► G. K. Chesterton's Works on internet

 

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In order to bring you a wide rage of books and essays from G.K. Chesterton, I am developing a well organized structure divided into topics. This page is related to non fictions books.

► HERETICS

► ORTHODOXY

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► ORTHODOXY by G.K Chesterton.

 

ORTHODOXY
BY GILBERT K. CHESTERTON (1908)


PREFACE

THIS book is meant to be a companion to "Heretics," and to put the positive side in addition to the negative. Many critics complained of the book called "Heretics" because it merely criticised current philosophies without offering any alternative philosophy. This book is an attempt to answer the challenge. It is unavoidably affirmative and therefore unavoidably autobiographical. The writer has been driven back upon somewhat the same difficulty as that which beset Newman in writing his Apologia; he has been forced to be egotistical only in order to be sincere. While everything else may be different the motive in both cases is the same. It is the purpose of the writer to attempt an explanation, not of whether the Christian Faith can be believed, but of how he personally has come to believe it. The book is therefore arranged upon the positive principle of a riddle and its answer. It deals first with all the writer's own solitary and sincere speculations and then with all the startling style in which they were all suddenly satisfied by the Christian Theology. The writer regards it as amounting to a convincing creed. But if it is not that it is at least a repeated and surprising coincidence.Gilbert K. Chesterton.
CONTENTS

I. INTRODUCTION IN DEFENCE OF EVERYTHING ELSE
II. THE MANIAC
III. THE SUICIDE OF THOUGHT
IV. THE ETHICS OF ELFLAND
V. THE FLAG OF THE WORLD
VI. THE PARADOXES OF CHRISTIANITY
VII. THE ETERNAL REVOLUTION
VIII. THE ROMANCE OF ORTHODOXY
IX. AUTHORITY AND THE ADVENTURER

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► ORTHODOXY, CHAPTER IX Authority and the Adventurer

 

THE last chapter has been concerned with the contention that orthodoxy is not only (as is often urged) the only safe guardian of morality or order, but is also the only logical guardian of liberty, innovation and advance. If we wish to pull down the prosperous oppressor we cannot do it with the new doctrine of human perfectibility; we can do it with the old doctrine of Original Sin. If we want to uproot inherent cruelties or lift up lost populations we cannot do it with the scientific theory that matter precedes mind; we can do it with the supernatural theory that mind precedes matter. If we wish specially to awaken people to social vigilance and tireless pursuit of practise, we cannot help it much by insisting on the Immanent God and the Inner Light: for these are at best reasons for contentment; we can help it much by insisting on the transcendent God and the flying and escaping gleam; for that means divine discontent.

► ORTHODOXY, CHAPTER VIII The Romance of Orthodoxy

 

IT is customary to complain of the bustle and strenuousness of our epoch. But in truth the chief mark of our epoch is a profound laziness and fatigue; and the fact is that the real laziness is the cause of the apparent bustle. Take one quite external case; the streets are noisy with taxicabs and motorcars; but this is not due to human activity but to human repose. There would be less bustle if there were more activity, if people were simply walking about. Our world would be more silent if it were more strenuous. And this which is true of the apparent physical bustle is true also of the apparent bustle of the intellect. Most of the machinery of modern language is labour-saving machinery; and it saves mental labour very much more than it ought. Scientific phrases are used like scientific wheels and piston-rods to make swifter and smoother yet the path of the comfortable. Long words go rattling by us like long railway trains.

► ORTHODOXY, CHAPTER VII The Eternal Revolution

THE following propositions have been urged: First, that some faith in our life is required even to improve it; second, that some dissatisfaction with things as they are is necessary even in order to be satisfied; third, that to have this necessary content and necessary discontent it is not sufficient to have the obvious equilibrium of the Stoic. For mere resignation has neither the gigantic levity of pleasure nor the superb intolerance of pain. There is a vital objection to the advice merely to grin and bear it. The objection is that if you merely bear it, you do not grin. Greek heroes do not grin: but gargoyles do -- because they are Christian.

► ORTHODOXY. CHAPTER VI The Paradoxes of Christianity

THE real trouble with this world of ours is not that it is an unreasonable world, nor even that it is a reasonable one. The commonest kind of trouble is that it is nearly reasonable, but not quite. Life is not an illogicality; yet it is a trap for logicians. It looks just a little more mathematical and regular than it is; its exactitude is obvious, but its inexactitude is hidden; its wildness lies in wait. I give one coarse instance of what I mean. Suppose some mathematical creature from the moon were to reckon up the human body; he would at once see that the essential thing about it was that it was duplicate.

► ORTHODOXY, CHAPTER V The Flag of the World

 WHEN I was a boy there were two curious men running about who were called the optimist and the pessimist. I constantly used the words myself, but I cheerfully confess that I never had any very special idea of what they meant. The only thing which might be considered evident was that they could not mean what they said; for the ordinary verbal explanation was that the optimist thought this world as good as it could be, while the pessimist thought it as bad as it could be. Both these statements being obviously raving nonsense, one had to cast about for other explanations.

