Saturday, November 7, 2009

The Modern Skeptic by GA Chesterton

The new rebel is a skeptic, and will not entirely trust anything.
He has no loyalty, therefore he can never be a true rebelutionist. And that fact that he doubts everything gets in his way when he wants to denounce anything. For all denunciation implies a moral doctrine of some kind, and the modern rebelutionist doubts not only the institution he denounces, but the doctrine by which he denounces it...
As a politician he cries out that war is a waste of life, then as a philosopher that life itself is a waste of time.
A Russian pessimist will denounce a policeman for killing a peasant, then prove by the highest philosophical principles that the peasant ought to have killed himself.
A man denounces marriage as a lie, then denounces aristocratic profligates for treating it as a lie.
A man goes first into a political meeting where he complains that savages are treated as if they were beasts, then takes his hat and umbrella and goes into a scientific meeting, where he proves that they practically are beasts.
In short, the modern revolutionist, being an infinite skeptic, is always engaged in undermining his own mind.
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.


And THAT should give you enough to think about for the rest of the day :)

1 comment:

your daĆ° said...

I love Chesterton quotes..at least the ones that Ravi uses.

:-)