After perusing an essay recently entitled Conceit and Caricature, I was struck again by the paradox that is G.K. Chesteron. How was it that this massive man — massive in terms of intellect, personality and, well, mass — was capable of such consistently surgical insights? How could the same man that wiped the floor with George Bernard Shaw in a debate be found later that afternoon sitting in a field attempting to depict the soul of a cow with some chalk?
I was also struck by how rare writers like Chesterton are. It really isn’t hard to find clever, witty writers. What is hard is to find writers who offer more than the sum of their technical mastery; who love people enough to stick around and build a fire instead of just tossing a flash grenade and cartwheeling offstage.
In Conceit and Caricature, Chesterton confronts a trend that has become just as common in our day as it was in his. It can be summed up in a comment made by F. C. Gould (a well-known cartoonist of the day): “On looking back to the political lampoons of Rowlandson’s and Gilray’s time, they [Gould’s fellow Englishmen] would find them coarse and brutal. In some countries abroad still, even in America, the method of political caricature was of the bludgeon kind.”
By “the bludgeon kind,” he means the kind of satire that walks up to someone and hits them in the face with a brick as opposed to engaging in various feints and insinuations. Now, we would probably all agree that the existence of a satiric continuum isn’t a bad thing itself. Sometimes a stiletto works better than a brick at getting the point across. Chesterton’s beef, however, has more to do with the fact that Gould and his audience clearly derive a sense of moral comfort at having evolved past such crudities as a punchline.
“Not so fast,” the foghorn voice of Chesterton booms out from the back of the room:
Before we congratulate ourselves upon the absence of certain faults from our nation or society, we ought to ask ourselves why it is that these faults are absent. Are we without the fault because we have the opposite virtue? Or are we without the fault because we have the opposite fault? It is a good thing assuredly, to be innocent of any excess; but let us be sure that we are not innocent of excess merely by being guilty of defect.
Chesterton’s point is that we shouldn’t waste time admiring our virtue if what has really happened is that we’ve avoided, or been preserved from, those situations that would require the exercise of that virtue in the first place.
It’s great you never struggle with anxiety. Is that because of your deep faith in God’s provision? Or is it because you avoid the kinds of people and situations that would tempt you to be anxious? It’s great you never struggle with envy. Is that because you’ve endured a hard-won battle with selfish ambition? Or is it because you only hang around people with the median intelligence of a welcome mat? It’s great you never struggle with cowardice. Have you ever been confronted with something that actually required courage?
The applications are endless here, but there’s two I believe are particularly relevant.
A rebuke for Canada
Whenever somewhere in the world finds itself in moral peril, Canada is often one of the first to weigh in, which is ironic considering there is no nation on earth that has more thoroughly squandered its moral heritage than we have.
It’s true, Canada rarely gets accused of treating illegal immigrants roughly, as America does. But maybe that’s only because we’ve turned a blind eye to illegal immigration to the point where we now view it is a positive good. It’s true, Canada rarely gets accused of warmongering or bully tactics, as America does. But maybe that’s because we’ve neglected our domestic responsibilities for so long, we’ve neutered ourselves from even the capacity for menace.
Americans lack nuance and discretion, we tell ourselves. They’re ham-handed in their policies, tactless in their diplomacy, and shamelessly self-preoccupied on the global stage. Meanwhile, Canada inhabits a world that is kept free largely because of America. Whether we like it or not, America is the only thing standing between our soft lil’ belly and the many-fanged alpha predators such as China.
When such points are brought up, we are quick to retreat to our absence of barbarity (never mind what we do to unborn children); the length of our climate policies (never mind what EV batteries do to the environment); and the billions of tax dollars shovelled into the social-program latrine. “God, we thank thee that we are not as other countries are — extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as these Americans.”
However, the fact that we’ve managed to avoid America’s particular “barbarities” does not make us better than America. Namely, because the temptation towards barbarity only manifests in “atmospheres of intense reality when great nations or great causes are at war.”
The reason we are not accused of great sins is because we are no longer concerned about great causes. We are not America. We do not have her army, her constitution, her influence, or the responsibilities that come with such assets. When we stop killing our seniors, when we stop strangling resource extraction, when we stop flirting with communists, when we stop living off Ramen noodles in our parent’s basement, then maybe we can say something to America. As it stands, we are like a small, sticky-mouthed child throwing stones at a knight in plate armour as he stands in the breach of a wall and then congratulating ourselves for how brave we are.
It must be said that where our mettle has been tested against the fire of intense reality — covid for example — we have failed. We have turned against our own people. We have put the lives and livelihoods of vulnerable people into the hands of those who steal, kill, and destroy. We would, I am convinced, do it again, if given the opportunity.
A nation whose ideal citizen is one who floats along in a state of stupefied acquiescence is not even worthy of the accusation of barbarity.
A rebuke for the church
There are churches today that comfort themselves in not being numbered among “the bludgeoners.” Whose pastors either avoid teaching Scripture altogether, or teach them in such a way that idols are never confronted, hypocrisy is never exposed, and the sheep are never fed. They have perfected the art of what we might call it the art of “benign exegesis.” In such conditions, a kind of dysfunctional ecosystem develops in which wolves and sheep may graze comfortably on, and among, each other, without fear of intervention.
In such a state, all kinds of wild assumptions and illusions can be entertained: “At least our church isn’t domineering. At least we aren’t tyrannical. At least we avoid extremes. At least we’re never accused of being mean or harsh.” Maybe. Hopefully. But at what cost? Have you considered that the reason you’re never been accused of any of those things is that you pathologically avoid those things that would provoke such accusations? If even Jesus, the very embodiment of love and wisdom, couldn’t escape them, how is it that you have managed to?
Is it possible you are “innocent” of excess simply by virtue of being guilty of defect?
During covid, we heard much from pulpits about the evil of divisive language and uncharitable takes. We heard comparatively little about the limits of obedience, the ruin of tyrants, and the devastating fruit of fear. Many churches simply comforted themselves that they weren’t among the “bludgeoners.” But then, it was the bludgeoners who got us through. It was the bludgeoners who showed us a glimpse of true courage, whatever overzealousness might have been mixed in with it.
Western churches can talk about the dangers of being too harsh when they start plainly preaching the Bible, plainly smashing down idols (in and outside their walls), and plainly start holding whip-braiding classes for local pastors. Maybe we can have a conversation about going too far if we ever get to that last one.
As it stands, brothers and sisters, most of us are not courageous enough to be accused of recklessness. We are not truthful enough to be accused of heartlessness. We do not fight hard enough to be accused of savagery. To conclude with Chesterton, “I do not think we have passed the bludgeon stage. I believe we have not come to the bludgeon stage. We must be better, braver, and purer men than we are before we come to the bludgeon stage.”
May God help us to that end.