18 July, 2024
Dear Reader,
In this edition we proudly feature two guest pieces: Karl Schmude on Chesterton and H G Wells, and Natalie Kennedy on the power of story-telling.
The dates and venues of our two summer schools – New Testament and Koine Greek for beginners, and Late and Medieval Latin – have now been settled. Full details below.
Finally, we have some photos from the recent Colloquium.
With best wishes to all, as ever,
David Daintree
Chesterton and the Over-Civilised Culture
by Karl Schmude
More than a century ago, Chesterton made an arresting prediction – that the slide into barbarism would come, not from the abandonment of civilisation, but from over-civilisation.
He observed that ‘the fads of the cultured grow every day more pleasingly identical with the habits of the barbarian. . . . Over-civilisation and barbarism are within an inch of each other. And a mark of both is the power of medicine-men.’ (‘Taboos and Prohibitions,’ Collected Works of G.K. Chesterton, Vol.28, Illustrated London News, 1908-1910. Ignatius Press, 1987)
Chesterton made these remarks in 1909. What would he have made of the surging legalisation of abortion and euthanasia in the contemporary West? These acts are now promoted, not as a regrettable necessity in hard circumstances, but more and more as indisputable human rights, which should be constitutionally guaranteed.
They are only possible, finally, through the professional power and compromising participation of certain ‘medicine-men’.
No doubt Chesterton would have seen that his prophecy is being fulfilled – to a horrifying extent. The ‘fads of the cultured’ –the wealthy and professional elites – are coming more and more to resemble ‘the habits of the barbarian’, as our culture resorts increasingly to deliberate killing, at the beginning and at the end of life.
The myth of inevitable progress
An historically powerful impulse lurks behind Chesterton’s insight into the link between over-civilisation and barbarism – namely, the yearning for inevitable progress.
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, there was in the West an eruption of utopian writing, in both fiction and non-fiction. Science was envisioned as the pathway to irresistible progress – and the assured hope of the future.
H.G. Wells, a popular contemporary of Chesterton, was one of the fathers of science fiction. His dream was inspired, as one biographer noted, by ‘science as its god, evolution its history, and nature – including man – its congregation.’ (Lovat Dickson, H.G. Wells: His Turbulent Life and Times, 1969)
Wells’ early expressions of exuberant hope appeared in such books as Mankind in the Making (1903) and A Modern Utopia (1905). While the destructive horrors of the First World War – such as poisonous gases and artillery bombardments – shook this dream, it did not crush it. The myth of progress continued – as is clear from the ease with which one side of politics, the left, is still commonly called ‘the progressive left’.
Chesterton: ‘The fads of the cultured grow every day more
pleasingly identical with the habits of the barbarian. . . .Over-
civilisation and barbarism are within an inch of each other.’
In his closing years – he died in 1946 – Wells lapsed into despair, but of a kind that is peculiarly true of our own time. He embraced a different, ‘over-civilised’ hope.
In his last book, Mind at the End of its Tether (1945), he confessed that he had misread human nature, and that he had ‘no compelling argument to convince the reader that he should not be cruel or mean or cowardly.’ His loss of faith in humanity led him to search for a new hope – and conceive of an entirely new species which would be perfect, and would replace the flawed human being in whom he had invested his trust, but who had hugely disappointed him.
But as Chesterton once commented about utopianism: ‘Hope for the superman is another name for despair of man.’
Chesterton’s hope, by contrast, was in man as he is, not as he is imagined to be – that is, in the world of reality, not in the dreams of fantasy. As he once argued, what is most valuable and lovable in our eyes (and, he implied, in God’s eyes) ‘is man – the old beer-drinking, creed-making, fighting, failing, sensual, respectable man.’
And he went on, in one of his most majestic passages of prose:
‘The things that have been founded on the fancy of the Superman have died with the dying civilizations which alone have given them birth. When Christ at a symbolic moment was establishing His great society, He chose for its corner-stone neither the brilliant Paul nor the mystic John, but a shuffler, a snob, a coward – in a word, a man. And upon this rock He has built His Church, and the gates of Hell have not prevailed against it.
