The Happy Warriors: G. K. Chesterton and St. John Henry Newman as Satirists

Abstract

The Happy Warriors: G. K. Chesterton and St. John Henry Newman as Satirists1 David P. Deavel, Editor Insanity reigns in much of modern life today. Sure, we have technological marvels galore and, especially Americans, are still richer than any people who ever lived—at least in terms of buying power, comfort, and luxury. But for Catholics, Christians, Jews, and people of good will generally, I suspect that we all sense the continuing religious, cultural, and increasingly economic, political, and legal dissolution that is befalling us. It is not just a problem in “the world” or the government or the internet; we see it in the religious spheres of life, including even the Catholic Church. We are often tempted to just give up the fight for truth. To give in to that temptation would be wrong. G. K. Chesterton observed in Orthodoxy that “the only courage worth calling courage must necessarily mean that the soul passes a breaking point and does not break.”2 How is it that our souls do not break? The secret is clinging always to the Truth. Truth is not just a word or a concept, but Truth is ultimately a person. That person is mentioned by Chesterton in the line right before the one about souls not breaking. “Alone of [End Page 5] all Creeds, Christianity has added courage to the list of virtues of the Creator.” He is referring, of course, to the Creator who became man and whose soul passed a breaking point. Remember how he sweated blood and asked if the cup could be taken from him? Remember how he cried out on the cross, “My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me” before he was able to say, “It is finished”? What was his secret? At the very end of Orthodoxy, Chesterton revealed what he thought it was. “There was some one thing,” Chesterton concluded, “that was too great for God to show us when He walked upon our earth; and I have sometimes fancied that it was His mirth.”3 If at the heart of Truth himself was laughter, then the secret to staying close to truth is, I think, laughter. In fact, producing laughter is an effective way to cling to the truth, stay in the fight, and keep our souls from breaking. Satire is one of the weapons of a happy warrior. We are called to be happy warriors because even when things look dark, we know that the battle has been won. Christ has overcome the world. There are no two better happy warriors from whom to learn about this weapon than G. K. Chesterton and St. John Henry Newman. Chesterton wrote a good deal about the nature of satire, what were the conditions that made it most successful, and what made for a good satirist. Both Newman and Chesterton were both great practitioners of the art of satire. Let’s turn first to Chesterton’s theories. Chesterton on Satire As noted, satire is connected to the truth. How so? In his introduction to Dickens’s Martin Chuzzlewit, Chesterton calls satire “a kind of taunting reasonableness.” Taunting because it is directed at the thinking of the other. “The essence of satire is that it perceives some absurdity inherent in the logic of some position, and that it draws that absurdity out and isolates it, so that all can see it.” Not only does satire isolate that absurdity, but it also exaggerates it. Or, rather, says [End Page 6] Chesterton, it “emphasizes” the absurdity by taking the principles seriously. “Dickens carried a man’s principles as far as a man’s principles would go.” Satire, then is an intellectual activity, and requires intellectual practitioners who will show not only where a particular set of principles would lead if truly held consistently—but also how the principles are not being held consistently by those claiming them. Seeing where those principles might lead requires both logical skill and imagination. The satirist, Chesterton says, must be a thinker, he must be a philosophical thinker for this simple reason; that he exercises his philosophical thought in deciding what part of his subject he is to satirise. You may have the...