The months of anticipation are over and the 50th International Eucharistic Congress has finally come to Dublin. As many of you will know, Chesterton devoted a whole book to the Congress of 1932, titled Christendom in Dublin.
It includes a preface and notes by Peter Costello, who has been a good friend of the Irish Chesterton Society, and whose book reviews in The Irish Catholic are always required reading. Also included is an additional essay.
It can only be bought through The Irish Catholic, and the order form is here.
Amongst all the tricolours and banners hanging for the European Championships (as of course, they should be), I only spotted one lonely Vatican arms flag, flying from a house on Ballymun Road. A sad contrast to 1932.
Monday, June 11, 2012
Saturday, May 26, 2012
Fifth Meeting of the Irish Chesterton Society-- the Best Yet!
Apologies for how long it took me to get round to reporting on this, but the fifth meeting of the Irish Chesterton Society-- which took place in the Central Catholic Library, Dublin, on 28th of April-- was a tremendous success, attracting our biggest attendance yet and generating lots of lively discussion.
This time we did something different, hosting a guest talk by the philosopher and columnist Mark Dooley (above). Dr. Dooley is the author of eight books, including Roger Scruton: The Philosopher on Dover Beach and Why Be a Catholic? (Intrestingly, Dr. Dooley told us that the publishers of the last book asked him to "write it like Chesterton!")
The title of the talk was "The Democratic Faith", but it ranged across a whole landscape of topics, critiquing the developments (and, to a great extent, degenerations) in society and culture and politics over the last several hundred years-- the nature and underlying assumptions of freedom, the limits of democracy, the importance of tradition and dead generations, and much more. There were many questions from the floor and some pretty animated discussion.
Dr. Dooley disclaimed any deep knowledge of Chesterton, but this seemed like modesty on his part, since he casually dropped Chestertonian phrases like "the ethics of Elfland" into the stream of his talk and showed an extensive knowledge of Chesterton's intellectual development, and especially the difficulty of labelling him as "conservative" or "liberal" by modern standards. (A few responses from the audience also focused on this question. For my own part, I consider myself a social and cultural conservative, and even find Chesterton too radical for me at times. But I think the greatness of Chesterton is that he can draw admirers from a fairly wide spectrum of views and outlooks.)
I was surprised by the turnout (not visible in the photo unfortunately!). I think there is considerable interest in Chesterton in Ireland and a potential for a more formal organization. If there is anyone reading this with more administrative nous than me, and who is interested in helping me put more shape on what is currently a very loose and informal association, I would love to hear from you.
So a big thanks to Dr. Dooley for his wonderful talk, and thanks to all of you who showed up on the day. Hope to see you again next time!
Sunday, May 13, 2012
Chaste Barbarians
Now I have taken these two or three examples of the earlier medieval movements in order to note about them one general character, which refers back to the penance that followed paganism. There is something in all these movements that is bracing even while it is still bleak, like a wind blowing between the clefts of the mountains. That wind, austere and pure, of which the poet speaks, is really the spirit of the time, for it is the wind of a world that has at last been purified. To anyone who can appreciate atmospheres there is something clear and clean about the atmosphere of this crude and often harsh society. Its very lusts are clean; for they no have longer any smell of perversion. Its very cruelties are clean; they are not the luxurious cruelties of the amphitheatre. They come either of a very simple horror at blasphemy or a very simple fury at an insult. Gradually against this grey background beauty begins to appear, as something really fresh and delicate and above all surprising. Love returning is no longer what was once called platonic but what is still called chivalric love. The flowers and stars are have recovered their first innocence. Fire and water are felt to be worthy to be the brother and sister of a saint. The purge of paganism is complete at last.
For water itself has been washed. Fire itself has been purified as by fire. Water is no longer the water into which slaves were flung to feed the fishes. Fire is no longer that fire through which children were passed to Moloch. Flowers smell no more of the forgotten garlands gathered in the garden of Priapus; stars stand no more as signs of the far frigidity of gods as cold as those cold fires. They are like all new things newly made and awaiting new names, from one who shall come to name them. Neither the universe nor the earth have now any longer the old sinister significance of the world. They await a new reconciliation with man, but they are already capable of being reconciled. Man has stripped from his soul the last rag of nature worship, and can return to nature.
