What's Wrong with Chesterton

There are few things more disappointing than when a man you greatly admire turns out to have some dreadful, possibly evil opinions. With Chesterton, the most common criticism is that he is anti-Semitic. I've not noticed this myself, except in a 'very mild' form (as Kingsley Amis described his own antisemitism). What is more obviously wrong with Chesterton is his usually-overlooked views on two subjects: the French Revolution and the First World War. He supported both, and he supported them enthusiastically. Chesterton was almost a proto-neocon in this respect: he was prone to a form of Christian universalism that romanticises war and revolution.

For someone who otherwise made such a noble effort to re-enchant the ordinary, when it came to the French Revolution in particular he was oddly seduced by abstractions.In What's Wrong With the World, Chesterton made this astonishing argument:

A cultivated Conservative friend of mine once exhibited great distress because in a gay moment I once called Edmund Burke an atheist. I need scarcely say that the remark lacked something of biographical precision; it was meant to. Burke was certainly not an atheist in his conscious cosmic theory, though he had not a special and flaming faith in God, like Robespierre. Nevertheless, the remark had reference to a truth which it is here relevant to repeat. I mean that in the quarrel over the French Revolution, Burke did stand for the atheistic attitude and mode of argument, as Robespierre stood for the theistic. The Revolution appealed to the idea of an abstract and eternal justice, beyond all local custom or convenience. If there are commands of God, then there must be rights of man. Here Burke made his brilliant diversion; he did not attack the Robespierre doctrine with the old mediaeval doctrine of jus divinum (which, like the Robespierre doctrine, was theistic), he attacked it with the modern argument of scientific relativity; in short, the argument of evolution. He suggested that humanity was everywhere molded by or fitted to its environment and institutions; in fact, that each people practically got, not only the tyrant it deserved, but the tyrant it ought to have. “I know nothing of the rights of men,” he said, “but I know something of the rights of Englishmen.” There you have the essential atheist. His argument is that we have got some protection by natural accident and growth; and why should we profess to think beyond it, for all the world as if we were the images of God! We are born under a House of Lords, as birds under a house of leaves; we live under a monarchy as niggers live under a tropic sun; it is not their fault if they are slaves, and it is not ours if we are snobs. Thus, long before Darwin struck his great blow at democracy, the essential of the Darwinian argument had been already urged against the French Revolution.

How could Chesterton find attractive the slippery language, filled with vague exceptions, of The Declaration the Rights of Man and of the Citizen? 'No one shall be disquieted on account of his opinions, including his religious views, provided their manifestation does not disturb the public order established by law.' I do not how Chesterton found such abstract 'rights' to be rooted in the Christianity. Perhaps someone could explain it to me, though I doubt it's possible.

As for his claim that Robespierre was a greater theist than Burke, and that the Revolution 'appealed to the idea of an abstract and eternal justice', I find it impossible to restrain my anger, even after reading the passage for the umpteenth time. The terror, the secular cult, the loss of liberty, the military dictatorship... Chesterton might have adopted the foolish but common opinion that the Revolution, and left-wing revolutions generally, have Christian values at their heart; namely that they are done in service of the poor. But that he singles out Robespierre as seemingly divinely inspired, and Burke as a proto-Darwinian, means there is simply no way to excuse him. His attempt at paradox collapses and he instead inverts history and even morality.

Chesterton's strong support for the First World War was certainly a grave mistake and is nauseating to read, but it is not as horrid as his enthusiasm for the French Revolution. Admittedly, my opinion is softened by the fact that 1) he courageously opposed the Boer War and 2) he wrote a brilliant and damning anti-war poem:

The men that worked for England
They have their graves at home:
And birds and bees of England
About the cross can roam.

But they that fought for England,
Following a falling star,
Alas, alas for England
They have their graves afar.

And they that rule in England,
In stately conclave met,
Alas, alas for England
They have no graves as yet.

There are other minor issues I have with Chesterton. His drinking habits were awful. By even the most liberal measure he indulged in alcohol far too much. And he was an enthusiastic democrat (which I'm not), yet he opposed female suffrage (which I support). Personally, I think we should have a somewhat limited suffrage, but one that includes women. (I know, I know: I'm such a terrible, incorrigible liberal.) Universal suffrage is a bad way to govern; what parties have to do and promise to please 'the people' is seldom good for the nation, and modern election campaigns are a political and economic nuisance. Chesterton's enthusiasm for democracy was an extension of his tendency towards abstract rights and, dare I say, utopianism. He idealised the ordinary man too much, and he put too much faith in the crowd.