What's Wrong with the World (Modern, Updated Translation)

Book Summary

G.K. Chesterton's "What's Wrong with the World" (1910) is a penetrating critique of early 20th-century social reforms and modernist thinking, arguing that progressive movements often misdiagnose society's problems while undermining traditional institutions and values that give life meaning.

The book challenges both capitalism and socialism, arguing that both systems fail to understand human nature and the importance of the family unit. Chesterton defends traditional gender roles, small property ownership, and local communities against what he sees as dehumanizing modern trends toward standardization and centralization.

Central to his argument is the defense of the home as society's fundamental unit. He argues that the home is a creative, dynamic space where culture and civilization are preserved, particularly through the role of women. His controversial defense of traditional domestic life stems not from seeing it as limiting, but as a realm of creative freedom and cultural preservation.

Chesterton critiques education reforms that emphasize standardized learning over individual development. He argues that modern education increasingly serves industrial efficiency rather than human flourishing, producing workers rather than complete human beings.

The work examines how progressivism, despite its intentions, often reduces human beings to abstract problems to be solved rather than persons to be respected. He argues that many social reforms, while claiming to help the poor, actually strip them of dignity and autonomy.

Throughout, Chesterton employs his characteristic paradoxical style, using wit and apparent contradictions to reveal deeper truths. His arguments, while focused on Edwardian England, offer relevant critiques of technocratic approaches to social problems and the unintended consequences of centralized planning.

What's wrong with the world (Modern, Updated Translation)

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The Homelessness of Man

1. The Medical Mistake

A modern book on social issues usually has a clear structure. It typically starts with an analysis, including statistics, population tables, decrease of crime among Congregationalists, increase of stress among policemen, and similar established facts. It ends with a chapter often titled "The Solution." This careful, solid, and scientific approach is mostly why "The Solution" is never discovered. This method of diagnosing and then treating is a mistake; it's the first big mistake in sociology. People always say we need to identify the problem before we find the solution. But the true nature and importance of humans in social matters is that we often need to find the solution before we fully understand the problem.

This mistake is one of many that come from the modern obsession with using biological or physical metaphors. It's easy to talk about the Social Organism, just like it's easy to talk about the British Lion. But Britain isn't an organism any more than it's a lion. When we start thinking of a nation as simple and unified like an animal, we start thinking irrationally. Just because every person has two legs doesn't mean fifty people make a centipede. This kind of thinking leads to the ridiculous idea of talking about "young nations" and "dying nations," as if a nation has a set physical lifespan. People might say Spain is in its final old age; they might as well say Spain is losing all its teeth. Or they might say Canada should soon create a literature, which is like saying Canada must soon grow a new mustache. Nations are made up of people; the first generation might be weak, or the ten thousandth might be strong. Similar mistakes are made by those who think that as a nation gets bigger, it automatically gets wiser and more favored by God and people. These folks don't even consider whether an empire is growing taller in its youth or just getting fatter in its old age. But the worst mistake from this kind of thinking is what we have here: the habit of thoroughly describing a social problem and then suggesting a social cure.

When we talk about illness in cases of physical breakdown, we do so for a very good reason. Even though there might be uncertainty about how the body broke down, there's no doubt about how it should be fixed. No doctor suggests creating a new type of person with a different arrangement of eyes or limbs. A hospital might have to send someone home with one less leg, but it won't send them home with an extra leg. Medical science is satisfied with the normal human body and only aims to restore it to that state.

Social science doesn't always stick to the usual human nature; it offers all kinds of different ideals. A person with social ideals might say, "I'm tired of being strict and moral; I want to be more carefree," or "After going through this tough time of focusing on myself, I see a bright future in working together as a community." In physical health issues, there's no debate about the ultimate goal. A patient might not want quinine, but they definitely want to be healthy. No one says, "I'm tired of this headache; I want a toothache," or "The best cure for this Russian flu is to catch some German measles," or "After suffering from a cold, I see the bright future of having rheumatism." The real challenge in our public issues is that some people are aiming for solutions that others think are worse problems; they're offering end goals as healthy states that others would clearly call unhealthy. Mr. Belloc once said he wouldn't give up the idea of owning property any more than he'd give up his teeth; yet to Mr. Bernard Shaw, property isn't like a tooth, but more like a toothache. Lord Milner has genuinely tried to bring in German efficiency, and many of us would rather have German measles. Dr. Saleeby genuinely wants eugenics, but I'd prefer to have rheumatism.

