man, a woman and a child live together any more in free and sovereign households, these ancient relations will recur; and [he] must put up with it. He can only avoid it by destroying the family, driving both sexes into sexless hives and hordes, and bringing up all children as the children of the state—like Oliver Twist.
March 18, 2020
What's wrong with G. K. Chesterton?
Can his paradoxical, Christianised vision of the world be transported to the 21st century and give us some guidance? Two of my favourite writers, Gene Wolfe and R.A. Lafferty, were greatly influenced by him.
However, they were born and raised in the first half of the 20th century when the church still had influence and day to day life was slower and simpler. Ours is a godless, swift yet shallow age.
First published in 1910, as the title suggests this book was Chesterton's attempt to define and fix his own age. Split into four parts, the paradoxes fly past thick and fast, the solutions are essentially conservative in nature, though not without the occasional curve ball.
Part One: The Homelessness of Man
Chesterton saw something wrong in homelessness. Every man desires a mate and a home, even if men and women are essentially incompatible. I rather fancy that a world full of singletons and gender shape-shifters would have alienated him.
But his own world seemed to alienate him plenty enough. What was needed to put it right? A clever paradox is always a good starting point:
'There has arisen in our time a most singular fancy: the fancy that when things go very wrong we need a practical man. It would be far truer to say, that when things go very wrong we need an unpractical man. Certainly, at least, we need a theorist.'
Or, on the same theme, how about this?:
'For the man of action there is nothing but idealism...If our statesmen were visionaries something practical might be done.'
What about a drought of Socialism? It has that visionary quality, and he was certainly interested in it. Maybe not enough to stomach it, however (and he had plenty of stomach, just have a look at a picture of him):
'I do not propose to prove here that Socialism is a poison; it is enough if I maintain that it is a medicine and not a wine.'
Chesterton was hardly socialist material and yet he didn't dismiss Socialism outright. A century of hardcore capitalism later and Socialism seemingly does taste like poison to the very people who should savor it like wine, i.e. the working classes. Now there's a paradox for you!
Part Two: Imperialism, or the Mistake about Man
I didn't take too many notes on this part. Chesterton asserted that men love comradeship, although to call all types of friends "comrades" as Socialists do would be too limiting. He did not believe in 'Imperialism in its popular sense, as a mode or theory of the patriotic sentiment of this country.' I'm not really sure what he was going on about here but I agreed with what I did understand.
I did fully understand his views on women, which properly should have waited for the next part, but I can't say that I agreed with them. He didn't support female suffrage because he thought, rather quaintly, that women didn't want nor need the vote:
'There are only three things in the world that women do not understand; and they are Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity.'
He must have been henpecked.
Part Three: Feminism, or the Mistake about Women
Chesterton certainly struck me as being mistaken about women. Awarding the wife the home, he couldn't see why she would want anything outside. There was a speciousness about his argument that the vote represented something pointless, even dirty for a woman to stoop down to:
'I am aware that some maintain that women ought to have votes whether the majority wants them or not; but this is surely a strange and childish case of setting up formal democracy to the destruction of actual democracy.'
I think he saw women as metely a foil to men, covering his chauvinism in complimentary sophistries about how women stay wiser and saner than men by staying out of the workplace, e.g. 'Cleverness shall be left for men and wisdom for women. For cleverness kills wisdom; that is one of the few sad and certain things.' I guess he would know.
In essence I suspect that he simply didn't want women in his club or public house telling him to stop talking rot or to put his cigar out.
Part Four: Education, or the Mistake about the Child
Education is about poring the information in, and as such all educators have to be despots. Truth should be the highest aim of education, yet 'no English school-boy is ever taught to tell the truth, for the very simple reason that he is never taught to desire the truth.'
I don't know a lot about what we teach in school these days but I strongly believe that reverencing the truth can have as little to do with it as Chesterton thought it to be in his time.
Chesterton pads out his paradoxes with a number of potshots at the aristocracy, Calvinism, Socialism and George Bernard Shaw. Against these targets he offers rich praise for the past, where all the answers can be found:
'This wrong is, I say, that we will go forward because we dare not go back.'
Going back a hundred years to the musings of G. K. Chesterton, I can find plenty of clever phrases, but I can't find any practical answers for the wrongs of today?
Can his paradoxical, Christianised vision of the world be transported to the 21st century and give us some guidance? Two of my favourite writers, Gene Wolfe and R.A. Lafferty, were greatly influenced by him.
However, they were born and raised in the first half of the 20th century when the church still had influence and day to day life was slower and simpler. Ours is a godless, swift yet shallow age.
