Posts in Philosophy
Words Worth Noting - July 26, 2024

“There might be a clockwork ploughman to plough the cornfields or a clockwork miller to grind the corn. I would merely add the equally human hypothesis of a clockwork householder to eat the bread. Then machines could do without men altogether.”

G.K. Chesterton in New York American Nov. 12 1935, quoted in “Robots” in Gilbert The Magazine of the Society of G.K. Chesterton Vol. 26 # 6 (July-August 2023)

Words Worth Noting - July 21, 2024

“Theological distinctions are fine but not thin. In all the mess of modern thoughtlessness that still calls itself modern thought, there is perhaps nothing so stupendously stupid as the common saying, ‘Religion can never depend on minute disputes about doctrine.’ It is like saying that life can never depend on minute disputes about medicine. The man who is content to say, ‘We do not want theologians splitting hairs’ will doubtless be content to go on and say, ‘We do not want surgeons splitting filaments more delicate than hairs.’ It is the fact that many a man would be dead today, if his doctors had not debated fine shades about doctoring. It is also the fact that European civilization would be dead today, if its doctors of divinity had not debated fine shades about doctrine.”

G.K. Chesterton in “The Story of the Statues” in The Resurrection of Rome, quoted in “Chesterton’s Mail Bag” in Gilbert Magazine Vol. 11 #3 (Nov.-Dec. 2007)

Words Worth Noting - July 19, 2024

“In plain words, imaginative poetry must not appeal to the sense of sound. The futurist poet is like the Early Victorian child. He must be seen and not heard.”

G.K. Chesterton in Illustrated London News August 25, 1928 quoted in “The Book of the Prophet Daniel” in “GKC on Scripture * Conducted by Peter Floriani” in Gilbert The Magazine of the Society of G.K. Chesterton Vol. 26 # 6 (July-August 2023)

Western Civilization: The Battle of Ideas

In my opening remarks to the 2024 Economic Education Association of Alberta “Freedom Talk” on “The Decline of Western Civilization: Our Fate or Our Choice?” in Red Deer, I said the fight to save Western civilization is fought first and foremost on the field of ideas.