► ORTHODOXY, CHAPTER IV The Ethics of Elfland

 

WHEN the business man rebukes the idealism of his office-boy, it is commonly in some such speech as this: "Ah, yes, when one is young, one has these ideals in the abstract and these castles in the air; but in middle age they all break up like clouds, and one comes down to a belief in practical politics, to using the machinery one has and getting on with the world as it is." Thus, at least, venerable and philanthropic old men now in their honoured graves used to talk to me when I was a boy. But since then I have grown up and have discovered that these philanthropic old men were telling lies. What has really happened is exactly the opposite of what they said would happen. They said that I should lose my ideals and begin to believe in the methods of practical politicians.

► ORTHODOXY, CHAPTER III The Suicide of Thought

 

THE phrases of the street are not only forcible but subtle: for a figure of speech can often get into a crack too small for a definition. Phrases like "put out" or "off colour" might have been coined by Mr. Henry James in an agony of verbal precision. And there is no more subtle truth than that of the everyday phrase about a man having "his heart in the right place." It involves the idea of normal proportion; not only does a certain function exist, but it is rightly related to other functions. Indeed, the negation of this phrase would describe with peculiar accuracy the somewhat morbid mercy and perverse tenderness of the most representative moderns. If, for instance, I had to describe with fairness the character of Mr. Bernard Shaw, I could not express myself more exactly than by saying that he has a heroically large and generous heart; but not a heart in the right place. And this is so of the typical society of our time.

► ORTHODOXY, CHAPTER II The Maniac

THOROUGHLY worldly people never understand even the world; they rely altogether on a few cynical maxims which are not true. Once I remember walking with a prosperous publisher, who made a remark which I had often heard before; it is, indeed, almost a motto of the modern world. Yet I had heard it once too often, and I saw suddenly that there was nothing in it. The publisher said of somebody, "That man will get on; he believes in himself." And I remember that as I lifted my head to listen, my eye caught an omnibus on which was written "Hanwell." I said to him, "Shall I tell you where the men are who believe most in themselves? For I can tell you. I know of men who believe in themselves more colossally than Napoleon or Caesar. I know where flames the fixed star of certainty and success. I can guide you to the thrones of the Super-men.

► ORTHODOXY, CHAPTER I Introduction in Defence of Everything Else

THE only possible excuse for this book is that it is an answer to a challenge. Even a bad shot is dignified when he accepts a duel. When some time ago I published a series of hasty but sincere papers, under the name of "Heretics," several critics for whose intellect I have a warm respect (I may mention specially Mr. G. S. Street) said that it was all very well for me to tell everybody to affirm his cosmic theory, but that I had carefully avoided supporting my precepts with example. "I will begin to worry about my philosophy," said Mr. Street, "when Mr. Chesterton has given us his." It was perhaps an incautious suggestion to make to a person only too ready to write books upon the feeblest provocation. But after all, though Mr. Street has inspired and created this book, he need not read it. If he does read it, he will find that in its pages I have attempted in a vague and personal way, in a set of mental pictures rather than in a series of deductions, to state the philosophy in which I have come to believe. I will not call it my philosophy; for I did not make it. God and humanity made it; and it made me.

► Examining Tolkien: The Return of the Priest, Prophet, and King

By: Patrick Frazier, Franciscan University of Steubenville

I love The Lord of The Rings. I cannot state this fact enough. While there are many works of fiction that have a special place in my heart, nothing has had as much of an influence on my life as Tolkien’s epic. When discussing the various works of fantasy out there, from Skyrim to Narnia, I’ll often refer to this tale of Hobbits and evil jewelry as “the ultimate myth.” Meanwhile, Peter Jackson’s cinematic adaptations are undoubtedly my favorite film trilogy of all time. But what’s every bit as fascinating about Middle-Earth is the creator of that universe.

► HERETICS by G.K Chesterton.

HERETICS

BY GILBERT K. CHESTERTON (1908)

"To My Father"

The Author

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. G. Wells--with whom he vehemently disagreed.

Chesterton had no difficulty standing up for what he believed. He was one of the few journalists to oppose the Boer War. His 1922 "Eugenics and Other Evils" attacked what was at that time the most progressive of all ideas, the idea that the human race could and should breed a superior version of itself. In the Nazi experience, history demonstrated the wisdom of his once "reactionary" views.

► HERETICS, CHAPTER XX. Concluding Remarks on the Importance of Orthodoxy

Whether the human mind can advance or not, is a question too little discussed, for nothing can be more dangerous than to found our social philosophy on any theory which is debatable but has not been debated. But if we assume, for the sake of argument, that there has been in the past, or will be in the future, such a thing as a growth or improvement of the human mind itself, there still remains a very sharp objection to be raised against the modern version of that improvement. The vice of the modern notion of mental progress is that it is always something concerned with the breaking of bonds, the effacing of boundaries, the casting away of dogmas. But if there be such a thing as mental growth, it must mean the growth into more and more definite convictions, into more and more dogmas. The human brain is a machine for coming to conclusions; if it cannot come to conclusions it is rusty. When we hear of a man too clever to believe, we are hearing of something having almost the character of a contradiction in terms.

