Catholic Thought discussion

Chapter 2 Summary: The Maniac.

Have to be honest I'm still struggling with Chesterton. Any help out there?

Doreen wrote: "Chapter 2 Summary: The Maniac.

Have to be honest I'm still struggling with Chesterton. Any help out there?"

Doreen, I read the first chapter three times. I think I got the main point he is making but there were other observations and I am not sure how much weight to give them.

I think in my case Galicius it's exposure to a different way of thinking. I think with time I'll get better at it.

GC attacks the idea that to reach “success” in life you must “believe in yourself”. Chesterton says he writes this book in answer to the skeptic’s question “if a man is not to believe in himself, in what is he to believe in?” Complete self-confidence is a “chief mark and element of insanity”. (p. 46) What keeps ordinary men sane is mysticism, recognition of the mysterious part of reality. This thinking is quite appropriate a hundred years later. Self-esteem seems to be a popular idea. But to a degree since inflated self-esteem can be a sign of mood disorder.

There is much meandering around this idea in the chapter. GK brings up the fourth Century heresy of Pelagianism that denied original sin and writes that denying sin is not seeing it every day on the street. I was somewhat surprised that the two sins are so directly connected.

GK goes too far with his “madman” metaphor. Who knows what goes on in the mind a man he calls “madman, lunatic, maniac”? He writes “madman generally sees too much cause in everything . . . they have sinister clarities of detail”. (p. 26) The reason he goes on about the “madman”, his “visions” is “that just as I am affected by the mania, so I am affected by most modern thinkers.” (p.38) GK’s thinking about the mentally ill seems based on Victorian diogneses that labeled the ill as labels first and people second.

Carlos wrote: "It is important to keep in mind when and to whom Chesterton was writing..."

Thanks for putting things in perspective Carlos. It looks like you are “at home” so to speak with Chesterton. I am not used to reading things three times to get into the essence and then still miss the main points. I don’t know why I find GK so difficult. He’s not anything like reading Kant after all. I was aware that this was written a hundred years ago. Maybe his writing just lacks universality a century later. I see your point after looking over the chapter once again. It’s what I was looking for here—readers who are familiar with an author I found difficult but attracted to after looking into his writing. The theory of egoism, certainly, “worship of will is the negation of will . . .humanity wants ordinary morality” which Nietzsche “had not any mass of”. (p. 67)

You are applying his teaching to a very current issue “gender identity movement”. I happen to be observing goings on at present in Poland where the legislature is arguing and is at wits end over it. This is in a country with a large Catholic majority. The mayor of Warsaw put up a “rainbow” arch in a public square directly facing a Catholic church. The people burned it twice even though it had 24-hour police protection. The mayor stated she would put it back up as many times as it’s destroyed. There was a recall of the mayor. The Prime Minister said even if she is recalled he will “appoint” her back in office any way. The recall failed. Many thought it was another fraudulent vote. The Prime Minister moved up and is now the President of the European Union.