The Historical Imagination of G.K. Chesterton

Locality, Patriotism, and Nationalism

Joseph R. McCleary

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2009
• Print ISBN: 9780415991759
• eBook ISBN: 9781135852054
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: English Literary Criticism
• Index: Literature

This study examines a selection of Chesterton's novels, poetry, and literary criticism and outlines the distinctive philosophy of history that emerges from these writings. Looking at Chesteron's relationship with and influence upon authors including William Cobbett, Sir Walter Scott, Belloc, Shaw, H.G. Wells, Christopher Dawson, Evelyn Waugh, and Marshall McLuhan, McCleary contends that Chesterton's recurring use of the themes of locality, patriotism, and nationalism embodies a distinctive understanding of what gives history its coherence. The study concludes that Chesterton's emphasis on locality is the hallmark of his historical philosophy in that it blends the concepts of free will, specificity, and creatureliness which he uses to make sense of history.

1
The Critics and Chesterton’s Philosophy of History

G.K. Chesterton’s approach to the study to history was informed to a large extent by his view that individuals rather than larger systems, ideologies, institutions or governments, are the primary forces of historical movement. One prominent modern historian, Eric Hobsbawm, has spoken about the various approaches to the writing of history, pointing out that one must make a selection:

All historical study therefore implies making a selection, a tiny selection of some things out of the infinity of human activities in the past, and of what affected those activities. But there is no generally accepted criterion for making such a selection, and to the extent that there is one at any given time, it is likely to change. When historians thought history was largely determined by great men, their selection was obviously different from what it is when they don’t. ¹

Though perhaps insufficient, the “great man” theory of history points to Chesterton’s understanding that while history may not be solely the product of great men, it is nevertheless the product of individuals who come from specific locations and have distinctive stories, languages, and surroundings, and who are motivated by the customs, history and culture of their respective localities.

Chesterton called for a new approach to the study of history that would take into account the determining factor of the individual and specific localities. Chesterton described this “new history” as essentially psychological. He meant the word psychological in the etymological sense, namely, the history of a person’s soul, with its ignorance and its knowledge, all of which was formed by where and with whom he or she had grown up. Climate, terrain, language, religion, family, and friends all combine to shape a person’s soul. They also determine the movements of small groups of humanity that, taken in the aggregate form, determine the movements of history.

One of the most striking descriptions of historical causality to be found in Chesterton’s writings is the following excerpt from The Everlasting Man. This work, published in 1925, sets out Chesterton’s argument for the importance of Christianity within the broad context of human history.

In nothing is this new history needed so much as in the psychology of war. Our history is stiff with official documents, public or private, which tell us nothing of the thing itself…. There is something we all know which can only be rendered, in an appropriate language, as realpolitik. As a matter of fact, it is an almost insanely un-realpolitik. It is always stubbornly and stupidly repeating that men fight for material ends, without reflecting for a moment that the material ends are hardly ever material to the men who fight. In any case no man will die for practical politics, just as no man will die for pay. Nero could not hire a hundred Christians to be eaten by lions at a shilling an hour; for men will not be martyred for money. But the vision called up by realpolitik, or realistic politics, is beyond example crazy and incredible. Does anybody in the world believe that a soldier says, ‘My leg is nearly dropping off, but I shall go on till it drops; for after all I shall enjoy all the advantages of my government obtaining a warm-water port in Finland … Whatever starts wars, the thing that sustains wars is something in the soul; that is something akin to religion. It is what men feel about life and about death. A man near to death is dealing directly with an absolute; it is nonsense to say that he is concerned only with relative and remote complications that death in any case will end. If he is sustained by certain loyalties, they must be loyalties as simple as death. They are generally two ideas, which are only two sides of one idea. This first is the love of something said to be threatened, if it be only vaguely known as home; the second is dislike and defiance of some strange thing that threatens it. ²

Chesterton clearly identifies that it is only the promotion and/or defense of personal loyalties and ideals that can truly impel people into action. Chesterton also believed that the presence of legend, literature, art and music in a culture can articulate the commonly-held beliefs of a people, and are important motivational forces. The myth of the Ballad of the White Horse (1911) is an example.

By contrast, Hobsbawm believes that there should neither be nations nor divisions of people based on passion, myth-legend, or nationalism. Hobsbawn’s approach to history calls for the elimination of national and ethnic myths as a motivational drive:

But the fact that a new generation has grown up which can stand back from the passions of the great traumatic and formative moments of the countries’ history is a sign of hope for historians. However, we cannot wait for the generations to pass. We must resist the formation of national, ethnic and other myths, as they are being formed. It will not make us popular. Thomas Masaryk, founder of the Czechoslovak Republic, was not popular when he entered politics as the man who proved, with regret but without hesitation, that the medieval manuscripts on which much of the Czech national myth was based were fakes. But it has to be done, and I hope those of you who are historians will do it. ³

Chesterton’s vision is in such great contrast with Hobsbawm’s view precisely because he thinks that local myths and passions are the essential sources of the human movement in time that we call history. He does not see myths or legends that embody the local features of a community to be necessary obstacles to human development. These formative stories may not literally be true in every respect, but they are emblems of commonly-held experiences.