► HERETICS, CHAPTER XIX. Slum Novelists and the Slums

Odd ideas are entertained in our time about the real nature of the doctrine of human fraternity. The real doctrine is something which we do not, with all our modern humanitarianism, very clearly understand, much less very closely practise. There is nothing, for instance, particularly undemocratic about kicking your butler downstairs. It may be wrong, but it is not unfraternal. In a certain sense, the blow or kick may be considered as a confession of equality: you are meeting your butler body to body; you are almost according him the privilege of the duel. There is nothing, undemocratic, though there may be something unreasonable, in expecting a great deal from the butler, and being filled with a kind of frenzy of surprise when he falls short of the divine stature. The thing which is really undemocratic and unfraternal is not to expect the butler to be more or less divine. The thing which is really undemocratic and unfraternal is to say, as so many modern humanitarians say, "Of course one must make allowances for those on a lower plane." All things considered indeed, it may be said, without undue exaggeration, that the really undemocratic and unfraternal thing is the common practice of not kicking the butler downstairs.

► HERETICS, CHAPTER XVIII. The Fallacy of the Young Nation

To say that a man is an idealist is merely to say that he is a man; but, nevertheless, it might be possible to effect some valid distinction between one kind of idealist and another. One possible distinction, for instance, could be effected by saying that humanity is divided into conscious idealists and unconscious idealists. In a similar way, humanity is divided into conscious ritualists and. unconscious ritualists. The curious thing is, in that example as in others, that it is the conscious ritualism which is comparatively simple, the unconscious ritual which is really heavy and complicated. The ritual which is comparatively rude and straightforward is the ritual which people call "ritualistic." It consists of plain things like bread and wine and fire, and men falling on their faces. But the ritual which is really complex, and many coloured, and elaborate, and needlessly formal, is the ritual which people enact without knowing it. It consists not of plain things like wine and fire, but of really peculiar, and local, and exceptional, and ingenious things-- things like door-mats, and door-knockers, and electric bells, and silk hats, and white ties, and shiny cards, and confetti. The truth is that the modern man scarcely ever gets back to very old and simple things except when he is performing some religious mummery.

► HERETICS, CHAPTER XVII. On the Wit of Whistler

That capable and ingenious writer, Mr. Arthur Symons, has included in a book of essays recently published, I believe, an apologia for "London Nights," in which he says that morality should be wholly subordinated to art in criticism, and he uses the somewhat singular argument that art or the worship of beauty is the same in all ages, while morality differs in every period and in every respect. He appears to defy his critics or his readers to mention any permanent feature or quality in ethics. This is surely a very curious example of that extravagant bias against morality which makes so many ultra-modern aesthetes as morbid and fanatical as any Eastern hermit. Unquestionably it is a very common phrase of modern intellectualism to say that the morality of one age can be entirely different to the morality of another. And like a great many other phrases of modern intellectualism, it means literally nothing at all.

► HERETICS, CHAPTER XVI. On Mr. McCabe and a Divine Frivolity

A critic once remonstrated with me saying, with an air of indignant reasonableness, "If you must make jokes, at least you need not make them on such serious subjects." I replied with a natural simplicity and wonder, "About what other subjects can one make jokes except serious subjects?" It is quite useless to talk about profane jesting. All jesting is in its nature profane, in the sense that it must be the sudden realization that something which thinks itself solemn is not so very solemn after all. If a joke is not a joke about religion or morals, it is a joke about police-magistrates or scientific professors or undergraduates dressed up as Queen Victoria. And people joke about the police-magistrate more than they joke about the Pope, not because the police-magistrate is a more frivolous subject, but, on the contrary, because the police-magistrate is a more serious subject than the Pope.

► HERETICS, CHAPTER XV. On Smart Novelists and the Smart Set

In one sense, at any rate, it is more valuable to read bad literature than good literature. Good literature may tell us the mind of one man; but bad literature may tell us the mind of many men. A good novel tells us the truth about its hero; but a bad novel tells us the truth about its author. It does much more than that, it tells us the truth about its readers; and, oddly enough, it tells us this all the more the more cynical and immoral be the motive of its manufacture. The more dishonest a book is as a book the more honest it is as a public document. A sincere novel exhibits the simplicity of one particular man; an insincere novel exhibits the simplicity of mankind. The pedantic decisions and definable readjustments of man may be found in scrolls and statute books and scriptures; but men's basic assumptions and everlasting energies are to be found in penny dreadfuls and halfpenny novelettes. Thus a man, like many men of real culture in our day, might learn from good literature nothing except the power to appreciate good literature. But from bad literature he might learn to govern empires and look over the map of mankind.

► HERETICS, CHAPTER XIV. On Certain Modern Writers and the Institution of the Family

The family may fairly be considered, one would think, an ultimate human institution. Every one would admit that it has been the main cell and central unit of almost all societies hitherto, except, indeed, such societies as that of Lacedaemon, which went in for "efficiency," and has, therefore, perished, and left not a trace behind. Christianity, even enormous as was its revolution, did not alter this ancient and savage sanctity; it merely reversed it. It did not deny the trinity of father, mother, and child. It merely read it backwards, making it run child, mother, father. This it called, not the family, but the Holy Family, for many things are made holy by being turned upside down. But some sages of our own decadence have made a serious attack on the family. They have impugned it, as I think wrongly; and its defenders have defended it, and defended it wrongly. The common defence of the family is that, amid the stress and fickleness of life, it is peaceful, pleasant, and at one. But there is another defence of the family which is possible, and to me evident; this defence is that the family is not peaceful and not pleasant and not at one.

