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A review by skylarh
What's Wrong with the World by G.K. Chesterton
4.0
G.K. Chesterton is such an amusing and clever writer that I do believe he could convince me of almost anything. Why, he nearly convinced me that women should never have bothered to obtain the right to vote. I am such an obstinate person, and so inclined to disagree with arguments even before I am certain that I disagree with them, that I am completely in awe of the skill of any writer who can make me half-agree with a position I do not, in fact, agree with. I’d say I tremble before the brilliance of Chesterton, but he’s far too jovial and entertaining for anyone to ever tremble before him.
I particularly enjoyed what he had to say about modern education, and I was also entertained by his musings on the domestic sphere and the differences between men and women, as rife with stereotypes as they may have been. (Alas, stereotypes arise for a reason, and, despite what it is politically popular to say, that reason is seldom ignorance, but more often experience.)
Not long ago, I read Dr. Laura’s In Praise of Stay-at-home Moms, because I wanted to feel good about my current calling in life. I didn’t like the book because I wasn’t so much interested in watching working moms get torn down as I was interested in watching stay-at-home moms get built up. Fortunately, this one short selection from Chesterton did me more good than that entire book:
“When people begin to talk about this domestic duty as not merely difficult but trivial and dreary, I simply give up the question. For I cannot with the utmost energy of imagination conceive what they mean. When domesticity, for instance, is called drudgery, all the difficulty arises from a double meaning in the word. If drudgery only means dreadfully hard work, I admit the woman drudges in the home…But if it means that the hard work is more heavy because it is trifling, colorless, and of small import to the soul, then as I say, I give it up; I do not know what the words mean. To be Queen Elizabeth within a definite area, deciding sales, banquets, labors, and holidays; to be Whiteley within a certain area, providing toys, boots, sheet cakes, and books; to be Aristotle within a certain area, teaching morals, manners, theology, and hygiene; I can understand how this might exhaust the mind, but I cannot imagine how it could narrow it. How can it be a large career to tell other people’s children about the Rule of Three, and a small career to tell one’s own children about the universe? How can it be broad to be the same thing to everyone, and narrow to be everything to someone? No; a woman’s function is laborious, but because it is gigantic, not because it is minute, I will pity Mrs. Jones for the hugeness of her task; I will never pity her for its smallness.”
I don’t even really know what this book is about. It seems to be all over the map. It’s about men, women, family, marriage, the home, politics, the right to vote, Calvinism, Mr. Shaw, specialism, commerce, Catholicism, tradition, the future, the past, modern education, socialism…oh, I remember what it’s about. “What’s Wrong with the World.”
The thing about Chesterton is that his insights seem surprisingly contemporary. Although he wrote in the early 1900’s, he might as well have been writing today. His barbs are as poignant for our generation as they were for his.
I particularly enjoyed what he had to say about modern education, and I was also entertained by his musings on the domestic sphere and the differences between men and women, as rife with stereotypes as they may have been. (Alas, stereotypes arise for a reason, and, despite what it is politically popular to say, that reason is seldom ignorance, but more often experience.)
Not long ago, I read Dr. Laura’s In Praise of Stay-at-home Moms, because I wanted to feel good about my current calling in life. I didn’t like the book because I wasn’t so much interested in watching working moms get torn down as I was interested in watching stay-at-home moms get built up. Fortunately, this one short selection from Chesterton did me more good than that entire book:
“When people begin to talk about this domestic duty as not merely difficult but trivial and dreary, I simply give up the question. For I cannot with the utmost energy of imagination conceive what they mean. When domesticity, for instance, is called drudgery, all the difficulty arises from a double meaning in the word. If drudgery only means dreadfully hard work, I admit the woman drudges in the home…But if it means that the hard work is more heavy because it is trifling, colorless, and of small import to the soul, then as I say, I give it up; I do not know what the words mean. To be Queen Elizabeth within a definite area, deciding sales, banquets, labors, and holidays; to be Whiteley within a certain area, providing toys, boots, sheet cakes, and books; to be Aristotle within a certain area, teaching morals, manners, theology, and hygiene; I can understand how this might exhaust the mind, but I cannot imagine how it could narrow it. How can it be a large career to tell other people’s children about the Rule of Three, and a small career to tell one’s own children about the universe? How can it be broad to be the same thing to everyone, and narrow to be everything to someone? No; a woman’s function is laborious, but because it is gigantic, not because it is minute, I will pity Mrs. Jones for the hugeness of her task; I will never pity her for its smallness.”
I don’t even really know what this book is about. It seems to be all over the map. It’s about men, women, family, marriage, the home, politics, the right to vote, Calvinism, Mr. Shaw, specialism, commerce, Catholicism, tradition, the future, the past, modern education, socialism…oh, I remember what it’s about. “What’s Wrong with the World.”
The thing about Chesterton is that his insights seem surprisingly contemporary. Although he wrote in the early 1900’s, he might as well have been writing today. His barbs are as poignant for our generation as they were for his.