the modern worship of progress and novelty

the modern worship of progress and novelty

Over Thanksgiving I read another Chesterton story, The Club of Queer Trades.

I laughed out loud.

A lot.

He takes these witty shots at our contemporary, short-sighted errors while describing his colorful characters throughout the narrative.

Here is one that made me laugh…

‘A perfectly good fellow. Lord Beaumont of Foxwood—don’t you know his name? He is a man of transparent sincerity, a nobleman who does more work than a navvy, a socialist, an anarchist, I don’t know what; anyhow, he’s a philosopher and philanthropist. I admit he has the slight disadvantage of being, beyond all question, off his head. He has that real disadvantage which has arisen out of the modern worship of progress and novelty; and he thinks anything odd and new must be an advance. If you went to him and proposed to eat your grandmother, he would agree with you, so long as you put it on hygienic and public grounds, as a cheap alternative to cremation. So long as you progress fast enough it seems a matter of indifference to him whether you are progressing to the stars or the devil.”