► HERETICS, CHAPTER XIII. Celts and Celtophiles

Science in the modern world has many uses; its chief use, however, is to provide long words to cover the errors of the rich. The word "kleptomania" is a vulgar example of what I mean. It is on a par with that strange theory, always advanced when a wealthy or prominent person is in the dock, that exposure is more of a punishment for the rich than for the poor. Of course, the very reverse is the truth. Exposure is more of a punishment for the poor than for the rich. The richer a man is the easier it is for him to be a tramp. The richer a man is the easier it is for him to be popular and generally respected in the Cannibal Islands. But the poorer a man is the more likely it is that he will have to use his past life whenever he wants to get a bed for the night. Honour is a luxury for aristocrats, but it is a necessity for hall-porters. This is a secondary matter, but it is an example of the general proposition I offer-- the proposition that an enormous amount of modern ingenuity is expended on finding defences for the indefensible conduct of the powerful. As I have said above, these defences generally exhibit themselves most emphatically in the form of appeals to physical science. And of all the forms in which science, or pseudo-science, has come to the rescue of the rich and stupid, there is none so singular as the singular invention of the theory of races. 

► HERETICS, CHAPTER XII. Paganism and Mr. Lowes Dickinson

Of the New Paganism (or neo-Paganism), as it was preached flamboyantly by Mr. Swinburne or delicately by Walter Pater, there is no necessity to take any very grave account, except as a thing which left behind it incomparable exercises in the English language. The New Paganism is no longer new, and it never at any time bore the smallest resemblance to Paganism. The ideas about the ancient civilization which it has left loose in the public mind are certainly extraordinary enough. The term "pagan" is continually used in fiction and light literature as meaning a man without any religion, whereas a pagan was generally a man with about half a dozen. The pagans, according to this notion, were continually crowning themselves with flowers and dancing about in an irresponsible state, whereas, if there were two things that the best pagan civilization did honestly believe in, they were a rather too rigid dignity and a much too rigid responsibility. Pagans are depicted as above all things inebriate and lawless, whereas they were above all things reasonable and respectable. They are praised as disobedient when they had only one great virtue-- civic obedience. They are envied and admired as shamelessly happy when they had only one great sin--despair. 

► HERETICS, CHAPTER XI. Science and the Savages

 

A permanent disadvantage of the study of folk-lore and kindred subjects is that the man of science can hardly be in the nature of things very frequently a man of the world. He is a student of nature; he is scarcely ever a student of human nature. And even where this difficulty is overcome, and he is in some sense a student of human nature, this is only a very faint beginning of the painful progress towards being human. For the study of primitive race and religion stands apart in one important respect from all, or nearly all, the ordinary scientific studies. A man can understand astronomy only by being an astronomer; he can understand entomology only by being an entomologist (or, perhaps, an insect); but he can understand a great deal of anthropology merely by being a man.

► HERETICS, CHAPTER X. On Sandals and Simplicity

The great misfortune of the modern English is not at all that they are more boastful than other people (they are not); it is that they are boastful about those particular things which nobody can boast of without losing them. A Frenchman can be proud of being bold and logical, and still remain bold and logical. A German can be proud of being reflective and orderly, and still remain reflective and orderly. But an Englishman cannot be proud of being simple and direct, and still remain simple and direct. In the matter of these strange virtues, to know them is to kill them. A man may be conscious of being heroic or conscious of being divine, but he cannot (in spite of all the Anglo-Saxon poets) be conscious of being unconscious.

► HERETICS, CHAPTER IX. The Moods of Mr. George Moore

Mr. George Moore began his literary career by writing his personal confessions; nor is there any harm in this if he had not continued them for the remainder of his life. He is a man of genuinely forcible mind and of great command over a kind of rhetorical and fugitive conviction which excites and pleases. He is in a perpetual state of temporary honesty. He has admired all the most admirable modern eccentrics until they could stand it no longer. Everything he writes, it is to be fully admitted, has a genuine mental power. His account of his reason for leaving the Roman Catholic Church is possibly the most admirable tribute to that communion which has been written of late years. 

► HERETICS, CHAPTER VIII. The Mildness of the Yellow Press

There is a great deal of protest made from one quarter or another nowadays against the influence of that new journalism which is associated with the names of Sir Alfred Harmsworth and Mr. Pearson. But almost everybody who attacks it attacks on the ground that it is very sensational, very violent and vulgar and startling. I am speaking in no affected contrariety, but in the simplicity of a genuine personal impression, when I say that this journalism offends as being not sensational or violent enough. The real vice is not that it is startling, but that it is quite insupportably tame. The whole object is to keep carefully along a certain level of the expected and the commonplace; it may be low, but it must take care also to be flat. Never by any chance in it is there any of that real plebeian pungency which can be heard from the ordinary cabman in the ordinary street.

► HERETICS, CHAPTER VII. Omar and the Sacred Vine

A new morality has burst upon us with some violence in connection with the problem of strong drink; and enthusiasts in the matter range from the man who is violently thrown out at 12.30, to the lady who smashes American bars with an axe. In these discussions it is almost always felt that one very wise and moderate position is to say that wine or such stuff should only be drunk as a medicine. With this I should venture to disagree with a peculiar ferocity. The one genuinely dangerous and immoral way of drinking wine is to drink it as a medicine. And for this reason, If a man drinks wine in order to obtain pleasure, he is trying to obtain something exceptional, something he does not expect every hour of the day, something which, unless he is a little insane, he will not try to get every hour of the day. But if a man drinks wine in order to obtain health, he is trying to get something natural; something, that is, that he ought not to be without; something that he may find it difficult to reconcile himself to being without.

