G.K. Chesterton once observed that the “special mark of the modern world is not that it is skeptical, but that it is dogmatic without knowing it.” His point was that moderns have forgotten that they are assuming what they believe to be a given. “In short,” he concludes, “they always have an unconscious dogma; and an unconscious dogma is the definition of a prejudice.”
That’s why I love Chesterton. If you didn’t know he wrote that a century ago, you’d think he was talking about today. Plus, he was always grumpy, so he’s a lot of fun to read.
Fast forward from 1919 to 2019, and little has changed about assumed dogmatism. As journalist Douglas Murray writes in a terrific new book, “The Madness of Crowds: Gender, Race, and Identity,” “we are living through a postmodern age in which the grand narratives of religion and political ideology have collapsed.” However, since we can’t live without a grand narrative, we have created new grand narratives, new religions, new dogmas. Sounds a lot like Chesterton…
More HERE