‘All the empires and the kingdoms have failed, because of this inherent and continual weakness, that they were founded by strong men and upon strong men. But this one thing, the historic Christian Church, was founded on a weak man, and for that reason it is indestructible. For no chain is stronger than its weakest link.’ (Heretics, 1905)
False gods – and therefore false devils
A second Chesterton prophecy in his 1909 essay was that the essence of barbarism was idolatry. ‘Idolatry is committed,’ he wrote, ‘not merely by setting up false gods, but also by setting up false devils.’
Chesterton singled out the earthly fears that can readily take grip of people, such as the fear of ‘war or alcohol or economic law,’ when he thought there were far greater reasons for fear: ‘they should be afraid of spiritual corruption and cowardice.’
The setting up of false gods inevitably calls for false devils. Devils tend to induce a pervasive sense of fear, which, in turn, serves to reinforce the worship of false gods.
Chesterton could hardly have foreseen how easily our own culture would come to be ‘offended’, and how strongly legislative measures and policing practices would arise to prevent people being ‘offended’. If the worshipped god is a fantasy, it can be protected from scrutiny by imagined devils.
Our own age abounds in false devils, which are bound to incite fear. A culture that falls for illusions inevitably becomes a fearful culture.
Probably the most insistent of today’s fears, especially for the young, is climate change, but others relate to the atmosphere generated by the rise of ‘wokeism’ and the playing out of identity politics, mainly of race and gender. Curiously they rarely touch the category of class, which was such a dominant category of Marxist discrimination. This could be because the woke elites are actually among the wealthiest in society, and assuage their guilt over such privilege by defending, at a distance, the plight of the poor.
Chesterton’ prophecy has tragically come to pass. The ‘fads of the cultured’ are now becoming identical with ‘the habits of the barbarian’.
Karl Schmude, a Librarian by profession, was a co-founder of Campion College
The Power of Story in the English Classroom
by Natalie Kennedy
English, to put it in a nutshell (thanks to Shakespeare’s Hamlet II.ii for that metaphor!) is all about storytelling. At one of our English Teachers Association conferences author of The Book Thief, Mark Zusak, stated that ‘really, what we are made of are stories.’ Stories that are full of tragedy and triumph, ups and downs, birth, rebirth, death, happiness and sadness, destruction and creation, colourful characters and dialogue. In the most simplistic sense, people’s life can be understood as have a beginning, a middle and an end. Everyone has an individual story of their life. And as a community here at Northside we have a collective, corporate story about who we are and what our task is, and where we are headed. Beyond these stories though, is a larger story. A metanarrative. The bible is that story and it is a story about who God is, and who we are in relation to Him. This grand narrative of the world and humankind’s place within it invites our students to consider that this ultimate author may have written a part for them to play in His story of redemption.
We use this Christian perspective and storied framework as the basis for selecting and analysing our novels, films and plays. Within a Christian worldview, the beginning of our Christian story starts at Genesis 1, where ‘humanity is marked with a uniqueness that sets us apart from all of creation. We are made in the image of God. Humankind, therefore, is the apex of creation.’
When humanity is understood as the ‘apex’ of God’s creation, and that they fit within His larger story, there is an urgency to understand this overarching story of the world.
There is also an urgency to understand what makes for a good story. The Christian story of redemption is a good story. God’s story resonates deeply within us. It is a classic, archetypal story of good triumphing over evil. Wright (The New Testament and the People of God) explains that, ‘stories possess power, they actually change how people think, feel and behave, and hence change the way the world actually is.’ I’m sure you can think of some really powerful books that have changed the modern world, and not always for better. Jesus the ultimate storyteller clearly recognised the power of story to deliver life-changing truths. In all of the rhythms of rising tension and resolution, there is a repeated sense that the world is fallen, that we are fallen too, and that we need to be reconciled to God, through Jesus. What is the alternative to this story? Do other stories offer a better understanding of our suffering and need for redemption? Do other stories offer a better concept of our value and purpose? God’s story is a great story. I think studying secular texts, as we do in English and Literature does not threaten our story, it deepens our conviction of its supremacy of merit.