-- From Saint Francis
I think this is one of Chesterton's most remarkable passages. It occured to me today as I was thinking about the Christian Anglo-Saxon poetry of Caedmon and The Dream of the Rood. When I think of those poems, of the whole spiritual and mental world preserved in them, the epithet that leaps to mind is clean. There is a freshness, a naivety, a Spring-time youthfulness in them, as though the sun and moon had been new-minted and a dew lay over all Creation. They seem to belong to a world so much younger and heartier than the Roman Empire.
Chesterton was certainly a man who could "appreciate atmospheres". I think this might be his very greatest gift. He had the most astounding ability to take the pulse of an era, a nation, or an environment. It is to be seen in his description (in Orthodoxy) of the pre-Christian world as a place grown sick and weary of the "Inner Light", or his insight (in The Everlasting Man) that the myths and legends of pagan cultures were hardly believed by anybody, or his diagnosis of Theosophistic and esoteric cults as a hierarchy of mysteries whose ultimate mystery is that there is no God.
Sometimes I think his sensitivity to atmosphere was even, perhaps, what led him astray. His staunch support for World War One came mostly from a horror of what he called "Prussianim", which he saw as an anti-chivalric, anti-Christian, bullying philosophy of Blood and Iron that would corrupt the soul of Europe if permitted. I do not know if he was right; but it seems a very abstract motivation for an unspeakably bloody war.
For water itself has been washed. Fire itself has been purified as by fire. Water is no longer the water into which slaves were flung to feed the fishes. Fire is no longer that fire through which children were passed to Moloch. Flowers smell no more of the forgotten garlands gathered in the garden of Priapus; stars stand no more as signs of the far frigidity of gods as cold as those cold fires. They are like all new things newly made and awaiting new names, from one who shall come to name them. Neither the universe nor the earth have now any longer the old sinister significance of the world. They await a new reconciliation with man, but they are already capable of being reconciled. Man has stripped from his soul the last rag of nature worship, and can return to nature.
-- From Saint Francis
I think this is one of Chesterton's most remarkable passages. It occured to me today as I was thinking about the Christian Anglo-Saxon poetry of Caedmon and The Dream of the Rood. When I think of those poems, of the whole spiritual and mental world preserved in them, the epithet that leaps to mind is clean. There is a freshness, a naivety, a Spring-time youthfulness in them, as though the sun and moon had been new-minted and a dew lay over all Creation. They seem to belong to a world so much younger and heartier than the Roman Empire.
Chesterton was certainly a man who could "appreciate atmospheres". I think this might be his very greatest gift. He had the most astounding ability to take the pulse of an era, a nation, or an environment. It is to be seen in his description (in Orthodoxy) of the pre-Christian world as a place grown sick and weary of the "Inner Light", or his insight (in The Everlasting Man) that the myths and legends of pagan cultures were hardly believed by anybody, or his diagnosis of Theosophistic and esoteric cults as a hierarchy of mysteries whose ultimate mystery is that there is no God.
Sometimes I think his sensitivity to atmosphere was even, perhaps, what led him astray. His staunch support for World War One came mostly from a horror of what he called "Prussianim", which he saw as an anti-chivalric, anti-Christian, bullying philosophy of Blood and Iron that would corrupt the soul of Europe if permitted. I do not know if he was right; but it seems a very abstract motivation for an unspeakably bloody war.
Wednesday, April 25, 2012
Did you know there is an American Cecil Chesterton Society?
Well, there is.
Cecil Chesterton was GK's beloved brother, also a journalist. He played a leading role in exposing the Marconi Scandal of 1912, and died on active service in World War One. Biographies suggest that much of Chesterton's debating brilliance came from constantly debating with his brother from early childhood.
Saturday, April 21, 2012
What Chesterton wrote about the Titanic
Chesterton's friends (along with his wife) often criticized him for wasting his energies upon journalism, that ephemeral art-form, and wanted him to concentrate more upon producing literary masterpieces. I am very glad they didn't succeed. Chesterton's genius was for the polemical, the topical, the addressing of ideas and antagonists head-on rather than through the transposition of fiction.
Another benefit of his zeal for journalism is that his work is a veritable chronicle of his times, and we can be pretty sure that he wrote about any prominent event in the years he produced his weekly column in the London Illustrated News.
