On Making the World Small: Heretics, Orthodoxy, What's Wrong With The World

Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874-1936) was one of the wittiest writers in the whole history of English literature. His paradoxes, quite often as valid as paradoxes can be, make his essays unforgettable and leave the reader with a feeling that the world is not such a simple place to understand, after all. Chesterton was a paradox himself, combining interest in Catholic theology and apologetics with profound involvement in social and literary issues of his time – and of all times. “Nothing more strangely indicates an enormous and silent evil of modern society than the extraordinary use which is made nowadays of the word “orthodox.” In former days the heretic was proud of not being a heretic. It was the kingdoms of the world and the police and the judges who were heretics. He was orthodox. He had no pride in having rebelled against them; they had rebelled against him. The armies with their cruel security, the kings with their cold faces, the decorous processes of State, the reasonable processes of law — all these like sheep had gone astray. The man was proud of being orthodox, was proud of being right. If he stood alone in a howling wilderness he was more than a man; he was a church. He was the centre of the universe; it was round him that the stars swung.”