► HERETICS, CHAPTER VI. Christmas and the Aesthetes

The world is round, so round that the schools of optimism and pessimism have been arguing from the beginning whether it is the right way up. The difficulty does not arise so much from the mere fact that good and evil are mingled in roughly equal proportions; it arises chiefly from the fact that men always differ about what parts are good and what evil. Hence the difficulty which besets "undenominational religions." They profess to include what is beautiful in all creeds, but they appear to many to have collected all that is dull in them.

► HERETICS, CHAPTER V. Mr. H. G. Wells and the Giants

We ought to see far enough into a hypocrite to see even his sincerity. We ought to be interested in that darkest and most real part of a man in which dwell not the vices that he does not display, but the virtues that he cannot. And the more we approach the problems of human history with this keen and piercing charity, the smaller and smaller space we shall allow to pure hypocrisy of any kind. The hypocrites shall not deceive us into thinking them saints; but neither shall they deceive us into thinking them hypocrites. And an increasing number of cases will crowd into our field of inquiry, cases in which there is really no question of hypocrisy at all, cases in which people were so ingenuous that they seemed absurd, and so absurd that they seemed disingenuous.

► HERETICS, CHAPTER IV. Mr. Bernard Shaw

In the glad old days, before the rise of modern morbidities, when genial old Ibsen filled the world with wholesome joy, and the kindly tales of the forgotten Emile Zola kept our firesides merry and pure, it used to be thought a disadvantage to be misunderstood. It may be doubted whether it is always or even generally a disadvantage. The man who is misunderstood has always this advantage over his enemies, that they do not know his weak point or his plan of campaign. They go out against a bird with nets and against a fish with arrows. There are several modern examples of this situation. Mr. Chamberlain, for instance, is a very good one. He constantly eludes or vanquishes his opponents because his real powers and deficiencies are quite different to those with which he is credited, both by friends and foes.

► HERETICS, CHAPTER III. On Mr. Rudyard Kipling and Making the World Small

There is no such thing on earth as an uninteresting subject; the only thing that can exist is an uninterested person. Nothing is more keenly required than a defence of bores. When Byron divided humanity into the bores and bored, he omitted to notice that the higher qualities exist entirely in the bores, the lower qualities in the bored, among whom he counted himself. The bore, by his starry enthusiasm, his solemn happiness, may, in some sense, have proved himself poetical. The bored has certainly proved himself prosaic.

► HERETICS, CHAPTER II. On the Negative Spirit

 

Much has been said, and said truly, of the monkish morbidity, of the hysteria which as often gone with the visions of hermits or nuns. But let us never forget that this visionary religion is, in one sense, necessarily more wholesome than our modern and reasonable morality. It is more wholesome for this reason, that it can contemplate the idea of success or triumph in the hopeless fight towards the ethical ideal, in what Stevenson called, with his usual startling felicity, "the lost fight of virtue." A modern morality, on the other hand, can only point with absolute conviction to the horrors that follow breaches of law; its only certainty is a certainty of ill. It can only point to imperfection. It has no perfection to point to. But the monk meditating upon Christ or Buddha has in his mind an image of perfect health, a thing of clear colours and clean air.

► HERETICS, CHAPTER I. Introductory Remarks on the Importance of Orthodoxy

Nothing more strangely indicates an enormous and silent evil of modern society than the extraordinary use which is made nowadays of the word "orthodox." In former days the heretic was proud of not being a heretic. It was the kingdoms of the world and the police and the judges who were heretics. He was orthodox. He had no pride in having rebelled against them; they had rebelled against him. The armies with their cruel security, the kings with their cold faces, the decorous processes of State, the reasonable processes of law--all these like sheep had gone astray. The man was proud of being orthodox, was proud of being right. If he stood alone in a howling wilderness he was more than a man; he was a church.

► «Cartas del sobrino a su diablo» por Juan Manuel del Prada

Cuando más escéptico estaba de poder destruir moralmente a los españoles, aprovechando la plaga coronavírica, me llegó tu envío, queridísimo tito Escrutopo. Al recibirlo, pensé ilusionado que sería una colección de tebeos hentai, para que me consolase tocando la zambomba; así que me pillé un cabreo de órdago al comprobar que era un libraco titulado «Tratado de la naturaleza humana», de un tal David Hume.