I went to see James Cameron's Titantic in 3D today. Film buff though I am, I've avoided seeing it until now, since I can't bear films with tragic endings. But today a hairdresser made me promise I would go to see it-- she had seen it twelve times herself-- so I promised. I try to be a man of my word.
Oh boy. How could anyone sit through that twelve times-- or even more, as I know many people have? Are they masochists? Titanic is a wonderful film by any standards, but for the last hour or so I found myself almost pleading, "Please let it end! My heart can't take any more rending!"
So, never again. But it did make me go to my Chesterton shelf to see if he wrote about the tragedy, and I was pleased to discover he did. Here is the article, from the Illustrated London News of May 11, 1912:
The tragedy of the great shipwreck is too terrific for any analogies of mere fancy. But the analogy which springs to the mind between the great modern ship and our great modern society that sent it forth--this analogy is not a fancy. It is a fact; a fact perhaps too large and plain for the eyes easily to take in. Our whole civilization is indeed very like the TITANIC; alike in its power and its impotence, it security and its insecurity. Technically considered, the sufficiency of the precautions are a matter for technical inquiry. But psychologically considered, there can be no doubt that such vast elaboration and system induce a frame of mind which is inefficient rather than efficient. Quite apart from the question of whether anyone was to blame, the big outstanding fact remains: that there was no sort of sane pro-portion between the provision for luxury and levity, and the extent of the provision for need and desperation. The scheme did far too much for prosperity and far too little for distress--just like the modern State. Mr. Veneering, it will be remembered, in his electoral address, "instituted a new and striking comparison between the State and a ship"; the comparison, if not new, is becoming a little too striking. By the time you have made your ship as big as a commonwealth it does become very like a ship--rather like a sinking ship.
For there is a real connection between such catastrophes and a certain frame of mind which refuses to expect them. A rough man going about the sea in a small boat may make every other kind of mistake: he may obey superstitions; he may take too much rum; he may get drunk; he may get drowned. But, cautious or reckless, drunk or sober, he cannot forget that he is in a boat and that a boat is as dangerous a beast as a wild horse. The very lines of the boat have the swift poetry of peril; the very carriage and gestures of the boat are those of a thing assailed. But if you make your boat so large that it does not even look like a boat, but like a sort of watering-place, it must, by the deepest habit of human nature, induce a less vigilant attitude of the mind. An aristocrat on board ship who travels with a garage for his motor almost feels as if he were travelling with the trees of his park. People living in open-air cafes sprinkled with liqueurs and ices get as far from the thought of any revolt of the elements as they are from that of an earthquake under the Hotel Cecil. The mental process is quite illogical, but it is quite inevitable. Of course, both sailors and passengers are intellectually aware that motors at sea are often less useful than life-boats, and that ices are no antidote to icebergs. But man is not only governed by what he thinks but by what he chooses to think about; and the sights that sink into us day by day colour our minds with every tint between insolence and terror. This is one of the worst evils in that extreme separation of social classes which marks the modern ship--and State.
But whether or no our unhappy fellow-creatures on the TITANIC suffered more than they need from this unreality of original outlook, they cannot have had less instinct of actuality than we have who are left alive on land: and now that they are dead they are much more real than we. They have known what papers and politicians never know--of what man is really made, and what manner of thing is our nature at its best and worst. It is this curious, cold, flimsy incapacity to conceive what a THING is like that appears in so many places, even in the comments on this astounding sorrow. It appears in the displeasing incident of Miss Sylvia Pankhurst, who, immediately after the disaster, seems to have hastened to assure the public that men must get no credit for giving the boats up to women, because it was the "rule" at sea. Whether this was a graceful thing for a gay spinster to say to eight hundred widows in the very hour of doom is not worth inquiry here, Like cannibalism, it is a matter of taste. But what chiefly astonishes me in the remark is the utter absence which it reveals of the rudiments of political thought. What does Miss Pankhurst imagine a "rule" is--a sort of basilisk? Some hundreds of men are, in the exact and literal sense of the proverb, between the devil and the deep sea. It is their business, if they can make up their minds to it, to accept the deep sea and resist the devil. What does Miss Pankhurst suppose a "rule" could do to them in such extremities? Does she think the captain would fine every man sixpence who expressed a preference for his life? Has it occurred to her that a hundredth part of the ship's population could have thrown the captain and all the authorities into the sea? But Miss Pankhurst's remark although imbecile, is informing. Now I see the abject and idolatrous way in which she uses the word "rule," I begin to understand the abject and idolatrous way in which she uses the word "vote." She cannot see that wills and not words control events. If ever she is in a fire or shipwreck with men below a certain standard of European morals, she will soon find out that the existence of a rule depends on whether people can be induced to obey it. And if she ever has a vote in the very low state of European politics, she will very soon find out that its importance depends on whether you can induce the man you vote for to obey his mandate or any of his promises. It is vain to rule if your subjects can and do disobey you. It is vain to vote if your delegates can and do disobey you.
