Michael Crichton on G.K. Chesterton

I have an original first edition of Eugenics and Other Evils on my shelf, a reminder of the days when getting copies of Chesterton's writings involved dealing with speciality book sellers. It will have to go on my re-read list now.

Michael Crichton on G.K. Chesterton: "

A friend passed along a note about the latest Michael Crichton novel, Next (2006). It is about genetics and the moral issues involved, and it has a bibliography that includes the following:

Chesterton, G. K.,
What's Wrong with the World, San Francisco,: Ignatius Press, 1910.Bon vivant, wit, and tireless author, Chesterton lost the debate about the future direction of society to his contemporaries H. G. Wells, Bertrand Russell, and George Bernard Shaw. Chesterton saw the implications of their vision of twentieth century society, and he predicted exactly what would come of it.Chesterton is not a congenial stylist to the modern reader; his witticisms are formal, his references to contemporaries lost in time.But his essential points are chillingly clear.

Chesterton, G. K.,
Eugenics and Other Evils: An Argument Against the Scientifically Organized Society. ... Originally published in 1922, this astonishingly prescient text has much to say about our understanding of genetics then (and now), and about the mass seduction of pseudoscience. Chesterton's was one of the few voices to oppose eugenics in the early twentieth century.He saw right through it as fraudulent on every level, and he predicted where it would lead, with great accuracy.His critics were legion; they reviled him as a reactionary, ridiculous, ignorant, hysterical, incoherent, and blindly prejudiced, noting with dismay that 'his influence in leading people in the wrong way is considerable.'Yet Chesterton was right, and the consensus of scientists, political leaders, and the intelligentsia was wrong.Chesterton lived to see he horrors of Nazi Germany.This book is worth reading because, in retrospect, it is clear that Chesterton's arguments were perfectly sensible and deserving of an answer, and yet he was simply shouted down.And because the most repellent ideas of eugenics are being promoted again in the 21st century, under various guises.The editor of this edition has included many quotations from eugenicists of the 1920s, which read astonishingly like the words of contemporary prophets of doom. Some things never change -- including unfortunately, the gullibility of press and public.We human beings do not like to look back on our mistakes.But we should.

I've never read a Crichton novel and don't know how good Next is, but the novelist's take on Chesterton is excellent. As is often pointed out, Chesterton is arguably even more timely today than he was 80-100 years ago.

Related IgnatiusInsight.com Excerpts and Articles




• Ignatius Insight author page for Chesterton
• The Emancipation of Domesticity | G.K. Chesterton


• The God in the
Cave | G.K. Chesterton


• What Is America? |
G.K. Chesterton


• Mary and the Convert |
G.K. Chesterton


• Seeing With the Eyes of G.K. Chesterton | Dale Ahlquist


• Recovering The Lost Art of Common Sense | Dale Ahlquist


• Common Sense Apostle &
Cigar Smoking Mystic | Dale Ahlquist


• Chesterton
and Saint Francis | Joseph Pearce


• Chesterton and
the Delight of Truth | James V. Schall, S.J.


• The Life and
Theme of G.K. Chesterton | Randall Paine | An Introduction to The
Autobiography of G.K. Chesterton


• Hot Water and
Fresh Air: On Chesterton and His Foes | Janet E. Smith


• ChesterBelloc | Ralph McInerny

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(Via Insight Scoop | The Ignatius Press Blog.)