The striking and main point about modern social discussions is that the argument isn't just about the problems, but about the goal. We all agree on what's bad; it's about what's good that we would fiercely argue. We all agree that a lazy aristocracy is bad. But not all of us would agree that an active aristocracy is good. We all get upset with a non-religious priesthood; but some of us would be even more upset with a truly religious one. Everyone is angry if our army is weak, including those who would be even angrier if it were strong. The social situation is the opposite of the medical one. We don't disagree, like doctors, about the exact nature of the illness while agreeing on what health is. Instead, we all agree that England is unhealthy, but half of us wouldn't see her in what the other half would call perfect health. Public problems are so obvious and harmful that they bring all well-meaning people into a sort of false agreement. We forget that while we agree on the problems, we would disagree a lot about their solutions. Mr. Cadbury and I would agree about the bad pub. It would be right in front of the good pub where our heated argument would happen.

I believe that the usual way of studying society is not helpful: like examining extreme poverty or listing instances of prostitution. We all dislike extreme poverty, but it might be different if we talked about poverty that is independent and dignified. We all disapprove of prostitution, but not everyone agrees on what purity means. The only way to talk about social problems is to first understand the ideal society. We can all see the craziness in the world, but what does a sane world look like? I've titled this book "What Is Wrong with the World?" and the main point is simple and clear. The problem is that we don't ask what is right.

A book of modern social inquiry has a shape that is somewhat sharply defined. It begins as a rule with an analysis, with statistics, tables of population, decrease of crime among Congregationalists, growth of hysteria among policemen, and similar ascertained facts; it ends with a chapter that is generally called "The Remedy." It is almost wholly due to this careful, solid, and scientific method that "The Remedy" is never found. For this scheme of medical question and answer is a blunder; the first great blunder of sociology. It is always called stating the disease before we find the cure. But it is the whole definition and dignity of man that in social matters we must actually find the cure before we find the disease.

2. Wanted, An Unpractical Man

There's a well-known joke about philosophers that highlights their endless and pointless debates: the question of which came first, the chicken or the egg? I don't think this question is as pointless as it seems. I'm not here to dive into the deep philosophical and theological debates that the chicken and egg question represents, though it does serve as a lighthearted example. Evolutionary materialists often imagine everything starting from an egg, a vague and huge germ that appeared by chance. On the other hand, those who believe in the supernatural (like me) might see our world as an egg nurtured by a divine bird, like the mystical dove from the prophets. But I'm focusing on a simpler point here. Whether or not the chicken is the start of our thoughts, it definitely needs to be the end goal. The chicken is what we should aim for—not with a gun, but with something that gives life. It's crucial for us to understand that the egg and the chicken shouldn't be seen as equal events happening over and over. They shouldn't just be a repeating pattern like a design. One is a means to an end; they belong to different mental categories. Ignoring the complexities of breakfast, in a basic sense, the egg exists to produce the chicken. But the chicken doesn't just exist to produce another egg. It might also exist to enjoy life, to praise God, or to inspire a French playwright. As a living being, it has value on its own. Nowadays, our politics are full of loud forgetfulness; we forget that creating this happy and conscious life is the goal of all our complex systems and compromises. We only talk about useful people and working systems, seeing chickens merely as things that will lay more eggs. Instead of trying to create our ideal bird, like the eagle of Zeus or the Swan of Avon, or whatever we desire, we only focus on the process and the embryo. When the process is separated from its divine purpose, it becomes uncertain and even unhealthy; everything starts to go wrong from the beginning, and our politics become rotten eggs.

Idealism is just about looking at everything for what it really is. Idealism means we should think about a poker for poking before talking about using it for hitting someone; that we should see if an egg is good enough for raising chickens before deciding if it's bad for politics. But I know that focusing on the main idea (which is just focusing on the goal) can make people say you're wasting time while important things are happening. A group, with Lord Rosebery as a representative, has tried to replace the moral or social goals that have driven politics with a focus on making the social system work smoothly, which people call "efficiency." I'm not really sure what this group's main belief is. But, as far as I understand, "efficiency" means we should learn everything about a machine except what it's supposed to do. Nowadays, there's a strange idea that when things go really wrong, we need a practical person. It's actually more true to say that when things go really wrong, we need someone who's not practical. At least, we definitely need a thinker. A practical person is someone used to doing things the usual way. When things aren't working, you need the thinker, the person who has ideas about why things work at all. It's wrong to waste time while important things are happening, but it's okay to study how water works while Rome is burning.

