Sunday, November 24, 2019

G.K. Chesterton’s Radical Vision for Conservatives

G.K. Chesterton’s Radical Vision for Conservatives



Chesterton first shows how true conservatism is a radically inclusive vision. In looking to the past for guidance for today and tomorrow, conservatives are not promoting a static position but one that is truly dynamic and democratic. He writes, “I have never been able to understand where people got the idea that democracy was in some way opposed to tradition. It is obvious that tradition is only democracy extended through time. It is trusting to a consensus of common human voices rather than to some isolated or arbitrary record.”[1] In looking back to what our forefathers thought and said about our country, we are acknowledging the voices of the past that continue to have a say in our lives today. These men and women shaped where we are today and so we cannot really understand our own time unless we understand them.


Chesterton next shows us how true conservatism is radically active. Rather than being a vision that idolizes one point in the past—some might call it “the good old’ days”—instead true conservatism is a constant re-evaluation process driven by a standard which we are seeking to align with more and more. The current re-evaluation that conservatives are conducting is actually something that conservatives must always do. Chesterton writes, “But all conservatism is based upon the idea that if you leave things alone you leave them as they are. But you do not. If you leave a thing alone you leave it to a torrent of change. If you leave a white post alone it will soon be a black post. If you particularly want it to be white you must be always painting it again; that is, you must be always having a revolution.”[2] The world is always changing. People grow old and things fall apart. True conservatives must be vigilant and active because there is a standard which we are aiming for and we cannot reach that standard trying to maintain the status quo.


This leads to Chesterton’s third point: in being for permanent truths, the conservative position is not a static position. Rather, the truly permanent things are the ones that are most alive. Chesterton looks at the sun as a great example of this truth: “Now, to put the matter in a popular phrase, it might be true that the sun rises regularly because he never gets tired of rising. His routine might be due, not to a lifelessness, but to a rush of life.”[3] This is like the child sitting in a swing going back and forth over and over again. Adults get tired of that kind of action but a child will do it all day. Why is this? Because the young and youthful do not get tired like the old and aged. We tire easily. In this way we see that the sun is a wonderful picture of the conservative vision. It never tires of rising and setting. It does the same thing day after day, not because it is bored, but rather because it has never gotten tired. It is full of a robust life that we old humans must once again grasp anew.




[1] G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy, 1908, 84.
[2] Ibid, 212.
[3] Ibid, 108.
[4] Ibid, 109.
The featured image is a photograph of G.K. Chesterton taken by Hector Murchison (1864-1934) and courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
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