But, indeed, a real rule can do without such exceptions as the Suffragettes; de minimis non curat lex. And if the word "rule" be used in the wider sense of an attempt to maintain a certain standard of private conduct out of respect for public opinion, we can only say that not only is this a real moral triumph, but it is, in our present condition, rather a surprising and reassuring one. It is exactly this corporate conscience that the modern State has dangerously neglected. There was probably more instinctive fraternity and sense of identical interests, I will say, not on an old skipper's vessel, but on an old pirate's, than there was between the emigrants, the aristocrats, the journalists, or the millionaires who set out to die together on the great ship. That they found in so cruel a way their brotherhood and the need of man for the respect of his neighbour, this is a dreadful fact, but certainly the reverse of a degrading one. The case of Mr. Stead, which I feel with rather special emotions, both of sympathy and difference, is very typical of the whole tragedy. Mr. Stead was far too great and brave a man to require any concealment of his exaggerations or his more unbalanced moods; his strength was in a flaming certainty, which one only weakens by calling sincerity, and a hunger and thirst for human sympathy. His excess, we may say, with real respect, was in the direction of megalomania; a childlike belief in big empires, big newspapers, big alliances--big ships. He toiled like a Titan for that Anglo-American combination of which the ship that has gone down may well be called the emblem. And at the last all these big things broke about him, and somewhat bigger things remained: a courage that was entirely individual; a kindness that was entirely universal. His death may well become a legend.
Another benefit of his zeal for journalism is that his work is a veritable chronicle of his times, and we can be pretty sure that he wrote about any prominent event in the years he produced his weekly column in the London Illustrated News.
I went to see James Cameron's Titantic in 3D today. Film buff though I am, I've avoided seeing it until now, since I can't bear films with tragic endings. But today a hairdresser made me promise I would go to see it-- she had seen it twelve times herself-- so I promised. I try to be a man of my word.
Oh boy. How could anyone sit through that twelve times-- or even more, as I know many people have? Are they masochists? Titanic is a wonderful film by any standards, but for the last hour or so I found myself almost pleading, "Please let it end! My heart can't take any more rending!"
So, never again. But it did make me go to my Chesterton shelf to see if he wrote about the tragedy, and I was pleased to discover he did. Here is the article, from the Illustrated London News of May 11, 1912:
The tragedy of the great shipwreck is too terrific for any analogies of mere fancy. But the analogy which springs to the mind between the great modern ship and our great modern society that sent it forth--this analogy is not a fancy. It is a fact; a fact perhaps too large and plain for the eyes easily to take in. Our whole civilization is indeed very like the TITANIC; alike in its power and its impotence, it security and its insecurity. Technically considered, the sufficiency of the precautions are a matter for technical inquiry. But psychologically considered, there can be no doubt that such vast elaboration and system induce a frame of mind which is inefficient rather than efficient. Quite apart from the question of whether anyone was to blame, the big outstanding fact remains: that there was no sort of sane pro-portion between the provision for luxury and levity, and the extent of the provision for need and desperation. The scheme did far too much for prosperity and far too little for distress--just like the modern State. Mr. Veneering, it will be remembered, in his electoral address, "instituted a new and striking comparison between the State and a ship"; the comparison, if not new, is becoming a little too striking. By the time you have made your ship as big as a commonwealth it does become very like a ship--rather like a sinking ship.