First published in 1910, as the title suggests this book was Chesterton's attempt to define and fix his own age. Split into four parts, the paradoxes fly past thick and fast, the solutions are essentially conservative in nature, though not without the occasional curve ball.
Part One: The Homelessness of Man
Chesterton saw something wrong in homelessness. Every man desires a mate and a home, even if men and women are essentially incompatible. I rather fancy that a world full of singletons and gender shape-shifters would have alienated him.
But his own world seemed to alienate him plenty enough. What was needed to put it right? A clever paradox is always a good starting point:
'There has arisen in our time a most singular fancy: the fancy that when things go very wrong we need a practical man. It would be far truer to say, that when things go very wrong we need an unpractical man. Certainly, at least, we need a theorist.'
Or, on the same theme, how about this?:
'For the man of action there is nothing but idealism...If our statesmen were visionaries something practical might be done.'
What about a drought of Socialism? It has that visionary quality, and he was certainly interested in it. Maybe not enough to stomach it, however (and he had plenty of stomach, just have a look at a picture of him):
'I do not propose to prove here that Socialism is a poison; it is enough if I maintain that it is a medicine and not a wine.'
Chesterton was hardly socialist material and yet he didn't dismiss Socialism outright. A century of hardcore capitalism later and Socialism seemingly does taste like poison to the very people who should savor it like wine, i.e. the working classes. Now there's a paradox for you!
Part Two: Imperialism, or the Mistake about Man
I didn't take too many notes on this part. Chesterton asserted that men love comradeship, although to call all types of friends "comrades" as Socialists do would be too limiting. He did not believe in 'Imperialism in its popular sense, as a mode or theory of the patriotic sentiment of this country.' I'm not really sure what he was going on about here but I agreed with what I did understand.
I did fully understand his views on women, which properly should have waited for the next part, but I can't say that I agreed with them. He didn't support female suffrage because he thought, rather quaintly, that women didn't want nor need the vote:
'There are only three things in the world that women do not understand; and they are Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity.'
He must have been henpecked.
Part Three: Feminism, or the Mistake about Women
Chesterton certainly struck me as being mistaken about women. Awarding the wife the home, he couldn't see why she would want anything outside. There was a speciousness about his argument that the vote represented something pointless, even dirty for a woman to stoop down to:
'I am aware that some maintain that women ought to have votes whether the majority wants them or not; but this is surely a strange and childish case of setting up formal democracy to the destruction of actual democracy.'
I think he saw women as metely a foil to men, covering his chauvinism in complimentary sophistries about how women stay wiser and saner than men by staying out of the workplace, e.g. 'Cleverness shall be left for men and wisdom for women. For cleverness kills wisdom; that is one of the few sad and certain things.' I guess he would know.
In essence I suspect that he simply didn't want women in his club or public house telling him to stop talking rot or to put his cigar out.
Part Four: Education, or the Mistake about the Child
Education is about poring the information in, and as such all educators have to be despots. Truth should be the highest aim of education, yet 'no English school-boy is ever taught to tell the truth, for the very simple reason that he is never taught to desire the truth.'
I don't know a lot about what we teach in school these days but I strongly believe that reverencing the truth can have as little to do with it as Chesterton thought it to be in his time.
Chesterton pads out his paradoxes with a number of potshots at the aristocracy, Calvinism, Socialism and George Bernard Shaw. Against these targets he offers rich praise for the past, where all the answers can be found:
'This wrong is, I say, that we will go forward because we dare not go back.'
Going back a hundred years to the musings of G. K. Chesterton, I can find plenty of clever phrases, but I can't find any practical answers for the wrongs of today?
January 9, 2021
Perfect way to start off one's year (especially this year) - with a dash of Chesterton. :)
I really, really, really, really dislike the experience of reading books on a screen, so I pretty much only read ebooks when I'm desperate or don't have high expectations. Chesterton, of course, never falls into the latter category, but I do sometimes become slightly desperate for some bright and witty common sense. (And I do not recall him ever failing me, though I have many and many a book of his - delicious thought - left still to read.)
Now, though I didn't have low expectations for What's Wrong With the World, I confess they weren't as high as they might have been. I thought beforehand that Chesterton would explain why he didn't approve of giving the vote to women, and that I'd be like, "well, that's very sweet, and flattering, and chivalrous of you, dear sir, but don't you think you're being...just a smidge...Gudgian?"
And, well. I guess I sort of still think he might be being a tad Gudgian, but....like. Not in the way I was thinking I'd think he was being it. Because Chesterton is the best and also brilliant and why do I make assumptions about books I haven't read yet, again?