Sometimes, you need to put aside your everyday doubts and try to understand the real reasons behind things. If your airplane has a small problem, a handy person might be able to fix it. But if it's seriously broken, you'll probably need to find an absent-minded old professor with wild white hair from a college or lab to figure out what's wrong. The more complicated the problem, the more likely it is that you'll need a very absent-minded and white-haired expert to handle it. In some extreme cases, only the person (probably a bit crazy) who invented your flying machine could possibly know what's wrong with it.

"Efficiency" is pointless for the same reason that strong men, willpower, and the superman are pointless. It's pointless because it only deals with actions after they've happened. It doesn't have a plan for things before they occur, so it can't make choices. An action can only be successful or unsuccessful once it's done; if it's about to start, it must be, in theory, right or wrong. There's no such thing as betting on a winner because he can't be a winner when you bet on him. There's no such thing as fighting on the winning side; you fight to find out which side wins. If something has happened, that thing was efficient. If a man is murdered, the murder was efficient. A tropical sun is as efficient in making people lazy as a strict Lancashire foreman is in making them energetic. Maeterlinck is as efficient in filling a person with strange spiritual feelings as Crosse and Blackwell are in filling someone with jam. But it all depends on what you want to be filled with. Lord Rosebery, being a modern skeptic, probably prefers the spiritual feelings. I, being a traditional Christian, prefer the jam. But both are efficient once they've been done and inefficient until they are done. A person who thinks a lot about success must be the sleepiest dreamer because they must always be looking back. If they only like victory, they must always arrive late for the battle. For the person of action, there's nothing but idealism.

Having a clear goal is more important and practical in our current English problems than any immediate plans or proposals. The chaos we see now comes from people forgetting what they originally wanted. No one asks for what they truly desire; instead, they ask for what they think they can get. Over time, people forget what they really wanted in the first place, and even after a successful political career, a person might forget it too. Everything becomes a mess of settling for second best, a chaos of compromises. This kind of flexibility not only stops any strong consistency but also stops any real practical compromise. You can only find a middle ground between two points if those points stay still. We can make a deal between two people who can't both get what they want, but not if they won't even tell us what they want. A restaurant owner would rather each customer order quickly, even if it's something unusual like stewed ibis or boiled elephant, rather than have each customer sit there trying to figure out how much food is available. Many of us have dealt with certain people who, by being overly unselfish, cause more trouble than those who are selfish; they almost insist on the least popular dish and fight for the worst seat. Many of us have been on trips or at parties full of this kind of fuss over selflessness. For much less noble reasons than those of such admirable people, our practical politicians keep things just as confused because they are unsure about what they really want. Nothing stops a solution more than a bunch of small compromises. We are confused by politicians who support secular education but think it's hopeless to push for it; who want total prohibition but are sure they shouldn't ask for it; who dislike compulsory education but continue it anyway; or who want small landowners but vote for something else. This confused and stumbling opportunism blocks everything. If our leaders were dreamers, something practical might happen. If we ask for something in theory, we might get something real. As it stands, it's not only impossible to get what one wants, but it's also impossible to get any part of it because nobody can clearly define it like a map. The clear and firm quality that used to be in old negotiations has completely disappeared. We forget that the word "compromise" includes, among other things, the strong and clear word "promise." Moderation is not vague; it is as clear as perfection. The middle point is as fixed as the extreme point.

If a pirate forces me to walk the plank, it's pointless for me to suggest a compromise where I only walk partway. The disagreement between the pirate and me is exactly about how far is reasonable. There's a precise moment when the plank tips over. My idea of common sense stops just before that moment; the pirate's idea starts just after it. But that exact point is as clear-cut as any math problem; as abstract as any religious belief.

3. The New Hypocrite

But this new vague political cowardice has made the old English compromise useless. People have started to be scared of a change just because it is complete. They call it unrealistic and radical for anyone to truly get what they want, or for anything to be fully accomplished. Compromise used to mean that having half a loaf was better than having no bread at all. Among modern politicians, it really seems to mean that having half a loaf is better than having a whole loaf.

