What's Wrong With The World: A Social Science Essay by G. K. Chesterton
- ISBN-10
- 2382741694
- ISBN-13
- 9782382741696
- Series
- What's Wrong with the World
- Pages
- 114
- Language
- English
- Published
- 2020-10-17
- Author
- G K Chesterton
Description
What's Wrong With The World By G. K. Chesterton Renewal of interest in the work of GK Chesterton continues apace. The writer whose career began when he dictated his first story to his aunt Rose at the age of three started early and aimed high, and his intellectual development was among the more conspicuously interesting of the Edwardian age. His Orthodoxy of 1908 has become a sort of touchstone text during the present vogue for philosophical theology, much cited by the likes of Slavoj Zizek and the radical theologian John Milbank, while oddball novels such as The Napoleon of Notting Hill (1904) and The Man Who Was Thursday (1908) retain the power to entertain and bemuse in equal measure.This year, however, sees the centenary of one of his rather less high-profile publications. What's Wrong with the World represents an extrapolation of Chesterton's original response to a query posed in so many words by the Times to a selection of eminent writers and thinkers of the day. "Dear Sirs," ran GK's succinct rejoinder, "I am". The publication of the book suggested that, on reflection, there might have been more to say on the subject.The Chesterton offered us by his latter-day biographers and critics is a lost proto-radical, if we could but make him out as such. Along with his close friend Hilaire Belloc, he was the proponent of a species of Third Way politics avant la lettre, a plague-on-both-your-houses confutation of capitalism and socialism known as distributism. Drastically simplified, the vision was of an atomised entrepreneurialism in which as many individuals as possible pursued the goal of profit, so as to wrest capital accumulation from both a few vastly powerful interests (such as "Jewish banking families") and a monolithic socialist state.What's Wrong with the World opens with an analysis of the predicament of modern humanity, too obsessed in the great age of political idealism with visions of the future. Has the Enlightenment ideal of continual social progress been a reality, or has it all been a piece of western myth-making? "Are we still strong enough to spear mammoths, but now tender enough to spare them?" he wonders. But then again, "Does the cosmos contain any mammoth that we have either speared or spared?"What it does contain is the wreckage of half-realised ideals. There is a lack of conviction in attempts to enact the radical doctrines of Christianity or of political justice, and too often the espousal of great causes results in panic at the consequences of one's own actions. Where national leaders paid lip-service to such humanist ideals as egalitarianism, they came to rue their faith in humanity. "Joseph of Austria and Catherine of Russia quite agreed that the people should rule what horrified them was that the people did.""The Guardians: The World of of GK Chesterton, and what's wrong with it"
Get the book
Other editions
Similar books
-
What's Wrong with the World
By Gilbert Keith ChestertonWhat'S Wrong with the World by Gilbert Keith Chesterton, first published in 1910, is a rare manuscript, the original residing in one of the great libraries of the world. This...
-
What's Wrong with the World (Royal Collector's Edition) (Case Laminate Hardcover with Jacket)
By Gilbert K ChestertonIn What's Wrong With the World Gilbert K. Chesterton identifies social evil, an inability to learn from the past, the destruction of the family unit, the dehumanization of modern industrialism, and commercialism.
-
What's Wrong with the World
By G. K. ChestertonIn this collection of essays, G. K. Chesterton matches his wits against some of the greatest issues of the 20th century.
-
What's Wrong with the World
By G. K. CherstonVisit us online at www.1stWorldLibrary.ORG - - I originally called this book "What is Wrong," and it would have satisfied your sardonic temper to note the number of social misunderstandings that arose from the use of the title.
-
What's Wrong with the United Nations and How to Fix It
By Thomas G. WeissIn the first half of the book, he considers: the problems of international leadership and decision making in a world of self-interested states; the diplomatic complications caused by the artificial divisions between the industrialized North ...
-
Conscious Globalism: What's Wrong with the World and how to Fix it
By David A. SchwerinThis is the author's second book.
-
What's Wrong with China
By Paul MidlerThis book will be hated by the commissars, because it is a triumph of analysis and good sense." PAUL THEROUX "I sure wish I'd read this book before heading to China or Chinatown, for that matter.
-
What's Wrong with Rights?
By Nigel BiggarWhat's Wrong with Rights? argues that contemporary rights-talk obscures the importance civic virtue, military effectiveness and the democratic law legitimacy.
-
What's Wrong with the World
By G. K. Chesterton"What's Wrong With The World?" is a book by G. K. Chesterton, first published in 1910. In this work, Chesterton examines the state of the world and offers his own unique perspective on the issues of the day.
-
What's Wrong With Terrorism?
By Robert E. GoodinIn this provocative new book, Robert Goodin puts forward the view that terrorism is, in fact, a deliberate tactic of frightening people for socio-political gain.