(Gudge is the blustery old Tory who thinks the past was better than it was, merely because the present falls short, as opposed to Hudge the clinical and idealistic and inhuman Socialist who...well, you know how Socialists feel about the past.)
Anyway, the main point of the book isn't the suffrage question. It's the purpose of the family and the effects of poverty and the true nature of the two sexes. Specifically from the point of view of, and intended for application in, early Edwardian England. And despite how specific it is to early Edwardian England, it's also so specific to now? Women versus men, the breakdown of social conditions in which marriages can even work as traditionally conceived. Public life vs private life. Specialized knowledge vs wisdom. It's oversimplified (such topics can't help being oversimplified, if you're going to talk about them at all), but it's well stated and worth considering. And can I just say that, as a female, I have never met a broad description of Womankind and How She Is Different From Man which would have classified me as anything but a man (which, please note, I am not :P), but this is the second book (the first was Orthodoxy) in which Chesterton has said something about the fundamental nature of women that made me stop and go, "Wait. Wait. That's actually true. And it's actually true of me." So, um, I just think Chesterton is brilliant and actually looks to the roots of things and is BRILLIANT, that's all.
Like Lewis's The Weight of Glory, I absolutely NEED a physical copy of this. I have so many notes to make, so many arguments to have, so many ideas to underline. Mostly, so many arguments to have. It must have been amazing to argue with Chesterton in real life. Humbling, but amazing.
In sum, I have a deeper appreciation for Chesterton than for almost any other author. I love that he looks at things as they are, not as popular slogans paint them. I love that he CARES about PEOPLE. I love that he looks at something, says, "This is awful; we need to fix this," and then turns around and goes, "And this is how we should fix it!" Even though it seems hopeless that such a solution could ever happen. But Chesterton doesn't prevaricate or waffle or mope about it, he just says what needs to be said. Even if it isn't popular. Because if you wait for things to become sufficiently popular before you say them...well, where does that get you? Nowhere good, that's where. And Chesterton knows it. (He knows such a lot of things.)
I really, really, really, really dislike the experience of reading books on a screen, so I pretty much only read ebooks when I'm desperate or don't have high expectations. Chesterton, of course, never falls into the latter category, but I do sometimes become slightly desperate for some bright and witty common sense. (And I do not recall him ever failing me, though I have many and many a book of his - delicious thought - left still to read.)
Now, though I didn't have low expectations for What's Wrong With the World, I confess they weren't as high as they might have been. I thought beforehand that Chesterton would explain why he didn't approve of giving the vote to women, and that I'd be like, "well, that's very sweet, and flattering, and chivalrous of you, dear sir, but don't you think you're being...just a smidge...Gudgian?"
And, well. I guess I sort of still think he might be being a tad Gudgian, but....like. Not in the way I was thinking I'd think he was being it. Because Chesterton is the best and also brilliant and why do I make assumptions about books I haven't read yet, again?
(Gudge is the blustery old Tory who thinks the past was better than it was, merely because the present falls short, as opposed to Hudge the clinical and idealistic and inhuman Socialist who...well, you know how Socialists feel about the past.)
Anyway, the main point of the book isn't the suffrage question. It's the purpose of the family and the effects of poverty and the true nature of the two sexes. Specifically from the point of view of, and intended for application in, early Edwardian England. And despite how specific it is to early Edwardian England, it's also so specific to now? Women versus men, the breakdown of social conditions in which marriages can even work as traditionally conceived. Public life vs private life. Specialized knowledge vs wisdom. It's oversimplified (such topics can't help being oversimplified, if you're going to talk about them at all), but it's well stated and worth considering. And can I just say that, as a female, I have never met a broad description of Womankind and How She Is Different From Man which would have classified me as anything but a man (which, please note, I am not :P), but this is the second book (the first was Orthodoxy) in which Chesterton has said something about the fundamental nature of women that made me stop and go, "Wait. Wait. That's actually true. And it's actually true of me." So, um, I just think Chesterton is brilliant and actually looks to the roots of things and is BRILLIANT, that's all.
Like Lewis's The Weight of Glory, I absolutely NEED a physical copy of this. I have so many notes to make, so many arguments to have, so many ideas to underline. Mostly, so many arguments to have. It must have been amazing to argue with Chesterton in real life. Humbling, but amazing.
In sum, I have a deeper appreciation for Chesterton than for almost any other author. I love that he looks at things as they are, not as popular slogans paint them. I love that he CARES about PEOPLE. I love that he looks at something, says, "This is awful; we need to fix this," and then turns around and goes, "And this is how we should fix it!" Even though it seems hopeless that such a solution could ever happen. But Chesterton doesn't prevaricate or waffle or mope about it, he just says what needs to be said. Even if it isn't popular. Because if you wait for things to become sufficiently popular before you say them...well, where does that get you? Nowhere good, that's where. And Chesterton knows it. (He knows such a lot of things.)