To make my point clearer, let's look at our endless education bills. We've managed to create a new type of hypocrite. The old hypocrite, like Tartuffe or Pecksniff, was someone who pretended to be religious but was really focused on worldly and practical goals. The new hypocrite is someone whose true goals are religious, but they pretend to be focused on worldly and practical matters. Reverend Brown, the Wesleyan minister, insists that he doesn't care about religious beliefs, only about education; but in reality, he's deeply passionate about Wesleyan beliefs. Reverend Smith, from the Church of England, politely says that all he cares about is the success and efficiency of schools; but inside, he's driven by strong religious feelings. It's a battle of religious beliefs disguised as policies. I think these reverends are not being honest with themselves; I think they are more religious than they admit. Theology isn't erased as a mistake; it's just hidden, like a secret. Dr. Clifford wants a religious atmosphere just as much as Lord Halifax does; they just want different kinds. If Dr. Clifford openly asked for Puritanism and Lord Halifax openly asked for Catholicism, we might be able to help them. We should be imaginative enough to appreciate the dignity and uniqueness of another religion, like Islam or the worship of Apollo. I'm ready to respect another person's faith, but it's too much to ask me to respect their doubts, their worldly hesitations and fictions, their political deals and pretenses. Most Nonconformists who understand English history can see something poetic and national about the Archbishop of Canterbury as an archbishop. It's when he acts like a rational British politician that they understandably get annoyed. Most Anglicans who appreciate courage and simplicity can admire Dr. Clifford as a Baptist minister. It's when he claims to be just a citizen that nobody can really believe him.

The situation is actually more interesting than it seems. People used to say that our lack of clear beliefs at least protected us from becoming fanatics. But it doesn't even do that. In fact, it creates and fuels fanaticism in a way that's unique to it. This idea is both strange and true, so I ask the reader to pay close attention to it as I explain further.

Some people don't like the word "dogma." Luckily, they have a choice. There are only two things for the human mind: a dogma and a prejudice. The Middle Ages were a logical time, an era of clear beliefs. Our time is, at its best, a poetic era, a time of prejudice. A doctrine is a clear point; a prejudice is a direction. Saying an ox can be eaten, but a person should not be eaten, is a doctrine. Saying as little as possible of anything should be eaten is a prejudice; sometimes this is also called an ideal. A direction is always more imaginative than a plan. I would rather have the oldest map of the road to Brighton than a vague suggestion to turn left. Straight lines that aren't parallel will eventually meet; but curves can keep going forever. Two lovers could walk along the border of France and Germany, one on each side, as long as they weren't vaguely told to stay apart. This is a true example of how our modern vagueness can lose and separate people like in a fog.

It's not just true that a shared belief brings people together. In fact, even a difference in beliefs can unite people—as long as the difference is clear. A boundary can bring people closer. Many noble Muslims and brave Crusaders might have felt closer to each other because they both strongly believed in something, more than two uncertain agnostics sitting in a pew at Mr. Campbell's chapel. Saying "I believe God is One," and "I believe God is One but also Three," is the start of a good, lively, and strong friendship. But today, people would turn these beliefs into mere tendencies. They might tell the Trinitarian to just embrace variety (because it's his "nature"), and he might end up believing in three hundred and thirty-three persons in the Trinity. Meanwhile, they might turn the Muslim into someone who believes in only one thing: a terrible intellectual decline. They would force this previously healthy person not only to agree that there is one God, but to believe that there is no one else. After following their own whims for a long time, they would come back; the Christian believing in many gods, and the Muslim believing only in himself, both completely confused, and even less able to understand each other than before.

It's the same with politics. Our unclear political ideas separate people, they don't bring them together. People will walk close to a cliff when the weather is clear, but they'll stay far away from it in fog. Similarly, a Tory can get close to socialism if he understands what socialism is. But if he's told that socialism is just a feeling, a vague atmosphere, or a noble but unclear trend, then he avoids it—and rightly so. You can argue against a clear statement, but strong stubbornness is the only way to deal with a vague trend. I've heard that Japanese wrestling isn't about pushing suddenly, but about suddenly giving way. This is one of the reasons I don't like Japanese culture. Using surrender as a strategy is a bad idea from the East. But it's true that the hardest force to fight is the one that's easy to beat; the force that always gives in and then comes back. This is like a big, impersonal bias that affects the modern world on many issues. The only defense against this is a firm and clear-minded sanity, a decision not to follow trends, and not to be influenced by them.

