G. K. Chesterton's "Orthodoxy"

[Tessar]

I couldn't find another thread on this book, so I thought I'd at least start this one. If there's an other thread I'll just do away with this one.

I'll just put up a few of my initial thoughts, since I don't have the tracks of another existing thread to start my mental train on.

Right now I'm struggling to get through the book because I'm getting annoyed with G. K.'s habit of spending a lot of effort and time saying something when he could've summarized it very quickly. I understood what he was saying (or at least I assume I did) the first time, there was no need to tack on another seven examples of just exactly perfectly exactly precisely exactly what you meant... if you take my exact meaning.


I agree with the majority of the things he's been saying so far in principle, and I do like how he talks in the earliest chapters about insanity and how insane it is to try to be perfectly 'reasonable'.

One chapter I've had particular trouble with is the fourth one where he talks about the ethics of fairyland... this chapter bothers me, and I'm not sure if it's because I don't comprehend it, or because I want to disagree with some of what he's saying.

Some of his examples seem mind-numbingly pointless to me. For example, he says that if the apple hits Newton's nose, then Newton's nose has also hit the apple. I wonder if I'm trying to be too literal here, but considering how he seemed like he was trying to use the example I disagree... hitting is a verb, and Newton's nose has not committed an action, it is the apple that is falling and therefor the only thing that can "do" any "hitting". You could say his nose has been 'hit', but the nose itself did not do any hitting unless you presume that Newton swung his face with the intention of hitting the apple.

Then again I may be headed for the insane asylum for being too rational.

[Valandil]

I haven't read Chesterton - but does his 'apple' example have to do with one of Newton's Laws? The one that: 'Every action has an equal and opposite reaction'?

[inked]

Chesterton is an excellent read and ORTHODOXY is a classic. The "Ethics of Elfland" is among his most celebrated articles.

Yes, it does take several readings to understand because the concepts are not of our current western paradigm. Do spend the time re-reading it to get the meaning. You may still disagree, but it will then be rational disagreement rather than mere dislike of style!

I personally like the style very much: urbane, witty, learned, and profoundly Christian, even radically so. That is part of what makes it difficult, of course.
Chesterton famously said that Christianity had not been tried and found wanting but that it had been tried and found difficult.

[Gwaimir Windgem]

I believe it was "found difficult and not tried".

[hectorberlioz]

Sorry Tess. I knew I promised I'd pick up on this discussion with you. I'll try to pick up the book this evening, specifically to discuss the points you brought up in post#1.

[Tessar]

Okay, here are some problems I have with chapter IV, about the ethics of elfland. I tried reading it a second time and got annoyed all over again, so I put the book down for a few days. I'm reading it again, and I think I realize some of what's bothering me.

Forgive me if I 'reason' somewhat as I write, because I both disagree and maybe agree a little, all at once. I also tend to take a rather derogatory tone, but trust me when I say I would not mind being proven wrong, or for a clearer explanation that would show me how I misinterpreted something Chesterton said.

I should also point out that I do love Chesterton's other works. My mom read them to me when I was little, and I've read a few of them myself, and I love them. I don't mind Chesterton as an author overall, I am simply taking issue (maybe from a lack of understanding) with this book.



Chesterton talks about how illogical "laws" are in a scientific sense, then grandly states that in elfland they like to avoid laws. He loosely says that the "law of gravity" is senseless (he singles out gravity specifically, but never says "the law of gravity", hence why I say 'loosely')... that just because a thing falls down over and over and over when you drop it doesn't mean that there is a link between dropping something and that thing falling down.

However in my opinion he has just contradicted the entire point of religion by saying that he believes that.

Religion is founded on the principle of laws. Do this and you will go to heaven. Don't do this, or you'll go to hell. Therefor we are to assume that there is a direct link between an action, and a reaction. A law.

I don't believe this is an illogical conclusion for me to draw because, if we stick with the example of the law of gravity, the law states a mathematical formula for the forces of gravity. It does not presume to say that the objects in the universe which are doing the attracting exist just because there is a law about them, it simply explains the effect those objects have. Laws are, in fact, simply exalted theories that say a certain thing has occurred enough times that we can be reasonably certain it will happen again. It does not say that thing will -always- happen.

I believe Chesterton has based his first 'ideal' on a false understanding of science itself.

Lets also consider the source of religious laws: the bible. Earlier in the chapter, Chesterton talks about how books are written by the 'only insane person in the village' (I'm sure Chesterton would forgive my possible misquotation, since he was rather fond of making inaccurate quotes himself).

Which leads to the second problem I have with his statement of believing more in a wivestale than a fact that someone tells him... I think he would have done poorly if he listened to a 'folk tale' that glorified slave ownership and neglected to listen to the 'fact' that slave ownership is illegal in Texas now. It would, in fact, land him in quite a bit of trouble.