► «Vacunas y cientificismo» por Juan Manuel de Prada

La idolatría cientificista es un sucedáneo de la fe religiosa. Ha sustituido la religiosidad entre las masas cretinizadas; o, como señala Castellani, la ha destruido, porque «sólo se destruye lo que se sustituye». Esta idolatría cientificista causa estragos entre lo que Unamuno llamaba la «mesocracia intelectual»; y, ahora que las clases medias -tanto económicas como intelectuales- están desapareciendo, causa mayores estragos todavía, porque la idolatría es tanto mayor cuanto menor es la ciencia de los que la profesan, convertidos en loritos que -volvemos a citar a Unamuno-

► Pufo y pelotazo de Pfizer por Juan Manuel de Prada ◄

En alguna ocasión anterior hemos recomendado la lectura de «Notas para la supresión de los partidos políticos», un opúsculo donde la filósofa francesa Simone Weil arremete contra la plaga de la partitocracia, cuyo fin no es otro sino alimentar pasiones sectarias «que chocan entre sí con un ruido verdaderamente infernal», con el único propósito de «matar en las almas el sentido de la verdad y de la justicia». Los partidos políticos, en efecto, no son sino burocracias o chiringuitos que las élites extractivas montan para repartirse el poder y sacar pasta, mientras alimentan a sus adeptos de veneno ideológico, que impide la captación cabal de la realidad. Así está ocurriendo con el pufo y pelotazo de la compañía o timoteca llamada Pfizer, en el que nadie repara.

► MAZETTI sobre ELECCIONES en PERÚ: «No podemos PREDECIR qué pasará más ADELANTE»

Particularmente no me sorprende mucho la noticia. Creo que de alguna manera era previsible que las elecciones se puedan suspender, ya sea porque el propio gobierno tome la desición o porque, ante la abstención de la población, las elecciones se tengan que suspender.  

Transcribo la nota integralmente de la web de Expreso. 

🎥▶️¿Se viene el PASAPORTE C0V1D?😱

 

Vivimos tiempos de gran tribulación, en donde los cambios difícilmente se explican en términos de casualidad o concurso de aleatorias variables sin aparente intención. Sin embargo no deja de ser empiricamente verificable que en los últimos meses, la transformación digital de todos los aspectos de la vida humana se ha acelerado de manera brutal. 

► Lo que se nos VIENE es muy, MUY MALO (y muy, MUY POCOS se dan cuenta) por Alex Navajas ◄

 

La frase me vino a la cabeza mientras seguía en televisión hace pocos días cómo un tipo estrafalario, un fantoche, ataviado con unas pieles y un casco con dos cuernos, se fotografiaba en la presidencia del Congreso del país más poderoso del mundo. “Lo que se nos viene encima es muy, muy malo. Y creo que son muy, muy pocos los que se dan cuenta”, pensé entonces.

De fondo se escuchaban las voces -los graznidos, parecían en ocasiones- de los analistas quienes, todos a una, con una uniformidad y una simpleza sonrojantes, nos repetían el catón aquel de que Trump es el malo y Biden, el bueno. Sin matices. No fuera a quedar duda. El nivel de profundidad intelectual de sus comentarios no excedía al de un capítulo de Barrio Sésamo.

► La izquierda CANICHE alimenta de RESENTIMIENTO a las masas CRETINIZADAS, por Juan Manuel de Prada

En estos días resuena más vigoroso y profético que nunca el veredicto de Donoso Cortés: «El principio electivo es de suyo cosa tan corruptora que todas las sociedades civiles, así antiguas como modernas, en que ha prevalecido han muerto gangrenadas». Y, mientras la democracia muere gangrenada, emerge sobre sus ruinas un tirano gigantesco -también avizorado por Donoso- de naturaleza plutocrática.

► Una CONVERSACIÓN con G.K. CHESTERTON en MADRID

G.K Chesterton

Hoy me desperté muy temprano, como casi todos los días que quiero dormir más y no puedo;  y mirando el móvil, me encontré con este artículo que es la crónica de una entrevista a Chesterton durante una visita a Madrid el 1ro de mayo de 1926, y publicada por el diario ABC de España. 

Me pareció interesante publicarla también en mi blog, continuando un poco con el estudio a detalle de sus obras y su pensamiento. El artículo es de Álvaro Alcalá Galiano. 

► Pence ahora habla de reconciliación nacional y no piensa activar la enmienda 25

Al parecer cierto humo blanco ha aparecido entre el presidente norteamericano Donald Trump y el vicepresidente Mike Pence, luego que este último rechazara invocar la 25ª Enmienda de la Constitución de los Estados Unidos, con la finalidad de apartar de su cargo al actual mandatario.

«No creo que esa medida sirva al mejor interés de nuestra nación o sea conforme con nuestra Constitución» comentó Pence en un oficio dirigido a Nancy Pelosi, Líder de la Cámara de Representantes; previo a una votación en la Cámara Baja que le exigía apelar a ese mecanismo.

💥 ¿Vivimos en una GUERRA RELIGIOSA y no nos hemos dado cuenta? 💥

Decía Chesterton en El Hombre Eterno, «Hay una guerra religiosa cuando dos mundos se encuentran, es decir, cuando se encuentran dos distintas visiones del mundo o, empleando un lenguaje más moderno, cuando se encuentran dos atmósferas morales. Lo que para unos es el aire para respirar para otros es el veneno, y en vano se fundirá lo turbio con las aguas cristalinas».

► el virus PERMANECERÁ con NOSOTROS durante los próximos 10 años» Según Uğur Şahin, creador de la vacuna de Pfizer y director ejecutivo de BioNTech

Uğur Şahin CEO de BioNTech

Artículo original publicado en Huffingtonpost.es

Según Uğur Şahin, creador de la vacuna de Pfizer y director ejecutivo de BioNTech,  la vacuna no tendrá un impacto adecuado en el número de infecciones hasta el final de verano.