In short, rational human belief must protect itself with bias in a time full of biases, just like it protected itself with logic in a time full of logic. But the difference between these two ways of thinking is clear and obvious. The main difference is this: biases go in different directions, while beliefs always clash. Believers run into each other, but bigots avoid each other. A belief is a group thing, and even its mistakes are social. A bias is a personal thing, and even its acceptance is unfriendly. This is how our current divisions are. They avoid each other; the Tory newspaper and the Radical newspaper don't respond to each other; they ignore each other. Real debate, fair and open in front of a shared audience, has become very rare in our time. A true debater is, above all, a good listener. A truly passionate person never interrupts; they listen to the opponent's arguments as eagerly as a spy would listen to the enemy's plans. But if you try to have a real argument with a modern newspaper of the opposite politics, you'll find that nothing is allowed between aggression and avoidance. You'll get no response except insults or silence. A modern editor can't have the keen ear that goes with an honest voice. They might be deaf and silent, and that's called dignity. Or they might be deaf and loud, and that's called aggressive journalism. In either case, there's no real debate; because the whole goal of modern political fighters is to argue out of hearing range.

The only logical solution to all this is to uphold a human ideal. In discussing this, I'll try to be as straightforward as possible; it's enough to say that without some belief in a divine human, all wrongs can be justified, since evolution might turn them into benefits. It would be easy for a scientific leader to argue that humanity will adapt to any conditions we currently see as bad. The old rulers used to rely on the past; the new rulers will rely on the future. Evolution created the snail and the owl; evolution can create a worker who needs no more space than a snail and no more light than an owl. An employer doesn't need to worry about sending a worker to labor underground; soon, he'll become an underground creature, like a mole. He doesn't need to worry about sending a diver to hold his breath in the deep seas; soon, he'll become a deep-sea creature. People don't need to change conditions; conditions will soon change people. The head can be shrunk to fit the hat. Don't remove the chains from the slave; beat the slave until he forgets the chains. To all these seemingly reasonable modern arguments for oppression, the only adequate response is that there is a lasting human ideal that must not be confused or destroyed. The most important person on earth is the perfect person who isn't here. The Christian religion has specifically expressed the ultimate sanity of man, as Scripture says, who will judge the true human nature. Our lives and laws are not judged by divine superiority, but simply by human perfection. It is man, Aristotle says, who is the measure. It is the Son of Man, Scripture says, who will judge the living and the dead.

Doctrine doesn't cause disagreements; actually, only a doctrine can solve our disagreements. We need to ask, in a general sense, what kind of ideal state or family would satisfy human needs, regardless of whether we can fully achieve it or not. But when we try to figure out what normal people need, what all nations want, or what the ideal house, road, rule, government, king, or priesthood should be, we face a strange and annoying problem unique to our current time. We need to pause for a moment and look at this issue.

4. Being Afraid of the Past

In the last few decades, we've focused a lot on imagining the future. It seems like we've decided to misunderstand the past, and instead, we find comfort in predicting what will happen next—since that seems much easier. Nowadays, people aren't writing about their great-grandfather's life; they're busy creating detailed and confident stories about their great-grandchildren. Instead of fearing ghosts from the past, we're scared of the possibilities of the future. This mindset is everywhere, even in the creation of futuristic stories. Sir Walter Scott is known for writing about the past at the start of the 19th century, while H.G. Wells is known for writing about the future at the start of the 20th century. The old stories used to start with: "Late on a winter's evening two horsemen might have been seen." Now, the new stories start with: "Late on a winter's evening two aviators will be seen." This trend has its own charm; there's something lively, though unusual, about people arguing over events that haven't happened yet, and people already excited about tomorrow. We often hear about a person being ahead of their time, but an entire era being ahead of its time is quite strange.