He goes on to say that just because a witch says for a hero to stamp his foot, and that makes a castle fall, the witch doesn't ask why it is that the castle falls, or even ponder if the stomping has any relation to the castle falling.

In that case, we may assume that all theological writing is redundant and meaningless.

Why shouldn't you sleep with another man's wife? You'll go to hell. Don't ask why. In fact, there may be no relation between your going to hell and having slept with the person.

Oh, but you got that 'fact' of going to hell from the bible? Well never mind then. I'll trust the common sensibilities that marriages are flexible, and in fact being a 'swinger' is pretty fun.

Lets not even get into the fact that G.K. Chesterton chose to write down these views of his into a book.... thereby nullifying them simply for the fact that they've been written by the least sane man in the village. He seems to try to rationalize this fact by saying that he disassociates himself somewhat from other writers.


I am not trying to argue that life isn't mysterious. I'm not trying to say God's plans should follow a logical rout that makes sense to me personally.. I'm not trying to say that it shouldn't be ineffable... Which I believe is the point Chesterton is trying to make. He's basically trying to say that God himself is ineffable, and that things happen because He wills it, not because we say that there's a "law" that commands objects to fall when dropped. There, if I understand Chesterton correctly, he and I are in total agreement. Gravity 'exists' because God has chosen to make it that way, not because we decided that it works a certain way. If he wanted to, God could make things stop falling when dropped for some reason that we'd never find a scientific explanation to.

However, God does tend to choose to make things fall when dropped. Why EXACTLY gravity works... that's ineffable. But it certainly tends to happen an awful lot to claim that it's simply a "romantic idea" to say that if you drop something it's going to fall.

[inked]

Tessar,

I think Chesterton is getting at the paradox of man stating by description that he "understands" something. Here the repetitive observation of apples falling from trees is subsumed into a "law of gravitation" and the expert declares it to be understood. Newton only used the gravity as shorthand for forces acting at a distance. The expert, by alleging understanding by the law of gravity, is completely at a loss at the wonder of forces acting at a distance. Chesteron humorously reminds us that forces acting at a distance are forces (note the plural) - here even the apple and the nose. [By the by, on a strictly mechanical basis the nose would rise to meet the apple, remember!] IT is just the loss of this remembrance in the assumed understanding of a law of gravity which functions in a truncated understanding of the world that deprives the events of life in this world of their wonder. This "fall" into a presumedly strict materialism that ends in the most rigid predestination and results in the loss of freedom, choice, and free will. This, Chesterton protests, is too high a price to pay for the apparent veneer of understanding which in the end robs the world of much of its essence, its being.

The paradox at which Chesterton is pointing is that of description of observation as a law which purports to get at meaning when it does no such thing. It is meaning which he holds important because meaning necessitates some person to mean, just as understanding necessitates a mind to get under the outward appearances and grasp the meaning - to "stand under" the intentionality of the event. Merely ascribing to a law of observation the quality of understanding is to NOT stand under the event and get at the meaning of the event.

In short, mere description is not understanding, and the person who fools himself into thinking that such descriptive laws get at the meaning of the event(s) described is twice a fool; once, for taking description as explanation and, twice, for taking such a shallow law as meaning.

Does that help?

On the issue of religion, I think you entirely miss Chesterton's point. You seem to be using law in the strictly observational POV he so detested and miss the meaning of the prohibition. You have taken a materialist minimalist POV when the moral view is concerned with meaning.

The whole relations of men and women and sex are to be found in the meaning of one truly related couple through the whole of life's experiences and the merely repetitive engagement of genitalia between numerous partners obscures the meaning - not enhances it. To truly understand sex requires relationship, the meaning, and not just frictional orgasms with as many surrogates for your masturbatory hand as you can possibly engage in a lifetime of such observations.

See the difference?

Am I being helpful at all? I'll stop at this point and await your responses.
After all, I want that you should understand and not merely hear me describe.

[Tessar]

Hm, that is rather helpful, thank you. I think I understand some of his points better now.

However, I think at this point I understand enough to say that I need a different frame of mind to read this book, and I wont gain that frame of mind by bludgeoning my brain with his ideas over and over .

I discussed it with my mother, and she suggested that I give it a much longer break and try reading some other things for the time being. I really don't think his style suits my current reading abilities, and he's discussing things that I don't have the POV to see in the way he presents.

Thank you for your help, though. I do see some of what you were saying.

I feel like I got a lot out of the first three chapters, at least, so it certainly wasn't a total loss.

[inked]

Good! Both that I was helpful and that you think you should wait a bit before attempting Chesterton. You might try some of his fiction like the detective novels about Father Brown or The Man Who Was Thursday. The ethics of elfland can be told much more easily than described because the narrative allows the reader to enter into the experience and get the meaning! Have fun!

[hectorberlioz]

Also, there is Manalive, a very strange and controversial fictional story---even for me. It's short, too.

[Rían]

Manalive is very odd, indeed!

I like Orthodoxy a lot, and the Ethics of FL chapter, too.