Heretics
Gilbert Keith Chesterton was born in London, England on the 29th of May, 1874. Though he considered himself a mere rollicking journalist, he was actually a prolific and gifted writer in virtually every area of literature. A man of strong opinions and enormously talented at defending them, his exuberant personality nevertheless allowed him to maintain warm friendships with people - such as George Bernard Shaw and H.
Stats for nerds
5recommend
24mentions
10people
2015–2025years
58% recommend42% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- I don't really enjoy the fiction of C. S. Lewis at all, really, and even G. K. Chesterton's fiction is not that good, it feels very contrived and it feels like preaching to the choir. As part of the choir there is a lot I agree with, but I don't quite get the point of his fiction.
But Chesterton's non-fiction books, The Everlasting Man, Orthodoxy, What's Wrong With the World and Heretics are some of the best and most insightful books I have ever read, and they really took me by surprise because I did not expect them to be what they are. They are full of speculation, and misunderstandings, but they are also full of very deep insights into humanity.
I do, however, think the fiction of Tolkien is historic and unsurpassed, nothing written since really comes close IMO.
- I certainly see a through line between Chesterton and After Virtue. As a certified Heretics Enjoyer I'm sold.
- After being indoctrinated to hate everything about the west and Christianity for most of my life — through school, university, news media, entertainment, and the administrative state — and after coming to hate the west and Christianity as a consequence of this indoctrination, I really found the following books to be the ultimate mindfucks:
- Heretics by GK Chesterton
- Orthodoxy by GK Chesterton
- Debunking Howard Zinn: Exposing the Fake History That Turned a Generation against America by Mary Grabar
- A Conflict of Visions by Thomas Sowell
- Dominion: How the Christian Revolution Remade the World by Tom Holland
- Heretics GK Chesterton. By far one of the best books I have ever read, and I have read it about 10 times by now.
One gem from the first chapter:
"When the old Liberals removed the gags from all the heresies, their idea was that religious and philosophical discoveries might thus be made. Their view was that cosmic truth was so important that every one ought to bear independent testimony. The modern idea is that cosmic truth is so unimportant that it cannot matter what any one says. The former freed inquiry as men loose a noble hound; the latter frees inquiry as men fling back into the sea a fish unfit for eating. Never has there been so little discussion about the nature of men as now, when, for the first time, any one can discuss it. The old restriction meant that only the orthodox were allowed to discuss religion. Modern liberty means that nobody is allowed to discuss it. Good taste, the last and vilest of human superstitions, has succeeded in silencing us where all the rest have failed."
- The best response I can give to you is quoting Chesterton's Heretics:
"Mr. Rudyard Kipling has asked in a celebrated epigram what they can know of England who know England only. It is a far deeper and sharper question to ask, “What can they know of England who know only the world?” for the world does not include England any more than it includes the Church. The moment we care for anything deeply, the world—that is, all the other miscellaneous interests—becomes our enemy. Christians showed it when they talked of keeping one’s self “unspotted from the world;” but lovers talk of it just as much when they talk of the “world well lost.” Astronomically speaking, I understand that England is situated on the world; similarly, I suppose that the Church was a part of the world, and even the lovers inhabitants of that orb. But they all felt a certain truth—the truth that the moment you love anything the world becomes your foe. Thus Mr. Kipling does certainly know the world; he is a man of the world, with all the narrowness that belongs to those imprisoned in that planet. He knows England as an intelligent English gentleman knows Venice. He has been to England a great many times; he has stopped there for long visits. But he does not belong to it, or to any place; and the proof of it is this, that he thinks of England as a place. The moment we are rooted in a place, the place vanishes. We live like a tree with the whole strength of the universe."
- Essays of GK Chesterton, Hazlitt, Emerson, Robert Louis Stevenson, Santayana, Bertrand Russell, HL Mencken, Oscar Wilde, William James
Almost everything they wrote, but some good starting points:
Chesterton - Heretics, Varied Types
Hazlitt - The Plain Speaker, Table-Talk
Emerson - Essays: First and Second Series
Stevenson - Virginibus Puerisque, Across the Plains
Santayana - Little Essays ed. Logan Pearsall Smith
Russell - Unpopular Essays, Sceptical Essays
Mencken - Selected Prejudices
Wilde - Intentions
James - Talks to Students, Memories and Studies
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