For there is a real connection between such catastrophes and a certain frame of mind which refuses to expect them. A rough man going about the sea in a small boat may make every other kind of mistake: he may obey superstitions; he may take too much rum; he may get drunk; he may get drowned. But, cautious or reckless, drunk or sober, he cannot forget that he is in a boat and that a boat is as dangerous a beast as a wild horse. The very lines of the boat have the swift poetry of peril; the very carriage and gestures of the boat are those of a thing assailed. But if you make your boat so large that it does not even look like a boat, but like a sort of watering-place, it must, by the deepest habit of human nature, induce a less vigilant attitude of the mind. An aristocrat on board ship who travels with a garage for his motor almost feels as if he were travelling with the trees of his park. People living in open-air cafes sprinkled with liqueurs and ices get as far from the thought of any revolt of the elements as they are from that of an earthquake under the Hotel Cecil. The mental process is quite illogical, but it is quite inevitable. Of course, both sailors and passengers are intellectually aware that motors at sea are often less useful than life-boats, and that ices are no antidote to icebergs. But man is not only governed by what he thinks but by what he chooses to think about; and the sights that sink into us day by day colour our minds with every tint between insolence and terror. This is one of the worst evils in that extreme separation of social classes which marks the modern ship--and State.
But whether or no our unhappy fellow-creatures on the TITANIC suffered more than they need from this unreality of original outlook, they cannot have had less instinct of actuality than we have who are left alive on land: and now that they are dead they are much more real than we. They have known what papers and politicians never know--of what man is really made, and what manner of thing is our nature at its best and worst. It is this curious, cold, flimsy incapacity to conceive what a THING is like that appears in so many places, even in the comments on this astounding sorrow. It appears in the displeasing incident of Miss Sylvia Pankhurst, who, immediately after the disaster, seems to have hastened to assure the public that men must get no credit for giving the boats up to women, because it was the "rule" at sea. Whether this was a graceful thing for a gay spinster to say to eight hundred widows in the very hour of doom is not worth inquiry here, Like cannibalism, it is a matter of taste. But what chiefly astonishes me in the remark is the utter absence which it reveals of the rudiments of political thought. What does Miss Pankhurst imagine a "rule" is--a sort of basilisk? Some hundreds of men are, in the exact and literal sense of the proverb, between the devil and the deep sea. It is their business, if they can make up their minds to it, to accept the deep sea and resist the devil. What does Miss Pankhurst suppose a "rule" could do to them in such extremities? Does she think the captain would fine every man sixpence who expressed a preference for his life? Has it occurred to her that a hundredth part of the ship's population could have thrown the captain and all the authorities into the sea? But Miss Pankhurst's remark although imbecile, is informing. Now I see the abject and idolatrous way in which she uses the word "rule," I begin to understand the abject and idolatrous way in which she uses the word "vote." She cannot see that wills and not words control events. If ever she is in a fire or shipwreck with men below a certain standard of European morals, she will soon find out that the existence of a rule depends on whether people can be induced to obey it. And if she ever has a vote in the very low state of European politics, she will very soon find out that its importance depends on whether you can induce the man you vote for to obey his mandate or any of his promises. It is vain to rule if your subjects can and do disobey you. It is vain to vote if your delegates can and do disobey you.
But, indeed, a real rule can do without such exceptions as the Suffragettes; de minimis non curat lex. And if the word "rule" be used in the wider sense of an attempt to maintain a certain standard of private conduct out of respect for public opinion, we can only say that not only is this a real moral triumph, but it is, in our present condition, rather a surprising and reassuring one. It is exactly this corporate conscience that the modern State has dangerously neglected. There was probably more instinctive fraternity and sense of identical interests, I will say, not on an old skipper's vessel, but on an old pirate's, than there was between the emigrants, the aristocrats, the journalists, or the millionaires who set out to die together on the great ship. That they found in so cruel a way their brotherhood and the need of man for the respect of his neighbour, this is a dreadful fact, but certainly the reverse of a degrading one. The case of Mr. Stead, which I feel with rather special emotions, both of sympathy and difference, is very typical of the whole tragedy. Mr. Stead was far too great and brave a man to require any concealment of his exaggerations or his more unbalanced moods; his strength was in a flaming certainty, which one only weakens by calling sincerity, and a hunger and thirst for human sympathy. His excess, we may say, with real respect, was in the direction of megalomania; a childlike belief in big empires, big newspapers, big alliances--big ships. He toiled like a Titan for that Anglo-American combination of which the ship that has gone down may well be called the emblem. And at the last all these big things broke about him, and somewhat bigger things remained: a courage that was entirely individual; a kindness that was entirely universal. His death may well become a legend.
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