Welcome to the final posting in our long digression into the
world of Msgr. Robert Hugh Benson, author of Lord
of the World, recommended reading by Pope Francis and other intelligent
people. That was a dangerous thing for
the pope to do. People don’t understand
straightforward teachings of the Catholic Church or any other moral
authority. How are they supposed to
understand something as subtle as satire?
The problem is, people haven’t understood. They missed Benson’s message completely: that
when humanity is allowed to follow its natural bent, without interference from
the forces of secularism or socialism, this world will be a proper training
ground to prepare us for the next one.
To this, we of the Just Third Way would add that capitalism, too,
prevents people from being themselves by virtually ensuring that few people
have either the opportunity or means to acquire and possess capital, and thus
remain powerless before the private sector or State élite.
To carry his message in The
Dawn of All, Benson again used the satiric technique he had
perfected in Lord
of the World.
The earlier novel took everything that the materialists and secular humanists
considered best in the world and carried it out to its logical conclusion. The
result was the end of the world. In The
Dawn of All,
Benson took everything that Edwardian England professed to hate or despise most in
Catholicism and, by carrying out an extremely exaggerated reductio ad absurdum, showed that it
could result in the foundation of a new age of peace and prosperity — the dawn
of all.
Not that Benson viewed his fantasy as the blueprint for an
ideal society — far from it. As Martindale made clear,
“Benson wrote often and emphatically
that he did not for a moment expect the pictured solution to realize itself,
and that he even hoped it would not. Neither Science, nor the State, nor
Religion would ever, he was convinced, find themselves in such mutual relations
as he had invented.”
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| "What the hell are they up to now? ... Ah, the police will explain matters." |
One favorite if brief passage in the novel is the toss-off
line by one of the characters to the effect that a now-independent Ireland had granted “Home Rule” to all its colonies
rapidly, with very little trouble and, apparently, to the benefit of the entire
British Empire. This is a rather trenchant comment on the “Irish Question” that
consumed Imperial politicians for nearly the whole of the nineteenth and the
early twentieth centuries until the frustration finally exploded in the “Easter
Rising” of 1916, two years after
Benson’s death, the centennial of
which is next year, for all you Hibernians.
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| Unsinkable ... except by God. |
One topical allusion that may send a chill down the spine of
more sensitive readers is the mention of “Titanic-class
liners” — a reference that helps date the novel as well. (Benson also remarked on a very old nobleman who had
been present as a boy at the coronation of George V — which took place in 1910,
another topical reference that puts the writing of the book squarely in 1911.)
The Titanic was under construction at
the time Benson wrote The
Dawn of All,
and was the largest human artifact built up to that time, with the exception of
the pyramids.
Ironically, Benson was returning from a lecture tour in the
United States in April 1912 when the liner on which he was
traveling suddenly changed course. The captain was responding to the distress
call sent out by the Titanic, but
went back to his original course when it became obvious he could not reach the
doomed ship in time.
The novel itself incorporates some minor faults. More concerned with demonstrating the extraordinary
nature of the ordinary, Benson tended to become somewhat too much immersed in
some of his background material. He gave his fascination with technology full
rein, and spent just a little too much page space describing his fantastic
inventions in detail — even though he was fully aware that the science was
seriously flawed.
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| "Democracy is the most useful form of government." |
Benson also presented a distorted idea of Catholic
political concepts. In common with many English Catholics, Benson was concerned with demonstrating his political
loyalty to the British crown while maintaining his religious independence. He
appears to have believed that the so-called “Divine Right of Kings” — the idea
that God directly endows civil rulers with the right to rule — was somehow
consistent with Catholic teachings. In any event, Pius XI’s pointed repudiation of the
“Divine Right of Kings” (preceded by the writings of Sts. Augustine, Thomas Aquinas and Robert Cardinal Bellarmine), was fifteen years in the
future when Benson wrote.
Unusually for a man who wrote a short biography of St.
Thomas à Becket, who died resisting Henry II’s attempts to take over the
Church in England, Benson also seemed to support the idea of an
“established church.” This concept was anathema in the Middle Ages, and only
gained a foothold in England with the Tudors, who also abolished popular
sovereignty and the elective kingship. (It comes as a surprise to many people
that Richard III Plantagenet was elected king of England by the parliament.
Henry VII Tudor, however, claimed the throne by virtue of an ephemeral “right of conquest,” and was
“confirmed” — not elected — by the parliament after judicious threats.)
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| "More? You want more? (Satire)?" |
Unfortunately, some readers of The
Dawn of All have taken it not as satire, but as the
blueprint of an ideal society. Lest we look on these individuals with
condescension, however, recall that St. Thomas More’s Utopia has been understood by many academics in the same way — and
in spite of St. Thomas’s clear statements to the contrary.
The modern commentator tends to forget or ignores the fact
that More was a lawyer and knew exactly what he was
talking about. More put the tale of Utopia in the mouth of a man whose name loosely translates as
“Lying Traveler Who Tells Fantastic Tales” — “Raphael Hythloday.” Nevertheless,
not a few of today’s experts continue to insist that the book is actually a
plea for communism and a condemnation of private property — ideas specifically refuted by More. Similarly, Benson stated in the very beginning of The
Dawn of All that it is not to be taken seriously as a
detailed factual or literal account. In the preface he calls it, in fact, a
“parable.”
For that reason, when reading either Lord
of the World or The
Dawn of All,
we should keep in mind what Benson was writing, and not, necessarily, what we
hope or would like to find in the novel. Remember we’re reading a satire, not a
blueprint for social order. Above all, of course, bring your sense of humor —
and prepare to be entertained.
