In the previous posting on this subject we saw how early in their relationship, George Bernard
Shaw had used unfair debating tricks (are there fair debating tricks?) to “win”
an argument against Chesterton by deliberately changing the real point under
discussion.
Nor was this an
isolated instance of Shaw’s use of this tactic.
In November 1909, a year after the early debate with Chesterton, he
published a pamphlet, Socialism and
Superior Brains: A Reply to Mr. Mallock. (London: The Fabian Society, November 1909.)
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| W.H. Mallock |
Earlier that year
the English novelist and economics writer William Hurrell Mallock (1849-1923)
had published letters relating to his theory of capitalism. According to Mallock, the rich are entitled
to be rich because they have exhibited superior abilities, intelligence, and
virtue.
Mallock’s argument
in favor of capitalism (basically “thing-ism”) was not merely vapid and
asinine, it was patently absurd. Shaw
had absolutely no trouble shredding it and presenting Mallock’s head to the
public on a platter.
What Shaw
carefully avoided, of course, was any mention of, one, Mallock’s critique of
socialism or, two, his analysis of the condition of religious doctrine and the
natural law in the Church of England.
Henry George (1839-1897), the agrarian socialist, had described the
former, presented in Property and
Progress (1884) and The Quarterly
Review, as “the only reply to himself which was worth being considered
seriously.” (W.H. Mallock, Memoirs of Life and Literature. London: Chapman and Hall, Ltd., 1920, 136.)
This was particularly devastating,
because George’s theories presented in Progress
and Poverty (1879) abolishing private property in land were the inspiration
for forming the Fabian Society. (Edward R. Pease, A History of the Fabian
Society. New York: E.P. Dutton & Co., 1916, 20-21, 28.)
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| G.B. Shaw |
The latter,
contained in Doctrine and Doctrinal
Disruption (1900) (W.H. Mallock, Doctrine and Doctrinal Disruption: Being an
Examination of the Intellectual Position of the Church of England. London: Adam and Charles Black, 1900),
was a theological and philosophical earthquake that shook the Anglican
Communion to its foundations. By
exposing the doctrinal bankruptcy of the Church of England — a few years later
the Pan-Anglican Congress of 1908 voted overwhelmingly in favor of a socialist
interpretation of Christian teaching (Roger
Lloyd, The Church of England, 1900-1965. London: SCM Press, Ltd., 1966, 191-200.)
— it led or at least contributed to some very high-profile conversions to
Catholicism.
This no doubt
further irritated Shaw. In the course of
the late nineteenth to mid-twentieth centuries he had seen the English national
church taking up a position securely within the Fabian camp. Only the Catholic Church continued to hold
the line against socialism.
Those influenced
by Mallock’s religious analysis included Chesterton’s friend, Monsignor Ronald
Arbuthnott Knox (1888-1957). Knox
greatly admired Mallock’s first novel, The
New Republic (1877). He may have
introduced Fulton John Sheen (1895-1979) to Mallock’s work during their time
together at Saint Edmund’s College, Ware, particularly Mallock’s response to
positivism, Is Life Worth Living?
(1880). (William Hurrell Mallock, Is Life
Worth Living? New York: G.P.
Putnam’s Sons, 1880.) That life
is indeed worth living was a constant theme in Sheen’s own ministry.
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| R.H. Benson |
Monsignor Robert
Hugh Benson (1871-1914) credited Mallock’s writing with removing his last reservations
and clinching his decision to convert to Catholicism. As he wrote in a letter to Father G. Walgrave
Hart on May 19, 1903,
But I have just been reading
to-day an irresistible book —
Mallock’s Doctrine and Doctrinal
Disruption. My word! It is a masterpiece. Really, honestly, I have practically no
further doubts. (Rev. C.C. Martindale, S.J., The Life of Monsignor Robert Hugh Benson. London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1916, I.230.)
It comes as no
surprise that Lord of the World
(1907), Benson’s apocalyptic satire on Edwardian England, is based on the reductio ad absurdum of a civilization
formed in the image and likeness of the Fabian vision. Benson took all that the socialists,
modernists, and New Agers considered essential to create a Heaven on Earth and
showed how it would lead only to a Hell.