October 19, 2014
“The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried.”
Be as holy as you can be but you can never really tread the same footsteps of Christ. So, this quote from the book is the best for me. If we can all be Christ-like on each day of our lives, it will be utopia. All Christians know that to be a follower of Christ is to know Him and live life according to His plans for each of us. However, we always find ways to sin and so we go astray. We try to stay on the right path, only to find ourselves sinning again. It goes on and on until we die. Have we tried? Yes based on our own definition. Our definition based on what the Holy Book and/or our Catholic Tradition say. Simply put, our conscience. It's just that the times are changing and when we go back to the tradition that we used to interpret the Holy Bible, we find that somethings should be changed as they don't seem to apply to the current situations that we find ourselves in.
My first time to read a book of Catholic essays by G. K. Chesterton (1874-1936). A former friend introduced me to his works. I even gifted him two copies of his books. I am not sure if he read those already. Since he is not lending me those books, I bought myself copies of them and this one. I found reading this a bit archaic and there are phrases and words that probably pertain to the time in England when he wrote these essays. So, although the messages can still be applicable to our current times, I found some of his points either wordy, difficult to understand. Overall, though, even if it took me a longer time to finish this book compared to the time I read his The Man Who Was Thursday (4 stars), I thought I grew up more reading this book because of Chesterton's stark reminders of what's wrong with this world that we are living in.
My favorite part is the Homelessness of Man where Chesterton says that we, rich and poor alike, can only be free when we are at home. Even rich people when they are in a posh or expensive hotel cannot do anything they want. When they are at home, however, they can replant the shrubs and flowering plants in the garden, they can walk in tiptoe in their sala or stand upside down in their bedroom. Nobody would care. I also liked that part when he said that sins stem from money. When you have a lot of money, you buy alcohol or go to casino or to entertainment houses. You pay for sex. You spend money to escape boredom and you sin.
104 years have passed since this book was published and that question and those answers are still relevant.
You can buy your copy of this book from:
Totus Bookstore
2nd Flr. Missouri Square Bldg. Connecticut cor. Missouri Sts., Greenhills, San Juan City
Telephone no: 723-43-26
Email Address: info@totusbookstore.com
Be as holy as you can be but you can never really tread the same footsteps of Christ. So, this quote from the book is the best for me. If we can all be Christ-like on each day of our lives, it will be utopia. All Christians know that to be a follower of Christ is to know Him and live life according to His plans for each of us. However, we always find ways to sin and so we go astray. We try to stay on the right path, only to find ourselves sinning again. It goes on and on until we die. Have we tried? Yes based on our own definition. Our definition based on what the Holy Book and/or our Catholic Tradition say. Simply put, our conscience. It's just that the times are changing and when we go back to the tradition that we used to interpret the Holy Bible, we find that somethings should be changed as they don't seem to apply to the current situations that we find ourselves in.
My first time to read a book of Catholic essays by G. K. Chesterton (1874-1936). A former friend introduced me to his works. I even gifted him two copies of his books. I am not sure if he read those already. Since he is not lending me those books, I bought myself copies of them and this one. I found reading this a bit archaic and there are phrases and words that probably pertain to the time in England when he wrote these essays. So, although the messages can still be applicable to our current times, I found some of his points either wordy, difficult to understand. Overall, though, even if it took me a longer time to finish this book compared to the time I read his The Man Who Was Thursday (4 stars), I thought I grew up more reading this book because of Chesterton's stark reminders of what's wrong with this world that we are living in.
My favorite part is the Homelessness of Man where Chesterton says that we, rich and poor alike, can only be free when we are at home. Even rich people when they are in a posh or expensive hotel cannot do anything they want. When they are at home, however, they can replant the shrubs and flowering plants in the garden, they can walk in tiptoe in their sala or stand upside down in their bedroom. Nobody would care. I also liked that part when he said that sins stem from money. When you have a lot of money, you buy alcohol or go to casino or to entertainment houses. You pay for sex. You spend money to escape boredom and you sin.
104 years have passed since this book was published and that question and those answers are still relevant.
You can buy your copy of this book from:
Totus Bookstore
2nd Flr. Missouri Square Bldg. Connecticut cor. Missouri Sts., Greenhills, San Juan City
Telephone no: 723-43-26
Email Address: info@totusbookstore.com
September 29, 2009
Again, never disappointed. He has been called "The Apostle of Common Sense" and "The Prince of Paradox" - and rightfully so. What may be maddening for some is that Chesterton does not give a straightforward argument from science or reason. His style is the argument from fairy tales. He draws on things that ring true and smell right.
