/lit/ - Literature

From his book “The New Jerusalem”, where he contrasts the paradoxes of Christianity, such as the Trinity, which he notes make it complex, as opposed to the simple theology of Islam

>It was exactly because it seemed self-evident, to Moslems as to Bolshevists, that their simple creed was suited to everybody, that they wished in that particular sweeping fashion to impose it on everybody. It was because Islam was broad that Moslems were narrow. And because it was not a hard religion it was a heavy rule. Because it was without a self-correcting complexity, it allowed of those simple and masculine but mostly rather dangerous appetites that show themselves in a chieftain or a lord. As it had the simplest sort of religion, monotheism, so it had the simplest sort of government, monarchy. There was exactly the same direct spirit in its despotism as in its deism. The Code, the Common Law, the give and take of charters and chivalric vows, did not grow in that golden desert. The great sun was in the sky and the great Saladin was in his tent, and he must be obeyed unless he were assassinated. Those who complain of our creeds as elaborate often forget that the elaborate Western creeds have produced the elaborate Western constitutions; and that they are elaborate because they are emancipated.

This is his point that Islam was harmful to freedom and progress. We can say in a way that what defines western values is Christianity, that whatever they are, they are a form of it

Where do I start learning about rhetoric? What else do I read besides Aristotle?

>BTFOs communism and capitalism simultaneously
why isn't he more popular?

Undoubtedly Reddit

>>20451580
I suppose you enjoy the absurd or tragic events that appear humourous, the bizarre.

My favourite writer is Chesterton

>called Anglicanism a pale imitation of religion
>dabbled in occultism before becoming insufferably Catholic

Étienne Gilson, the leading expert on medieval history and philosophy in his time, called Chesterton the best author on Aquinas ever, and that all other books on Aquinas have
been put to shame.

According to Chesterton’s secretary, Chesterton had never read Summa Theologiae. Chesterton had never read anything on Aquinas. Ever. According to her he wrote half the book before ordering her to go and get some books.

“What books?” she asked,

He gave her a puzzled look, “I don’t know”

She came back with every book on Aquinas she could carry. He didn’t bother reading them, instead he grabbed each book and examined it’s binding before tossing it aside. He flipped through the pages of only one of the books. After that he wrote the second half

Greatest book on Aquinas ever written.

Also, has anyone ever actually read Summa Theologiae? Is philosophy, and reading in general, just a massive LARP?

Is it accurate to call him a Christian existentialist? I read somewhere that he was an influence on Kafka.

I can smell GK Chesterton through his pictures and the stench is nauseating

Lo! I am come to autumn,
When all the leaves are gold;
Grey hairs and golden leaves cry out
The year and I are old.

In youth I sought the prince of men,
Captain in cosmic wars,
Our Titan, even the weeds would show
Defiant, to the stars.

But now a great thing in the street
Seems any human nod,
Where shift in strange democracy
The million masks of God.

In youth I sought the golden flower
Hidden in wood or wold,
But I am come to autumn,
When all the leaves are gold.
How do you interpret the third stanza?

>>19007596

I've heard Chesterton would be a good start. What is a good book to start with? Are there any other good authors?

>Joan of Arc was not stuck at the cross-roads, either by rejecting all the paths like Tolstoy, or by accepting them all like Nietzsche. She chose a path, and went down it like a thunderbolt. Yet Joan, when I came to think of her, had in her all that was true either in Tolstoy or Nietzsche, all that was even tolerable in either of them.

>I thought of all that is noble in Tolstoy, the pleasure in plain things, especially in plain pity, the actualities of the earth, the reverence for the poor, the dignity of the bowed back. Joan of Arc had all that and with this great addition, that she endured poverty as well as admiring it; whereas Tolstoy is only a typical aristocrat trying to find out its secret. And then I thought of all that was brave and proud and pathetic in poor Nietzsche, and his mutiny against the emptiness and timidity of our time. I thought of his cry for the ecstatic equilibrium of danger, his hunger for the rush of great horses, his cry to arms. Well, Joan of Arc had all that, and again with this difference, that she did not praise fighting, but fought. We know that she was not afraid of an army, while Nietzsche, for all we know, was afraid of a cow.

>Tolstoy only praised the peasant; she was the peasant. Nietzsche only praised the warrior; she was the warrior. She beat them both at their own antagonistic ideals; she was more gentle than the one, more violent than the other. Yet she was a perfectly practical person who did something, while they are wild speculators who do nothing.

>It was impossible that the thought should not cross my mind that she and her faith had perhaps some secret of moral unity and utility that has been lost.
There's never been a better English writer than GK Chesteron, right?

>>14896738
GK Chesterton, maybe. The Thing: Why I am a catholic, Heretics, Orthodoxy, The everlasting man, etc.

My pleb coworker keeps recommending that I read GK Chesterton. Has anyone here read him? and is he worth reading? I think he looks like Teddy Roosevelt's retarded brother.

>>13284107

>>13225402
Does he look like a Chad?

>>13217061
I'm enjoying this guy's book Orthodoxy right now. Offers a unique perspective on skepticism that I'm way too dumb to summarize.

What Should I read after Heretics and Orthodoxy?

>>12333030
Joan of Arc was not stuck at the cross-roads, either by rejecting all the paths like Tolstoy, or by accepting them all like Nietzsche. She chose a path, and went down it like a thunderbolt. Yet Joan, when I came to think of her, had in her all that was true either in Tolstoy or Nietzsche, all that was even tolerable in either of them.

>I thought of all that is noble in Tolstoy, the pleasure in plain things, especially in plain pity, the actualities of the earth, the reverence for the poor, the dignity of the bowed back. Joan of Arc had all that and with this great addition, that she endured poverty as well as admiring it; whereas Tolstoy is only a typical aristocrat trying to find out its secret. And then I thought of all that was brave and proud and pathetic in poor Nietzsche, and his mutiny against the emptiness and timidity of our time. I thought of his cry for the ecstatic equilibrium of danger, his hunger for the rush of great horses, his cry to arms. Well, Joan of Arc had all that, and again with this difference, that she did not praise fighting, but fought. We know that she was not afraid of an army, while Nietzsche, for all we know, was afraid of a cow.

>Tolstoy only praised the peasant; she was the peasant. Nietzsche only praised the warrior; she was the warrior. She beat them both at their own antagonistic ideals; she was more gentle than the one, more violent than the other. Yet she was a perfectly practical person who did something, while they are wild speculators who do nothing.

>It was impossible that the thought should not cross my mind that she and her faith had perhaps some secret of moral unity and utility that has been lost.

>And I can only hope that men of the new generation may be moved by this book to devote themselves to technics instead of lyrics, the sea instead of the paint-brush, and politics instead of epistemology.
>he thinks these things can be separated
Let me guess, a Catholic?

What are the racial characteristics of The Eternal Catholic?

>>11537751
Distributism.

Could G.K. Chesterton (the writer or the character, not the man) have survived World War II? Could his moral gaiety survive it