In the teaching of texts we encourage students to explore stories in the light of philosophical questioning. As Christian teachers, we share our perspective, which reflects our understanding of story within the larger, biblical story. In Shakespeare’s The Tempest, two brothers are consumed by jealousy and desire for power, and one of them attempts to kill the other for the dukedom. This is the ‘spirit of Cain.’ Or in George Orwell’s Animal Farm, a fable about communist Russia, we see the desire of the animals for a perfect world without the tyranny and oppression of man, as an archetypal longing for the Garden of Eden. In every story we read and study in our English program, we can naturally reference back to the ultimate archetypal stories found within the metanarrative of the bible.
When our students see life as a story they can start to ‘access the patterns of life.’ Stories reveal ‘clearly the dignity and brilliance of people. Stories have a way of bringing us back to the things that matter most.’ When this value of one’s personal story is analysed in relation to meaning beyond themselves, students can discover a search for a larger story: God’s story.
In a sense, teaching within the English classroom is a type of storytelling. We share the narrative journey with our students in our collective search for meaning and purpose. I hope that in our classrooms we will have great dialogue, about the big ideas, that we will meet interesting characters, and will learn how to be virtuous and victorious through the conflict and suffering that is a part of all stories.
And ultimately, we hope that our students will see that their story is a part of God’s larger story for mankind – for that really is the best story of all.
Natalie Kennedy teaches English at Northside Christian College, Brisbane
FOR FURTHER READING
SLAVERY – ‘AMERICA’S ORIGINAL SIN?’
Comparisons between different ‘systems’ of slavery never read well. Every discussion of this repulsive practice that appears to excuse or exonerate it is indefensible. But Wilfred Reilly, in this fine piece from Spiked, demonstrates that the horrors endured by Africans in ‘the Middle Passage’ were exceeded by their treatment at the hands of Arab traders, in total numbers enslaved, and over a far longer period of time. Whites were also enslaved – in their millions – not only in the Mediterranean but from raids on coastal regions in Spain, France, Ireland and England
In arguing that slavery was a universal human activity, not confined to any one race (of slaves or slave owners) Reilly is if anything too moderate: he does not mention, for example, the Arab practice of castrating male African slaves. The operation was dangerous and often fatal, but the supply of slaves available to them in that well-organised trade was copious and inexhaustible. They had no need to keep slaves alive for long, or breed from them.
What is unique about European slavery is that it stopped. Centuries of opposition from humane and decent people gradually brought it to an end in Europe and America. In 1833 the British banned it universally, and enforced the ban where they could, though their writ didn’t run everywhere. The story of Tippu Tip reminds us of its stubborn endurance in some quarters, and there is strong evidence that it survives today in some Muslim countries in Africa. Activists who pull down statues of long-dead slavers would more profitably turn their attention (if they were brave enough to face reality) to rescuing the estimated 40 million slaves in the world today, perhaps the largest number of any other time in history.
COMING EVENTS
BRISBANE CLASSICAL AND LIBERAL SCHOOLS FORUM
A one-day event to be held on 24 September. Registration is free. Register here.
DAWSON CENTRE SUMMER SCHOOLS
JANUARY 2025
LATE AND ECCLESIASTICAL LATIN
Monday 6 to Friday 10 January 2025
Venue: Notre Dame Priory, Colebrook, Tasmania
The Latin school assumes some prior knowledge of the language and leads participants through a selection of important readings in poetry and prose, sacred and secular, from authors such as Augustine, Jerome, Bede, Peter Abelard, Aquinas, the Carmina Burana, and even Dante. In date our selections range from the poet Virgil to the abdication speech of Pope Benedict! There will also be a segment on palaeography when participants can handle real medieval manuscripts. Note that this course does not take any position on the use of Latin for Mass, but it recognises that Latin remains the official language of the western Church and acknowledges the insistence of the last four popes that Latin must be preserved! Accommodation is available on request at Bethany House in the Priory grounds.
BIBLICAL GREEK FOR BEGINNERS
Monday 13 to Friday 17 January 2025
Venue: Fr John Wall Memorial Library, 131 Tower Road, New Town, Tasmania
The New Testament and Koine Greek school is for beginners who want to experience the excitement of reading parts of the Bible in the original language. We shall read extracts from the Gospel and Epistles, as well as some important passages from the Septuagint (the ancient Greek version of the Old Testament), as well as some pieces from the early Fathers of the Church and the Liturgy of St John Chrysostom.
For booking details and enquiries, email director@dawsoncentre.org