In this book, he takes on the problems with liberalism and conservatism. Essentially, he argues the problem with both of them is that they lack an "ideal." Without an ideal there is nothing to progress towards, and neither is there anything to conserve.
In the scope of this book, Chesterton takes the ideal of the happy and healthy family, and demonstrates how the collectivism of the liberals and the oppression of the conservatives both work against and undermine the sustainability of the family. But if I continue to try and describe his argument, I will fail miserably because I will describe it with such inferiority that you will lose your motivation to actually read him.
I will only attempt to describe for what he is arguing. It is distributionism. Unlike socialists, he believes in property. He believes in each family working, possessing, and caring their own family and their own property. Unlike the so-called "Capitalists" - and I say so-called because he argues that they are actually the enemies of capitalism - he believes in the distribution of wealth (not state ownership but that each person would be given land and a house to own). He argues that there is no other way to make progress toward this ideal than to redistribute wealth because the poor families will not be able to attain to the ideal under the current inequalities of wealth.
The book is written in 1910 but is still very relevant for today. However, you quickly notice that he lives on the other side of such movements as woman's suffrage and politically correctness. So, you may find a few things uncomfortable, but you need to take him in his context.
In this book, he takes on the problems with liberalism and conservatism. Essentially, he argues the problem with both of them is that they lack an "ideal." Without an ideal there is nothing to progress towards, and neither is there anything to conserve.
In the scope of this book, Chesterton takes the ideal of the happy and healthy family, and demonstrates how the collectivism of the liberals and the oppression of the conservatives both work against and undermine the sustainability of the family. But if I continue to try and describe his argument, I will fail miserably because I will describe it with such inferiority that you will lose your motivation to actually read him.
I will only attempt to describe for what he is arguing. It is distributionism. Unlike socialists, he believes in property. He believes in each family working, possessing, and caring their own family and their own property. Unlike the so-called "Capitalists" - and I say so-called because he argues that they are actually the enemies of capitalism - he believes in the distribution of wealth (not state ownership but that each person would be given land and a house to own). He argues that there is no other way to make progress toward this ideal than to redistribute wealth because the poor families will not be able to attain to the ideal under the current inequalities of wealth.
The book is written in 1910 but is still very relevant for today. However, you quickly notice that he lives on the other side of such movements as woman's suffrage and politically correctness. So, you may find a few things uncomfortable, but you need to take him in his context.
August 23, 2011
Oh, how I love Chesterton! When I read him as a 21st century American I can't help but find him a bit stoggy and conservative. But, deeper than his superficial claims is a real gem of true genius. Yes, he is conservative in a sense, in the way that we can mock him for being shocked that women would wear pants. Yet, many of his criticisms of what was becoming modern in his day are now appearing as very real modern disasters. Chesterton, I don't think it's fair to call him conservative, he goes beyond what is new or traditional, but is able to call both equally into question.
His style also earns my praise. He is neither high academic nor vulgar, but a middle road. He doesn't speak with the clarity of philosophers, but he's not spouting simple wisdom either. He can be quite intellectually-challenging while never stepping beyond the speech of a drawing room. Quite an amazing thing!
His style also earns my praise. He is neither high academic nor vulgar, but a middle road. He doesn't speak with the clarity of philosophers, but he's not spouting simple wisdom either. He can be quite intellectually-challenging while never stepping beyond the speech of a drawing room. Quite an amazing thing!
July 16, 2013
I don't know if I have read anyone who writes so clearly and winsomely as Chesterton. In this book the subject matter itself is a bit of a drag, but Chesterton makes it all worth reading. I swear he could write about wall paneling and leave you believing that all of society hinges upon its importance.
In this book Chesterton takes aim at both conservative and socialistic ideas that were driving forces in England at his time, and instead of comparing them, he simply lumps them together. Political ideas which we consider opposite Chesterton makes the same, and things we view similar he proves them to be opposites. I imagine that most readers will not have much difficulty adapting Chesterton's message to their own contemporary setting.
In this book Chesterton takes aim at both conservative and socialistic ideas that were driving forces in England at his time, and instead of comparing them, he simply lumps them together. Political ideas which we consider opposite Chesterton makes the same, and things we view similar he proves them to be opposites. I imagine that most readers will not have much difficulty adapting Chesterton's message to their own contemporary setting.
December 31, 2020
Reading Chesterton is always a good challenge for me. Though I not always understand all his arguments, and other times I don’t agree with his conclusions, I always end up loving him.
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September 27, 2025too much discussion about soap
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