St. John's, of course, is a peculiar, although non- sectarian, place, but yes, there were even students of no religious persuasion who were interested in Chesterton when I was there....
You are a reactionary, Charles, and therefore are more wholesale in your condemnations than I. Raising the question of Shaw and Wells allows me to demonstrate the difference. Shaw has been on all along, Wells has not. (Overlooking Shaw to take me to task over Chesterton is one of the elements of your behavior that convinced me to take off Chesterton for the time being, by the way). Why would I put them on? First, because Shaw is the arguably the greatest playwright of the century, and certainly the greatest comic playwright. He is also one of the most successful at entertaining ideas in a dramatic medium. You may say that the ideas are pernicious, and a bald statement of many of them sounds bad. However, through the medium of his imagination and great wit, he actually is one of the greatest stimuli to actual thought brought before the public, and as such is worth a great deal.... Second, Wells was a better romanticist than propagandist, and was the next most important, after Verne, to get the great reading public to imagine the impact and trajectory of the new technology on human society. If that were his greatest effect, then perhaps he inspired many to press on with new discoveries and inventions..... |
