Premium Only Content

The Ugliness of Utopia - At the Sign of the World's End - G. K. Chesterton
"The really swift and simple mode of attack on Marxian materialism and collectivism is simply pointing out that it is ugly, not proving that it is unpractical."
""Suppose a man knocks at the door with a proposition for providing everybody with a pair of stilts, so that they can henceforth all walk a bout undefiled by mud and breathing a purer air on a level with the tops of trees. It would take a long time to prove to him that he cannot provide everybody with stilts. You might spend many happy hours with him in your library, looking up encyclopedias and covering papers with calculations, before you had proved to him from the census or the reports of the timber trade or the blue books on afforestation that the thing was impossible...."
"If you want to get rid of the gentlemen selling stilts at the door, it is much quicker to tell him that you don't want any stilts, that you don't like stilts, that he has aroused no stilt motif like music in your mind, or in short that walking on stilts forms no part of your ideal. In short the idealistic answer is short, sharp, and practical; whereas the practical answer is long-winded, elaborate and tiresome..."
"In the same way the really swift and simple mode of attack on Marxian materialism and collectivism is simply pointing out that it is ugly, not proving that it is unpractical. "
Newspaper column written by G.K. Chesterton for "The New Witness", under the heading "At the Sign of the World's End".
Gilbert Keith Chesterton was an English writer, philosopher, lay theologian, and literary and art critic. He has been referred to as the "prince of paradox". Time magazine observed of his writing style: "Whenever possible Chesterton made his points with popular sayings, proverbs, allegories—first carefully turning them inside out."
Chesterton created the fictional priest-detective Father Brown, and wrote on apologetics. Even some of those who disagree with him have recognised the wide appeal of such works as Orthodoxy and The Everlasting Man. Chesterton routinely referred to himself as an "orthodox" Christian, and came to identify this position more and more with Catholicism, eventually converting to Catholicism from High Church Anglicanism. Biographers have identified him as a successor to such Victorian authors as Matthew Arnold, Thomas Carlyle, Cardinal John Henry Newman, and John Ruskin.
On his contributions, T. S. Eliot wrote:
"He was importantly and consistently on the side of the angels. Behind the Johnsonian fancy-dress, so reassuring to the British public, he concealed the most serious and revolutionary designs—concealing them by exposure ... Chesterton's social and economic ideas...were fundamentally Christian and Catholic. He did more, I think, than any man of his time—and was able to do more than anyone else, because of his particular background, development and abilities as a public performer—to maintain the existence of the important minority in the modern world. He leaves behind a permanent claim upon our loyalty, to see that the work that he did in his time is continued in ours."
(Wikipedia)
Chesterton Radio
Works of G.K. Chesterton and Friends
Plus Drama, Comedy, Mystery, Science Fiction, Big Bands and more
True - Good - Beautiful
The Soundtrack for your Chesterton Day!
Do you enjoy the variety on Chesterton Radio?
Like, Share and Subscribe to be notified of our new shows
Discover new Chesterton Radio shows in our Playlists!
http://Plays.ChestertonRadio.com
http://Listen.ChestertonRadio.com
http://Player.ChestertonRadio.com
http://Orthodoxy.ChestertonRadio.com
http://EverlastingMan.ChestertonRadio.com
http://Eugenics.ChestertonRadio.com
http://Distributism.ChestertonRadio.com
http://FatherBrown.ChestertonRadio.com
http://Freedom.ChestertonRadio.com
Follow us on Social Media
https://mstdn.social/@ChestertonRadio
https://www.gab.com/chestertonradio
Please consider supporting us.
https://www.patreon.com/ChestertonRadio
Visit the Chesterton Radio Shop
http://Shop.ChestertonRadio.com
-
18:12:15
Chesterton Radio
1 year ago $3.21 earnedChristmas Radio Live - Holiday Fun All-Day Live Stream
32.1K4 -
2:04
Yugituber
3 years agoUtopia VS Magistus
156 -
Badlands Media
9 hours agoThe Narrative Ep. 35: Codex of Truth
70.2K33 -
3:55:56
Due Dissidence
12 hours agoSchmuley TRASHES Shapiro, Maxwell Sings For Pardon, Uhuru Doc Preview - Live From St. Louis!
33.8K36 -
LIVE
Lofi Girl
2 years agolofi hip hop radio 📚 - beats to relax/study to
377 watching -
2:23:21
PandaSub2000
5 days agoLIVE 9:30pm ET | MADISON VR (The Scariest Game Ever Made)
14.4K1 -
2:34:32
Badlands Media
5 days agoCODEX 9/11
284K234 -
1:53:43
Nerdrotic
7 hours ago $0.29 earnedMysteries of 3I/ATLAS | Forbidden Frontier #113
47K5 -
2:04:21
vivafrei
1 day agoEp. 278: D.C. Peace Wave! Big Tish & Nipple Judge SPANKED! "Maryland Man" Trafficker FREE & MORE?
101K123 -
Damysus Gaming
3 hours agoBorderlands 3 - Part 8 - FL4K Time | Children of the Vault be Warned!
17.5K