5. Modernity

[John]

5. How does Chesterton treat modernity in The Everlasting Man?

[Mariangel]

The moderns criticizing Christianity are still saying the same things he addresses and refutes. But I doubt that they can understand Chesterton's answers.

[Jill]

random comment of mine, don't see an "on the way" queston:

Some of his random comments are preposterous, e.g. Chinamen are "hardly human", the only "real" civilization occurred around the Mediterranean. Or the Crusades as a triumphant rebirth of the true faith. Really? What about plunder, violence and all the evils they spread? Or is he being ironic?

[Manuel]

Jill wrote: "Some of his random comments are preposterous, e.g. Chinamen are "hardly human", the only "real" civilization occurred around the Mediterranean. Or the Crusades as a triumphant rebirth of the true faith. Really? What about plunder, violence and all the evils they spread? Or is he being ironic?"

Not "Chinamen are hardly human" but "Herodotus is a human being, in a sense in which a Chinaman in a billy-cock hat, sitting opposite to us in a London tea shop, is hardly human."

He is referring here to our sense of familiarity with people who lived 2500 years ago contrasted with our sense of unfamiliarity with people who are living here and now in a different civilization. Yes, he uses preposterous examples, but that's just his style.

The same explanation applies to his saying that the Mediterranean civilization is the real one (for us). Taking into account that God became Man in that civilization, it's undoubtedly the most important civilization in the history of the world.

About the Crusades: Today it's customary to speak badly about them, looking only at the concomitant "plunder, violence and evils." Every human action is an inextricable mixture of good and evil. Allow me to introduce a self-quotation here:

Man is a strange mixture of selfishness and altruism. Whenever we do something good, if you look carefully inside yourself you’ll find good and despicable reasons at the same time. It’s impossible to separate them. But don’t let this depress you. You shouldn’t look just at the latter, forgetting the first. That would be the biggest mistake you could make. (From my novel "The Seal of Aeolus").

After half a millennium when Christianity had to step back before Islam's push, and at most was able to keep a certain statu quo, suddenly, with the Crusades, the trend reverted. Chesterton is perfectly right saying that they meant a triumphant rebirth of the true faith. No, he's not being ironic, just stating a historical point.

[Fonch]

Manuel wrote: "Jill wrote: "Some of his random comments are preposterous, e.g. Chinamen are "hardly human", the only "real" civilization occurred around the Mediterranean. Or the Crusades as a triumphant rebirth ..."

I have the impression that in the future the crusades Will come back to study with a different perspective that nowadays. The curiously is until the twentieth century the muslims had not especial interest by the Crusades, as explained Amin Maalouf, and the most rated carácter was not Saladine his hero was Baybars for stoping the mongolian horde. Curiously the bloodiest battle of the crusade was made by Baybars.
I share with you my review of this book of the crusades https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...