Even when we consider the harmless bit of poetry and human stubbornness in it, I still believe that this obsession with the future is not just a weakness but a kind of cowardice of our time. The problem with our era is that even its aggression is really just fear; and the aggressive patriot is not laughable because he's bold, but because he's scared. The reason why modern weapons don't capture our imagination like the weapons and symbols of the Crusades isn't just about how they look. Some battleships are as beautiful as the sea, and many Norman helmets were as ugly as Norman noses. The ugliness around our scientific warfare comes from the deep fear at its core. The Crusades were about charging forward, moving towards God with the wild courage of the brave. Today's military buildup isn't a charge at all. It's a retreat, a running away from the devil, who will catch the slowest. It's hard to imagine a medieval knight worrying about longer and longer French lances like we worry about bigger and bigger German ships. The person who called the Blue Water School the "Blue Funk School" spoke a truth that even that group wouldn't really deny. Even if the two-power standard is necessary, it's still a kind of shameful necessity. Many noble minds have been turned off by Imperial projects because they're always shown as sneaky or sudden defenses against a world full of greed and fear. The Boer War, for example, wasn't so much about believing we were doing something right, but about believing the Boers and Germans were probably doing something wrong; supposedly pushing us to the sea. Mr. Chamberlain, I think, said the war was a feather in his cap, and it was: a white feather.

I feel the same basic fear in our rush towards building up patriotic weapons as I do in our rush towards future visions of society. The modern mind is pushed towards the future because it feels tired and a bit scared when it looks at the past. It's driven towards what's coming next, as if it's been knocked into the middle of next week, like the saying goes. The push isn't because people love the future—after all, the future doesn't exist yet. It's more about being afraid of the past, not just the bad parts, but the good parts too. Our minds struggle with the overwhelming goodness of humanity. There have been so many strong beliefs we can't hold onto, so many tough acts of bravery we can't copy, and so many big achievements in building or military glory that seem both amazing and sad to us. The future feels like a safe place away from the tough competition of our ancestors. It's not the younger generation, but the older one, that's knocking at our door. It's nice to escape, like Henley said, into the Street of By-and-Bye, where the Inn of Never stands. It's fun to imagine playing with children, especially those not yet born. The future is like a blank wall where anyone can write their name as big as they want; the past is already full of unreadable scribbles from people like Plato, Isaiah, Shakespeare, Michelangelo, and Napoleon. I can shape the future to be as small as myself; the past has to be as wide and wild as humanity. The result of this modern way of thinking is this: people create new ideals because they're too scared to try the old ones. They look forward with excitement because they're afraid to look back.

In history, every revolution is also a restoration. One of the things that makes me question the modern focus on the future is this: all the people in history who truly impacted the future were focused on the past. I don't need to mention the Renaissance; the word itself proves my point. The creativity of Michelangelo and Shakespeare started with uncovering old vases and manuscripts. The gentleness of poets came from the gentleness of historians. The great medieval revival was inspired by memories of the Roman Empire. The Reformation looked back to the Bible and biblical times. The modern Catholic movement looks back to early church times. Even the modern movement that many see as the most chaotic is actually the most traditional in this way. The French revolutionists respected the past more than anyone. They admired the small republics of ancient times with the confidence of someone calling on the gods. The Sans-culottes believed in returning to simplicity, as their name suggests. They had a deep belief in a distant past; some might even call it a mythical past. For some strange reason, people always plant their future hopes in the past. People can only find life among the dead. Humans are like a strange creature, with feet facing forward but looking backward. They can make the future rich and grand as long as they think about the past. When they try to think about the future itself, their minds shrink to nothing, which some call Nirvana. Tomorrow is like a monster; a person should only see it reflected in the mirror of yesterday. If they look at it directly, they become frozen. This has happened to everyone who has clearly seen fate and the future as certain. The Calvinists, with their strict belief in predestination, became frozen. Modern sociological scientists (with their painful eugenics) are also frozen. The only difference is that the Puritans make serious statues, while the eugenists make somewhat funny ones.

