G K Chesterton

Heretics G K Chesterton

This superb collection of twenty essays by G. K. Chesterton sees the author rail against things in society he views as unfair and discriminatory.

Starting with the terms 'Orthodoxy' and 'Heretic', Chesterton derides modern society for having denigrated these words to the extent that they are synonymous with being wrong, rather than being right. The attitude of modernity is argued to be both hypocritical and ridiculous - simultaneously lauding and destroying certain artists who would hold unusual beliefs and act on them.

A quote from the first essay: "In the fifteenth century men cross-examined and tormented a man because he preached some immoral attitude; in the nineteenth century we feted and flattered Oscar Wilde because he preached such an attitude, and then broke his heart in penal servitude because he carried it out. It may be a question which of the two methods was the more cruel; there can be no kind of question which was the more ludicrous. The age of the Inquisition has not at least the disgrace of having produced a society which made an idol of the very same man for preaching the very same things which it made him a convict for practising."

Characterised by an easily digestible style, ready use and exposure of paradox, and the use of wit and humour, Chesterton's fiction and non-fiction writings on the topics of human behaviour and wider society remain both relevant and poignant to this day.