But his core readers are mainly conservative pre-Vatican II types who are indignant about his neglect without stopping to reflect whether their own uncritical enthusiasm might have contributed to it.I beg to differ. I personally am not a "conservative pre-Vatican II" anything. I'm not a liberal post-Vatican II anything either. And I don't know many Chestertonians who are either.
We are an extremely diverse group, I'd say. I am always amazed at the variety of people who show up at any Chesterton events: from truck drivers to nurses, to DC lobbyists to PhD Computer Scientists. From triple PhD Physics professors to homeschooling homemaking mothers. From Jew to Gentile, from Protestant to Catholic, from young to old, from Greek to Norwegian. There is nothing homogeneous about us, no category to fit us into, other than a mutual love of a certain large writer.
And to say that we, the American Chesterton Society are the contributing factor to Chesterton's lack of popularity today seems to me absolutely absurd. And offensive. Ridiculous. Paradoxical.
Commonweal thinks it is a mistake to defend the anti-Semitic allegations in the New Yorker Chesterton article.
Second Spring goes ahead and defends our man.
Posts
I'm excited that they even wrote about Chesterton, but then to go around and accuse him of being anti-Semitic?
ReplyDeleteWas it simply that he was Catholic and they just couldn't make him look too appealing?
Why even write the damn article in the first place if you're going to say shit like that?
It just doesn't make any sense.
I'd need to see the article myself, but if it's what it sounds like from what I've seen here, I say that we start a letter-writing campaign to the editor. Who's with me?
ReplyDelete"Hem-hem." (I see a squat woman in pink, with little cats...)
ReplyDeleteYes, they are definitely taking Umbridge, these supporters of the Dark Lord.
But such ways are not for us Chestertonians, even if they make us write lines in our own blood - we know what Tertullian said it is the seed of.
We, for our part, have heard GKC's last words, and have chosen the Light.
Attend! Time to choose your side, O Ministry of Nonsense, before somebody drops a house on you. Or sprinkles you with water. You are going to be surprised.
--Dr. Thursday
I went to the library today to get it, but they still had last week's issue up as "new".
ReplyDeleteAfter I've actually read it, I'll decide if it is worth responding to.
It seems to me as if the easiest way to dismiss Chesterton is to trot out the old "anti-semetic" argument. That way you don't actually have to read him and find out what he really does believe in.
Wow, crazy.
ReplyDeleteI'm a 24-year-old Protestant living in LA and working in the entertainment industry! I certainly don't fit the description of "core reader."
Is it that some confuse shady [umbrage] with the Prof. Umbridge of J.K.Rowling's works.
ReplyDeleteGabriel, Sir:
ReplyDeleteYour comment is umbrageous.
That is all.