There's one thing about the past that really confuses and saddens people today, pushing them towards a future without clear features. I'm talking about the big dreams from the past that were never completed or were sometimes given up on. Seeing these amazing failures is depressing for a restless and somewhat gloomy generation, and they often stay strangely quiet about them—sometimes even dishonestly so. They completely leave them out of their newspapers and almost out of their history books. For instance, they often tell you (while praising the future) that we're moving towards a United States of Europe. But they conveniently forget to mention that we're actually moving away from a United States of Europe, which literally existed in Roman times and in a way during the medieval period. They never admit that the international hatreds (which they call barbaric) are actually quite new, just the result of the collapse of the Holy Roman Empire's ideal. Or they'll tell you there's going to be a social revolution, a big uprising of the poor against the rich, but they never emphasize that France made that amazing attempt on its own, and we and the rest of the world let it be crushed and forgotten. I firmly say that nothing is more noticeable in modern writing than predicting such ideals for the future while ignoring them in the past. Anyone can check this for themselves. Read any thirty or forty pages of pamphlets promoting peace in Europe and see how many of them praise the old Popes or Emperors for keeping peace in Europe. Read any collection of essays and poems praising social democracy, and see how many of them praise the old Jacobins who created democracy and died for it. These huge ruins are just big eyesores to modern people. They look back at the past and see a view of magnificent but unfinished cities. They're unfinished, not always because of enemies or accidents, but often because of changing minds, mental exhaustion, and the desire for different philosophies. We've not only left undone the things we should have done, but we've even left undone the things we wanted to do.

People often say that modern humans have inherited all the wisdom and achievements of past generations. I'm not sure how to respond to this, except to suggest that you take a look at yourself in the mirror, just as I have. Is it really true that you and I are the culmination of all the great visions from history? Have we truly lived up to all the great ideals, starting from our ancient ancestors who bravely hunted mammoths with stone knives, through the Greek citizens and Christian saints, to our own grandparents who might have faced danger in historical events? Are we still strong enough to hunt mammoths, but now kind enough to let them live? Is there any mammoth in the universe that we have either hunted or spared? When we choose not to wave the red flag and fight like our grandfathers did, are we doing this out of respect for sociologists or soldiers? Have we really surpassed the warriors and the devout saints? I worry that we only surpass the warriors in the sense that we would likely run away from them. And if we have moved past the saints, I fear we've done so without showing any respect.

This is mainly what I mean by the narrowness of new ideas and how the future limits us. Our modern idealism is narrow because it keeps cutting things out. We have to ask for new things because we aren't allowed to ask for old things. The whole idea is based on thinking we've gotten all the good we can from past ideas. But we haven't gotten all the good from them, maybe not even any good right now. What we need is total freedom to bring back old things as well as to create new things.

These days, we often hear about the bravery or boldness of someone who challenges an old tyranny or outdated belief. But there's really no bravery in going against old or outdated things, just like there's no bravery in challenging your grandmother to a fight. The truly brave person is the one who stands up against tyrannies as new as the morning and beliefs as fresh as the first flowers. The only true free-thinker is someone whose mind is as free from the future as it is from the past. They care as little about what will happen as they do about what has happened; they only care about what should happen. For my current point, I want to emphasize this idea of being truly independent. If I'm going to talk about what's wrong, one of the first wrong things is this: the deep and quiet modern belief that things from the past have become impossible. There's a metaphor that modern people love to use; they always say, "You can't put the clock back." The simple and obvious response is, "You can." A clock, being something humans made, can be set back to any time by a human hand. In the same way, society, being something humans made, can be rebuilt based on any plan that has ever existed.

There's another saying, "As you have made your bed, so you must lie on it," which is just not true. If I've made my bed uncomfortable, I can make it again. We could bring back the old kingdoms or stagecoaches if we wanted. It might take time and might not be a good idea, but it's not impossible like bringing back last Friday is. This is the first freedom I want: the freedom to bring things back. I want the right to suggest the old system of a Highland clan if it seems to solve the most problems. It would definitely solve some issues, like the unnatural feeling of obeying cold and harsh strangers, just bureaucrats and policemen. I want the right to suggest the complete independence of small Greek or Italian towns, or a sovereign city of Brixton or Brompton, if that seems the best solution. It would solve some problems; in a small state, for example, we wouldn't have those huge misconceptions about people or policies that big national or international newspapers create. You couldn't convince a city-state that Mr. Beit was an Englishman, or Mr. Dillon a troublemaker, any more than you could convince a Hampshire village that the village drunk was a teetotaler or the village idiot a statesman. However, I don't actually suggest that the Browns and the Smiths should be grouped under different tartans. Nor do I propose that Clapham should declare its independence. I'm just declaring my independence. I simply want the choice of all the tools in the world; and I won't agree that any of them are useless just because they've been used before.