"Obedience. The most thrilling word in the world; a very thunderclap of a word. Why do these fools fancy that the soul is only free when it disagrees with the common command? Even the mobs who rise to burn and destroy owe all their grandeur and terror, and a sort of authority, not to their anger but to their agreement. Why should mere disagreement make us feel free?"
The SurpriseCW 11:313
Obedience. A word you don't hear much nowadays, unless you are talking about dog training. Or trying to raise children. A lot of adults think they are "beyond" obedience, and, being progressive, are free to disagree with anything they like. The really hard thing is to obey. The really adventurous thing is to obey. The really wild and freeing thing to do is to obey.
But then we have to get philosophical and ask, "Obey what?" "Obey whom?"
Friday, April 07, 2006
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I came across a quote straight out of GKC in the (largely worthless) hip-hop anime "Samurai Champloo" that this is similar to.
ReplyDeleteThe samurai character, Jin, asks a Zen priest if the vows a samurai takes aren't contradictory to the absolute freedom Zen ascribes to the soul. The priest replies with something along the lines of 'Freedom includes the freedom to bind yourself.'
Is it The Common Man where Chesterton talks about that, or was it somewhere else?