The use of imaginative emblems has been noted by Sylvere Monod as the distinctive quality of Chesterton’s historical thought:

“It is like saying,” Chesterton writes again and again, when he is about to show, through analogy, the inadequacy of some statement with which he disagrees and which he wants to persuade his readers is dangerously wrong. He produces powerful imaginative interpretations of history, of prehistory, and of thought.⁴

Monod is not sympathetic to the rhetorical ploys that he sees Chesterton using to make his points but he nonetheless acknowledges the power of his imagination to illuminate historical events. The imagination works on what can be pictured and this means that Chesterton will favor the specific over the general. The specific qualities of local realities favor the imaginative approach that Monod cites as both the weakness and strength of Chesterton’s historical writing: “In his view, man can only know small observable things, and vast abstractions and inferences must remain suspicious.”⁵

The meaning of history for Chesterton is therefore closely tied to all that is local. (For the purposes of this book, I will refer to this idea as “localism”.) The bridge between localism and the nation is that nations rise based on population, complexity, specialization, and organization. These categories comprise the distinction of functions that builds infrastructure. Also, sufficient leisure brought about by the organization of functions enables literary forms such as narrative in song to be created. This, together with other creative and artistic endeavors, captures the experiences and values of a people.

One historian, Ernest Gellner, who studied the origin of nations and nationalism, has said that:

Nationalism has been defined, in effect, as the striving to make culture and polity congruent, to endow a culture with its own political roof, and not more than one roof at that. ⁶

Later, Gellner distinguishes nationalist sentiment as “the feeling of anger aroused by the violation of the principle [of nationalism], or the feeling of satisfaction aroused by its fulfillment.”⁷ Chesterton’s emphasis on locality has similarities with Gellner’s analysis in ascribing importance to cultural, and hence locally generated, forces as the foundation of any nationalism. Gellner’s inclusion of anger as a passion connected with nationalism points to the possibility of aggressive impulses that I would distinguish from the ameliorative impulses of patriotism. As nationalism develops, it can move toward aggressive stands and lead to imperialism if the character of the people it represents tends toward aggression. The nuances of nationalism reflect the values of its people.

By contrast, patriotism is the natural, inwardly-focused love for the locally-inspired culture of a nation. The importance of land and geography is paramount to the formation of an early association and appreciation of local beauty, and the ensuing building of a familiarity with it. The English patriot may love the meadows of Sussex because they were part of his or her childhood years. However, this person would not despise the arid plains of Spain because he or she did not grow up there. Furthermore, patriotism recognizes the inherent quality of one’s predecessors as those who were foundational forces in the building and development of the land.

Nationalism is the unifying of all the localities within certain boundaries that takes place when enough common ground—literally and figuratively—is established among people. Gellner emphasizes this unifying aspect of the political in relation to the cultural. He stresses the importance of the unity of education, and also the notion that cultural homogeneity is the product of the passage of time and a shared history.⁸

The sharing of language, customs, and beliefs that takes place on a local level may lead eventually to a political unity. Similarly, what takes place on the local and national levels corresponds to the family model in the complementarity and diversity of roles, resulting in the building of a single unit. Therefore, nationalism becomes not only the sum of its parts, but in so doing becomes a separate entity. Nationalism is informed by and, in turn, inspires its people.

There is a legitimate pride within patriotism for the customs, outlook and way of life of one’s people. What ensues then is a natural desire to defend what is distinctive in a locality: its customs, language, values, and history. In his book, The New Jerusalem, published in 1920, Chesterton warns that patriotism must guard itself against a false glorification of the individual at the expense of the positive ideal of the nation as a whole:

It is the vice of any patriotism or religion depending on race that the individual is himself the thing to be worshipped; the individual is his own ideal, and even his own idol. This fancy was fatal to the Germans; it is fatal to the Anglo-Saxons, whenever any of them forswear the glorious name of Englishmen and Americans to fall into that forlorn description. This is not so when the nation is felt as a noble abstraction, of which the individual is proud in the abstract. A Frenchman is proud of France, and therefore may think himself unworthy of France. ⁹

In The Appetite of Tyranny Chesterton goes further to describe the eventual imperialistic outcome when this tendency is carried to its extreme. He cites the manifestation of such imperialism in Germany in his characteristic mistrust of this tendency among its people:

‘I am a German and you are a Chinaman. Therefore I, being a German, have a right to be a Chinaman. But you have no right to be a Chinaman; because you are only a Chinaman.’ This is probably the highest point to which the German culture has risen. ¹⁰

In his Autobiography, Chesterton gives a tempered example of his patriotic ideal as an antidote to imperialistic excess:

To us it seemed obvious that Patriotism and Imperialism were not only not the same thing, but very nearly opposite things. But it did not seem obvious, but very puzzling, to the great majority of healthy patriots and innocent Imperialists…. I have always felt it the first duty of a real English patriot to sympathize with the passionate patriotism of Ireland; that I expressed it through the worst times of her tragedy and have not lost it in her triumph. ¹¹

Chesterton saw patriotism as not only the love of one’s own county, but also the respect for...

Table of contents

• Studies in Major Literary Authors
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1 The Critics and Chesterton’s Philosophy of History
• 2 Influences and Contemporaries
• 3 The Critical Lens
• 4 The Creative Lens
• 5 The Critical and Creative Legacy
• 6 Conclusion
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index