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<SPAN class=ip-normal-font>I thought this quote was interesting. I'm just posting it to maybe open people's minds to the fact that they believe the very problem this author talks about.
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Concluding Remarks on the Importance of Orthodoxy (from the book "Heretics") by G.K. Chesterton:
Whether the human mind can advance or not, is a question too little
discussed, for nothing can be more dangerous than to found our social
philosophy on any theory which is debatable but has not been debated. But
if we assume, for the sake of argument, that there has been in the past, or
will be in the future, such a thing as a growth or improvement of the human
mind itself, there still remains a very sharp objection to be raised against the
modern version of that improvement. The vice of the modern notion of
mental progress is that it is always something concerned with the breaking
of bonds, the effacing of boundaries, the casting away of dogmas. But if
there be such a thing as mental growth, it must mean the growth into more
and more definite convictions, into more and more dogmas. The human
brain is a machine for coming to conclusions; if it cannot come to
conclusions it is rusty. When we hear of a man too clever to believe, we are
hearing of something having almost the character of a contradiction in
terms. It is like hearing of a nail that was too good to hold down a carpet; or
a bolt that was too strong to keep a door shut. Man can hardly be defined,
after the fashion of Carlyle, as an animal who makes tools; ants and beavers
and many other animals make tools, in the sense that they make an
apparatus. Man can be defined as an animal that makes dogmas. As he piles
doctrine on doctrine and conclusion on conclusion in the formation of some
tremendous scheme of philosophy and religion, he is, in the only legitimate
sense of which the expression is capable, becoming more and more human.
When he drops one doctrine after another in a refined skepticism, when he
declines to tie himself to a system, when he says that he has outgrown
definitions, when he says that he disbelieves in finality, when, in his own
imagination, he sits as God, holding no form of creed but contemplating all,
then he is by that very process sinking slowly backwards into the vagueness
of the vagrant animals and the unconsciousness of the grass. Trees have no
dogmas. Turnips are singularly broad-minded.
If then, I repeat, there is to be mental advance, it must be mental advance in
the construction of a definite philosophy of life. And that philosophy of life
must be right and the other philosophies wrong. Now of all, or nearly all,
the able modern writers whom I have briefly studied in this book, this is
especially and pleasingly true, that they do each of them have a constructive
and affirmative view, and that they do take it seriously and ask us to take it
seriously. There is nothing merely skeptically progressive about Mr.
Rudyard Kipling. There is nothing in the least broad minded about Mr.Bernard Shaw. The paganism of Mr. Lowes Dickinson is more grave than
any Christianity. Even the opportunism of Mr. H. G. Wells is more
dogmatic than the idealism of anybody else. Somebody complained, I think,
to Matthew Arnold that he was getting as dogmatic as Carlyle. He replied,
“That may be true; but you overlook an obvious difference. I am dogmatic
and right, and Carlyle is dogmatic and wrong.” The strong humor of the
remark ought not to disguise from us its everlasting seriousness and
common sense; no man ought to write at all, or even to speak at all, unless
he thinks that he is in truth and the other man in error. In similar style, I
hold that I am dogmatic and right, while Mr. Shaw is dogmatic and wrong.
But my main point, at present, is to notice that the chief among these writers
I have discussed do most sanely and courageously offer themselves as
dogmatists, as founders of a system.
-----------------------------
It goes on, but I think is enough to show my point.
------------------
"Remember this, and be assured; Recall it to mind, you transgressors. Remember the former things long past, For I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is no one like Me, Declaring the end from the beginning, And from ancient times things which have not been done, Saying, 'My purpose will be established, And I will accomplish all My good pleasure'; Calling a bird of prey from the east, The man of My purpose from a far country. Truly I have spoken; truly I will bring it to pass. I have planned it, surely I will do it." -- Isaiah 46:8-11</SPAN>
----------------------
Concluding Remarks on the Importance of Orthodoxy (from the book "Heretics") by G.K. Chesterton:
Whether the human mind can advance or not, is a question too little
discussed, for nothing can be more dangerous than to found our social
philosophy on any theory which is debatable but has not been debated. But
if we assume, for the sake of argument, that there has been in the past, or
will be in the future, such a thing as a growth or improvement of the human
mind itself, there still remains a very sharp objection to be raised against the
modern version of that improvement. The vice of the modern notion of
mental progress is that it is always something concerned with the breaking
of bonds, the effacing of boundaries, the casting away of dogmas. But if
there be such a thing as mental growth, it must mean the growth into more
and more definite convictions, into more and more dogmas. The human
brain is a machine for coming to conclusions; if it cannot come to
conclusions it is rusty. When we hear of a man too clever to believe, we are
hearing of something having almost the character of a contradiction in
terms. It is like hearing of a nail that was too good to hold down a carpet; or
a bolt that was too strong to keep a door shut. Man can hardly be defined,
after the fashion of Carlyle, as an animal who makes tools; ants and beavers
and many other animals make tools, in the sense that they make an
apparatus. Man can be defined as an animal that makes dogmas. As he piles
doctrine on doctrine and conclusion on conclusion in the formation of some
tremendous scheme of philosophy and religion, he is, in the only legitimate
sense of which the expression is capable, becoming more and more human.
When he drops one doctrine after another in a refined skepticism, when he
declines to tie himself to a system, when he says that he has outgrown
definitions, when he says that he disbelieves in finality, when, in his own
imagination, he sits as God, holding no form of creed but contemplating all,
then he is by that very process sinking slowly backwards into the vagueness
of the vagrant animals and the unconsciousness of the grass. Trees have no
dogmas. Turnips are singularly broad-minded.
If then, I repeat, there is to be mental advance, it must be mental advance in
the construction of a definite philosophy of life. And that philosophy of life
must be right and the other philosophies wrong. Now of all, or nearly all,
the able modern writers whom I have briefly studied in this book, this is
especially and pleasingly true, that they do each of them have a constructive
and affirmative view, and that they do take it seriously and ask us to take it
seriously. There is nothing merely skeptically progressive about Mr.
Rudyard Kipling. There is nothing in the least broad minded about Mr.Bernard Shaw. The paganism of Mr. Lowes Dickinson is more grave than
any Christianity. Even the opportunism of Mr. H. G. Wells is more
dogmatic than the idealism of anybody else. Somebody complained, I think,
to Matthew Arnold that he was getting as dogmatic as Carlyle. He replied,
“That may be true; but you overlook an obvious difference. I am dogmatic
and right, and Carlyle is dogmatic and wrong.” The strong humor of the
remark ought not to disguise from us its everlasting seriousness and
common sense; no man ought to write at all, or even to speak at all, unless
he thinks that he is in truth and the other man in error. In similar style, I
hold that I am dogmatic and right, while Mr. Shaw is dogmatic and wrong.
But my main point, at present, is to notice that the chief among these writers
I have discussed do most sanely and courageously offer themselves as
dogmatists, as founders of a system.
-----------------------------
It goes on, but I think is enough to show my point.
------------------
"Remember this, and be assured; Recall it to mind, you transgressors. Remember the former things long past, For I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is no one like Me, Declaring the end from the beginning, And from ancient times things which have not been done, Saying, 'My purpose will be established, And I will accomplish all My good pleasure'; Calling a bird of prey from the east, The man of My purpose from a far country. Truly I have spoken; truly I will bring it to pass. I have planned it, surely I will do it." -- Isaiah 46:8-11</SPAN>