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

G.K. Day: Dogma Matters

By: A.E. Carnehl, Guest Contributor

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The turn of the 20^th century was marked by a number of new philosophies that had grown out of the Darwinism, Marxism, and scientific skepticism of the 19^th century.  Theosophists, or individuals following the ideas of Helena Blavatsky, maintained that personal spiritual ecstasy and open-mindedness were the means of encountering the Divine.  Others, like those following Tolstoy (among other prominent writers), were rebelling against the Church and Catholicism declaring that Christian dogma was constricting and out of date.

In philosophy, the focus began to shift more and more toward individual subjectivity when it came to truth and morality.  Communism, materialism, atheism, anarchism, pragmatism, and many other "–isms" stood in the path of common sense and Christianity.

Straddling this path with a sword cane and a pen stood G.K. Chesterton.

Chesterton tirelessly defended the idea that a human being was an animal that created dogmas, or to put it another way, a human was an animal in the Image of God.  As a dogmatic creature, human beings had in their nature to make judgments and have beliefs.  All the talk at the turn of the century of having an “open mind” for no other reason than to have an open mind was sheer nonsense to GKC.  To hope, to dream, to pray, to love, to hate – all these human actions require basic beliefs, and the sum of one’s beliefs make up his dogma.

Chesterton is famous for declaring, “Merely having an open mind is nothing; the object of opening the mind, as of opening the mouth, is to shut it again on something solid.”

The following excerpt from a 1909 essay shows in more detail what G.K.C. meant by all this:

“In a vast number of cases, an adjective is ornate or exquisite to the point of artificiality; but that the word it is applied to is entirely forgotten.  Thus, when they [free-thinkers] say, “Give us a broad religion,” it is reasonable enough, since one religion is really broader than another.  But every religion is a religion; that is, it ties a man to something.  A faith can be free up to the exact point where it is unfaithful.  Or, again, there are politicians who call themselves “independent” politicians; and who boast that they are not attached to any part.  They are not; but they would very much like the party to be attached to them.  They have some theory or proposal or other; they cannot be any broader than that theory or proposal.

The truth is that if a man wishes to remain in perfect mental breadth and freedom, he had better not think at all.  Thinking is a narrowing process.  It leads to what people call dogma.  A man who thinks hard about any subject for several years is in horrible danger of discovering the truth about it.  This process is called becoming “sectarian,” also “hardening in later life”; it can also be described as “giving up to party what was meant for mankind.”  It is a terrible think when a man really find that his mind was given him to use, and not to play with; or, in other words, that the gods gave him a great ugly mouth with which to answer questions, and not merely to ask them.  The crocodile finds it easy enough to open his mouth and wait for a [tribesman] or an explorer.  It is in knowing the exact moment at which to shut it that they really fastidious and dexterous crocodile shows his training.  In the same way the modern man fancies he has reached supreme culture because he opens his intellect.  But the supreme culture (in the forcible modern phrase) is to know when to shut your head.

There is one odd aspect of the man with this sort of open mind – a man whom one imagines with an open mouth.  It is that being thus gaping and helpless, he is really brutal and oppressive.  He tyrannizes; he forces on all other men his own insolent indecision.  He forbids his followers to come to any conclusion till he has done so.  He will allow no one else to find the truth, as Peary will allow no one else to find the Pole.  He is the worst tyrant that the world has seen; he is the persecuting skeptic.  He is the man who has held up the whole world now for over a hundred years.  I thought of one or two examples, but there is no space to mention them.  Perhaps it is just as well.”

-Illustrated London News, October 16, 1909