As Fulton Sheen, “the American Chesterton,” noted a few decades later of
the socialist goal of establishing the Kingdom of God on Earth,
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| Fulton J. Sheen |
It is simply impossible to have
millions of men in the world living according to their pagan principles, and
not produce the modern chaotic world in which we live. This idea of a “Heaven
here below” is the surest way to make a hell upon earth. The universe thus
becomes a multiplicity of self-centered little deities; the coat of arms of
each is a big letter “I,” and when they talk their “I”’s are always getting
closer together.
In the light of the foregoing
explanation of man the choice before the world is this: Will we build a New
Order on the totalitarian assumption that man is a tool of the State? Or will
we retain the Old Order of the secularist culture of the last two hundred
years, that man is only an economic animal? Or will we build a New Order on the
Christian assumption, that man is a creature made to the image and likeness of
God and therefore one for whom economics, politics, and society exist as a
means to an eternal destiny beyond the historical perspective of planets,
space, and time? (Fulton J. Sheen, Philosophies
at War. New York: Charles Scribner’s
Sons, 1943, 94-95.)
Even so, because
Mallock’s theory of capitalism made the man such an easy target against whom he
could direct his numerous barbs and bombast and demonstrate his cleverness,
Shaw viewed Mallock with amused contempt.
At the same time, because Chesterton refused to give him any opening at
all once Chesterton learned the trick of handling him, Shaw regarded Chesterton
with enraged respect, even liking.
Consequently,
Shaw had to limit his show of superiority to castigating Chesterton for his
lack of business acumen and his gullibility in becoming a Catholic. It is not completely out of the realm of
possibility that Chesterton’s reticence about the process of his conversion
might have been motivated in part by the desire to annoy Shaw by refusing to
give him anything specific to attack.
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| G.K. Chesterton |
That does not
mean, however, that Shaw did not keep trying to trip up Chesterton. As the informal evening debate in the summer
of 1923 continued, Shaw accused Chesterton of contradicting himself, of trying to
be two halves of a whole at one and the same time —
You are just like Don Quixote;
and though your lunacy on some occasions makes his seem pale by comparison, you
yet contrive in some mysterious manner to be your own Sancho Panza. (Biancolli,
Great Conversations, op. cit., 504.)
Chesterton
amiably agreed, treating it as a compliment.
As he responded, further infuriating Shaw,
Exactly; and anybody but you
could see that the combination of these two extremes forms the Catholic
standpoint. You might almost have been
quoting me when you said that the Catholic standpoint is that there is no
standpoint. . . . The Catholic is not so pragmatical as the atheist or the
Puritan. His Faith is built on Belief,
not on Knowledge — falsely so-called. He
is consequently able to appreciate and sympathize with every form of human
activity. He takes the whole world to
his heart. (Biancolli, Great
Conversations, op. cit., 504.)
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| R.A. Knox |
Chesterton did not, of course, dissent from
the primacy of reason defined in the First Vatican Council, but rejected the
modernist belief that matters of faith must be proved by scientific means or
explained away by applying the latest scientific theories (cf. Chesterton, Saint Thomas Aquinas, op. cit., 93-94). Having brought Shaw very nicely to the
boil, Chesterton emphasized that unlike socialists and other fantastic
creatures, “We Catholics do not pretend to a knowledge we have not got. . . . [Y]ou
can hardly expect us to accept your verdict . . . that man was not made to
enjoy himself but to read Fabian tracts and listen to University Extension
lectures.” (Biancolli, Great Conversations, op. cit., 505.)
Shaw, however,
refused to see the point, or at least pretended he did not — although the
latter is unlikely. Having Shaw hooked
and landed, Chesterton triumphantly proceeded to gaff him. He agreed with Shaw that he was not making
sense, knowing full well he was making perfect sense if Shaw could only have
dropped his prejudices and looked beyond his limited, materialistic worldview.
Having been tried
past endurance, Shaw accused Chesterton of wanting to have his cake and eat it,
too, attacking an opponent and running away from him at the same time. As he fulminated, “I see. Heads you win, tails he loses, all the way.”
Chesterton: Precisely.
Shaw: Thank you. I am
wasting my time. Good evening.
(Rapid exit of Shaw.) (Ibid.,
506.)
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