Arguing with G.K. Chesterton on a Sunday Morning

It’s not the smartest thing to do at any time, but I’m not the smartest man. Still, consider the following:

G.K. Chesterton isn’t as well known a Christian apologist as C.S. Lewis, yet he was every bit the approachable and easygoing — yet uncompromising, and supremely knowledgeable — writer and philosopher we wish we all knew and hung out with. I always chuckle to think of these proud, obese slobs from one of my old schools with one or two divorces behind them who want to talk to this old apostate about Jesus like they would know anything about the subject. These blustering fools couldn’t spell Aquinas, let alone tell me who he was. It’s impressive enough if they can name all the books in the Protestant Bible.

With respect to the venerable Mr. Chesterton, the crux of my counter-argument is that no hero is ordinary to begin with. Our protagonist likely isn’t anyone’s idea of a hero at the beginning of the story, but a good writer makes it clear the potential is there. Sometimes our hero-in-waiting will have what German author Hermann Hesse once referred to as the Mark of Cain. That is to say, ordinary people will despise him on sight and treat him badly. If not that, he’s behind the metaphorical 8-ball one way or another.

Your ordinary person is a coward who folds in the face of conflict then goes around finding ways to justify his failure. It’s not uncharacteristic to imagine an ordinary person telling everyone afterward how he put that monster in his place. We live among these people. “Most people are garbage” is a cliche for a reason, because most people are. Of course, Nietzsche would have told you as much, and long since has.

Heroes engage and defeat (most of the time, and certainly not at first) the monster against the pressures of their own terror and feelings of inadequacy, and sometimes even the carping of the “good” ordinary people who wonder aloud why he’s picking on the poor, misunderstood monster. The hero only appears ordinary on the outside. But he’s an outsider from the git-go, and the good ordinary people often never let him forget it. It just takes that One Big Event on top of some smaller ones to tease out the heroism that truly defines him.

Ordinary people serve only two purposes to me. To antagonize my protagonist, and to die horribly when their beat comes ‘round.

Oh, but Chesterton is talking about “the modern psychological novel” versus the classic fairy story here. Do such things as psychological novels still exist? Frankly, I don’t need to know that badly.

But even Jack of “Jack and the Beanstalk” fame was cursed for a fool for trading for the magic seeds that set him on his hero’s journey. Hansel and Gretel were special enough to be despised by their step-mother and proved resourceful in their circumstances even before they were captured by the old witch in the woods. I could go on. 

Heroes are outliers, always. Given that a lot of us feel like outsiders where we are (especially if we’re weirdos who actually read and stuff like that), these stories serve to inspire what heroics we may be called upon to do one day. Provided, of course, we’re not merely ordinary. 

There’s only one way to find out.