Advirtió además que “Necesitamos una nueva definición de normal”, y luego fue categórico al señalar que “el virus permanecerá con nosotros durante los próximos 10 años”.

💥 Finalmente AMAZON se tumbó PARLER 💥

Amazon decidió eliminar a Parler de sus servidores como parte de una medida concertada con otras compañías tecnológicas, que pretenden reforzar el pensamiento único en el ciberespacio. 

Días antes, Parler había sido retirada de los stores de Google y Apple, y finalmente fue retirada de los servidores de Amazon, donde estaba alojada toda su información.

«TRUMPANTOJOS» por Juan Manuel de Prada

El sufragio universal, nos enseña Gómez Dávila, «no pretende que los intereses de la mayoría triunfen, sino que la mayoría así lo crea». Las elecciones en Estados Unidos fueron fraudulentas, pero no en el sentido que pretendía el cantamañanas de Trump; lo fueron, simplemente, al modo en que lo son todas.

VIDEO: TWITTER elimina la cuenta de TRUMP

Como lo comento en el video, me parece condenable la actitud de las «BigTech» en relación a la censura aplicada a Donald Trump, dado que no solo se trata de limitar su libertad de expresión, sino que por la naturaleza de su posición - la de presidente del país con mayor influencia geopolítica de mundo, lo que tenga que decir es de interés de todos.

► CÓMO REINVENTARTE en el 2021 (e iniciar con ÉXITO el NUEVO AÑO) ◄

Para todos en el mundo, el año 2020 ha sido harto complicado y, en más de una ocasión, sombrío. Hubo muchos sueños interrumpidos e incluso truncados por una coyuntura básicamente impensable que, por primera vez, escapaba de las manos de todos y abatía nuestras proyecciones y planes más anhelados.

Y es que hemos vivido desde siempre en el marco de la utópica ilusión de que todo lo podemos con nuestras propias fuerzas y que podemos controlar todas las variables que tenemos a disposición.

► La importancia del COMPONENTE DRAMÁTICO en el VISUAL STORYTELLING ◄

Red Rocks, Colorado. Foto Luis Durand en IG: luisjesus_76

Primero debo aclarar que no soy fotógrafo profesional, soy solamente un dummie aficionado a la fotografía y voy descubriendo que me gustan los paisajes dramáticos, claroscuros, acechantes. Los paisajes cargados de emoción, así como que en el siguiente minuto se te cayera el anchuroso cielo encima y un azulado coro angélico, trompeta en mano y abriendo sellos, te van anunciando la Parusía. 

► ¿Tiene cabida HOY en día el DISTRIBUSTISMO de CHESTERTON? por César Nebot

Artículo publicado originalmente en Aleteia

Fritz Schumacher defendía que no era posible considerar la Economía sin una Ética de fondo. Consideraba que la visión económica del capitalismo y del socialismo se desarrollaban en el mismo nivel del ser, un nivel material que pretendía huir de niveles del ser más profundos y que en consecuencia era una falacia. A inicios del siglo XX, G.K. Chesterton y H. Belloc fundamentan una alternativa al capitalismo y al socialismo, el Distributismo que toma nota de la encíclica Rerum Novarum del Papa León XIII en su análisis de la situación social.

► INNOVATIONS In An Era Of Digital DISTRACTIONS by Brian Solis

Originally posted on BrianSolis.com

Have you watched the “Social Dilemma” on Netflix yet? It explores the previously unknown, ignored, and dangerous human impact of social networking, with tech experts sounding the alarm on their own creations.

I spent two years doing the same, most notably, with many of the players featured in the documentary. While social networking and gaming have rewired our brains and bodies, what the documentary, and most other experts and approaches leave us without, is a solution.

Chesterton y MacLuhan: hacia un enfoque diferente de la comunicación

G.K. Chesterton

Estoy tratando de desarrollar un ejercicio teórico para enlazar la obra de Chesterton a los estudios y aplicaciones de la comunicación moderna, que suele tornarse más bien odiosamente marxista o funcionalista según sea el caso; y que además no me sirven para entender de mejor manera el mundo en términos de sus relaciones comunicacionales. 

Aunque discutir sobre este tipo de corrientes puede ser objeto de otro post, creo que es importante dejar claro que toda la comunicación moderna, tanto teoría como práctica, responden a las premisas intelectuales de la Escuela de Frankfurt;

► El HOMBRE ETERNO de G.K. CHESTERTON: prólogo de JUAN MANUEL DE PRADA

⭐️⭐️Aunque sin consultarle al autor de tan interesante y enjundioso texto, me he tomado la discreta y audaz licencia de transcribir el prólogo de El Hombre Eterno de G.K Chesterton, escrita de manera tan brillante por Juan Manuel de Prada. 

Juan Manuel de Prada logra captar de manera prodigiosa la naturaleza del mensaje que nos ofrece Chesterton, ofreciéndole al lector un preludio de aquello que está a punto de leer. 

"En algún pasaje de su suculenta Autobiografía, Chesterton nos confiesa que su acercamiento a la Iglesia Católica fue primeramente una expresión de curiosidad. La execración de la Iglesia se había convertido en el pasatiempo predilecto de los intelectuales de su época; tanta unanimidad en el vituperio acabó provocando en su temperamento inquisitivo un movimiento de rechazo.

