Chesterton and Modern Man

I have been listening to G.K. Chesterton’s classic book Orthodoxy and am realizing the timeless nature of his words. If you have not yet read this little book of 160 pages then I recommend purchasing it and adding it to your library; but make sure to read it prior to putting it on your shelf!

Written in 1908, Chesterton nails the tendency of modern man–both the man of 1908 and, I believe, the man of 2020. He writes,

But the new rebel is a Sceptic, and will not entirely trust anything. He has no loyalty; therefore he can never be really a revolutionist. And the fact that he doubts everything really gets in his way when he wants to denounce anything. For all denunciation implies a moral doctrine of some kind; and the modern revolutionist doubts not only the institution he denounces, but the doctrine by which he denounces it. Thus he writes one book complaining that imperial oppression insults the purity of women, and then he writes another book (about the sex problem) in which he insults it himself. He curses the Sultan because Christian girls lose their virginity, and then curses Mrs. Grundy because they keep it. As a politician, he will cry out that war is a waste of life, and then, as a philosopher, that all life is waste of time. A Russian pessimist will denounce a policeman for killing a peasant, and then prove by the highest philosophical principles that the peasant ought to have killed himself. A man denounces marriage as a lie, and then denounces aristocratic profligates for treating it as a lie. He calls a flag a bauble, and then blames the oppressors of Poland or Ireland because they take away that bauble. The man of this school goes first to a political meeting, where he complains that savages are treated as if they were beasts; then he takes his hat and umbrella and goes on to a scientific meeting, where he proves that they practically are beasts. In short, the modern revolutionist, being an infinite sceptic, is always engaged in undermining his own mines. In his book on politics he attacks men for trampling on morality; in his book on ethics he attacks morality for trampling on men. Therefore the modern man in revolt has become practically useless for all purposes of revolt. By rebelling against everything he has lost his right to rebel against anything.

Chesteron, G.K. Orthodoxy. Doubleday, 1908, page 41.

In a world of such confusion, I am thankful that there is a place, a person to whom we may go to find peace and stability. At the bottom of everything lies a rock–a cornerstone. Some will build their houses upon it and find rest; some will fall on it and be broken; while it will fall on others and crush them. This univocal cornerstone is truth, full of love and mercy, and he is the only solution to the problems of modern man–of any time.