vendredi 27 juin 2008

Dale Ahlquist: "G.K. Chesterton and The Perils of Being a Complete Thinker"

When you have an answer for everything, it seems that no one wants to talk to you anymore. It doesn’t even matter if you’re a nice guy. When the prevailing philosophy is that truth is relative or largely irrelevant or basically unknowable or strictly personal, in other words, when our only certainty is our uncertainty, there is nothing more irritating than some one who comes along and smashes such non-conclusive conclusions. There is nothing more unsettling than someone who has settled things. The most unwelcome person on a college campus today is someone who can argue persuasively that there is a truth that is absolute, all-important, accessible, and universal. Which explains why G.K. Chesterton is not taught or studied in our universities.
Unless, of course, it is exactly the other way round. Read on by clicking title of this post, anyway.

“The world is living off its Catholic capital,” says Chesterton. The university itself is a Catholic invention. So are hospitals. So are Psychiatrists (Chesterton describes Psychiatry as “confession without absolution.”).

Dahlquist got Chesterton wrong here. He was not accusing the Catholic Church of inventing the intrusive institution usually referred to as psychiatry. But, considering Torquemada, maybe he should have. And chosen Greek Orthodoxy rather than Roman Catholicism.

1 commentaire:

Hans Georg Lundahl a dit…

Links, mostly, including to Fr. Huneycutt, Bishop Williamson, John Sandinopoulos, and some of my comments, these being English counterpart to "Mon retour des Orthodoxes à la FSSPX":

1 Hungarians do play guitar (link) 2 China 3 Orthodixie: "Of course Sponge Bob is gay" (link) 4 Dale Ahlquist: "G.K. Chesterton and The Perils of ... 5 "Generous Orthodoxy" defends fallibilism? 6 Brain death diagnosis kills? (link) 7a "Kill your parents" +40ys=Educate your children! (link) b I don't believe in Weathermen c How e v e r 8 "When does His Grace Hilarion sleep?" /Orthodixie ... 9 Airport Tyranny/Dinoscopus (link) 10 Mark Pivarunas, bishop, speaks (link) 11 Between Sunday of Genealogy and Christmas Day (links) 12 Two courageous men, two heavily conformist communities... 13 Reading time for Mgr Williamson! 14 Update 1: Mgr Williamson apologises for hurting people... 15 Update 3: some do not apologise or avoid schism (update 2 is in French series) 16 Count-down to St Patrick's - a link to his "breast plate"... 17 Happy St Patrick's day, all of you ... 18 Annunciation 19 Happy Annunciation, Old Calendarists! - 20 Great and Holy Tuesday (link to Fr. James) - 21 Orthodox Holy Week (link to Fr Huneycutt) - 22 Christ is risen! - 23 Il est vraiment ressuscité 24 Piracy and slavehunt are not Christian things 25 A book and a site they might not want you to read ... 26 Today's celebrations: 27 Blessed feast of the Dormition! 28 My dear Bishop Williamson, if I had earned money a... 29 Brother Dimond refutes claim that Shroud of Turin is a fake (link, youtube)... 30 Am I too libertarian for FSSPX? Hope not. 31 a Mystagogy posts certainly false allegation on St Robert Bellarmine... - b Pseudoquote identified. What De Romano Pontifice, ... really says - c Further faults of fact in the Mystagogy post