CARTAS DEL SOBRINO A SU DIABLO, SOBRE EL PERÚ

Dilectísimo tito Escrutopo,

Os cuento que he seguido con inusitada fruición la trama peruana durante los últimos días. Qué prístina labor que hicisteis en esas tierras que, en tiempos ya pretéritos, fue meollo y cogollo odioso de nuestro tan aborrecido Enemigo; y qué cerca estáis de convertirla en ese pudridero apóstata que es España que yo, tu amadísimo sobrino Orugario, he ayudado a descomponer tan bellamente.

Tu centenario y constante trabajo en la otrora capital del virreinato, ese insoportable antro de amoratados fieles nazarenos, está cuasi concluido ¡oh amado tito! Qué fácil te ha sido ulcerar el alma y el entendimiento de toda la patulea cretina que habita en esos lares, incluso la de aquellos que aún dicen amar, de manera inane, a nuestro común Enemigo. Cómo celebro, carísimo tito Escrutopo, la andadura de añagazas que has insertado en esa pobre gentuza para, finalmente, traerlos a nuestra Gehenna. 

► El virus de las realidades únicas por Luis Jesús Durand

Luis Jesús Durand Cardeña

Las sombrías y amorfas figuras danzarinas sobre la rocosa pared eran, para ellos, todo su MUNDO.

Las figurillas animadas parecían, a veces, sujetos con andar trémulo y ajetreado. En otras oportunidades asemejaban curiosas nubes en un esquivo y desconocido firmamento.

Además, no sabían nada del fuego infinito que, a sus espaldas, los iluminaba y calentaba; ni del pasadizo y los hombres que a veces transitaban por él. Nunca vieron aquello, solamente sabían que “algo” estaba tras de ellos. 

► 2.000 BECAS virtuales para INNOVADORES y EMPRENDEDORES ◄

El Ministerio de la Producción (Produce) se une a la plataforma de educación virtual Platzi y al Centro de Innovación de la Universidad Católica de Chile, para ofrecer más de 2.000 becas virtuales a innovadores y emprendedores.

El programa Innóvate Perú lanzó una convocatoria para reiniciar el programa de formación de capital humano. 

Covid de segunda ola mató a 160.000 en Europa

200 mil personas han muerto de covid en Europa desde su aparición hasta los últimos días de agosto. La segunda ola de covid en España hizo su aparición hacia mediado del último verano boreal. En Italia la segunda ola se manifestó en septiembre, lo mismo que en Francia o Alemania, llegando a un total de 164.000 muertos.

💥 Congreso RECHAZA proyecto de ley sobre el régimen agrario 💥

La Junta de Portavoces del Congreso decidió el viernes no incluir el proyecto del Ejecutivo en el debate sobre la eliminación del actual del régimen agrario. 

Un proyecto de ley presentado por el Poder Ejecutivo hace unas horas propone prohibir a las empresas agrícolas contratar trabajadores a través de terceros. Por tanto, en el orden del día del Pleno de este viernes sólo se considera el debate sobre el Proyecto de Ley 5759, que propone derogar la Ley 27360, que aprueba el reglamento de promoción del sector agropecuario.

💥 LAS BAMBAS sin embarcar cobre por tres días seguidos 💥

El clima de conflictividad se aumenta en el Perú. En esta oportunidad la crisis se ha trasladado a la operación minera de LAS BAMBAS. De acuerdo a un artículo periodístico publicado en Gestión la unidad minera no ha podido desembarcar cobre desde hace tres días consecutivos. 

Las comunidades han bloqueado el corredor minero del sur que incluye Cusco, Apurimac y Arequipa, lo que impidió que se realicen los embarques de la Mina Las Bambas.

💥 Cómo afecta el GRAN RESETEO a la COMUNICACIÓN CORPORATIVA 💥

 

El Foro Económico Mundial, con sede en Davos, ha preparado una serie de "predicciones", que en la realidad son lineamientos; que suponen un conjunto de cambios en el estilo de vida de la población mundial. 

A mi modo de ver, estos cambios no son solamente económicos, sino que tienen implicancias en la ética y la moral de Occidente; es decir la antigua Cristiandad. De hecho, esta suerte de reingeniería moral lleva consigo el coqueto e inquietante nombre de «Gran Reseteo».

EL TRUMPAZO por Juan Manuel de Prada

 La misión del sufragio universal no es lograr que triunfe la mayoría, sino que la mayoría así lo crea. 

Aunque estén marean la perdiz con un escrutinio caótico que mantiene entretenidos a los ilusos, el resultado de las elecciones americanas ya quedó proclamado urbi et orbi cuando Twitter decidió censurar un tuit de Donald Trump. 

La cura: ¿reseteo o restauración? Por Agustín Laje.

 

La pandemia es un hecho, pero también una narrativa. Dominar el virus ha insumido la mitad de los esfuerzos globales: la otra mitad se abocó a dominar el relato sobre el virus. La lógica del contagio que desparrama infecciones por doquier es la misma lógica que contagia la misma narrativa en todas partes: no solo la peste se ha globalizado sino también la forma en que la recibimos. En rigor, existen hoy dos pandemias: la del Covid-19 y la de la narrativa del Covid-19. Principio, desarrollo y final: tal es la estructura del relato. Todo empezó con un murciélago y todo termina con una vacuna.