A Voice in the Wilderness In Defense of "Mere Conservatism"

G.K. Day

G.K. Chesterton's What's Wrong With The World is a commentary on the socio-cultural landscape of his native England in the first decade of the 1900's.  Published in 1910, this book contains some of the most practical, insightful, and controversial writings of Chesterton's career.

Although written exactly 100 years ago, the wisdom contained in the pages of this book is timeless.  He might as well have been writing it about contemporary America.

The section I've chosen is from the first chapter, "The Medical Mistake":

Social science is by no means always content with the normal human soul; it has all sorts of fancy souls for sale.  Man as a social idealist will say, "I'm tired of being a Puritan; I want to be a Pagan," or "Beyond this dark probation of individualism lies the shining future paradise of Collectivism."

Now in bodily ills there is none of this difference about the ultimate ideal.  The patient may or may not want a particular brand of medicine; but he certainly wants health.  No one says, "I am tired of this headache; I think I'd like a toothache," or, "The only cure for this Russian influenza is a few German measles," or, "Through this dark probation of cataracts I can see the shining paradise of rheumatism."

But exactly the whole difficulty in our public problems is that some men are aiming at cures which other men would regard as worse maladies; are offering ultimate conditions as states of health which others would uncompromisingly call states of disease.  Mr. Belloc once said that he would no more part with the idea of property than he would with his teeth; yet to Mr. Bernard Shaw property is not a tooth, but a toothache.  Lord Milner has sincerely attempted to introduce German efficiency; and many of us would as soon welcome German measles.  Dr. Saleeby would honestly like to have eugenics; I would rather have rheumatics.

This is the arresting and dominant fact about modern social discussion; that the quarrel is not merely about the difficulties, but about the aim.  We agree about the evil; it is about the good that we should tear each other's eyes out.