G.K. Chesterton: Reformers And Radicals

"The reformer is always right about what is wrong. 
He is generally wrong about what is right."

Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874-1936) English journalist and writer
Illustrated London News (28 Oct 1922)

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Alan: Chesterton heartily approved the French Revolution; the most radical, most successful - and in its time - most bloody of all revolutions. Against this backdrop, I marvel that Chesterton is considered a conservative and not a radical. In America's current political climate, Tea Bag standard bearers have but three passions: 1.) no new taxes, 2.) austerity, and 3.) the anarchy engendered by no new taxes and austerity. Perhaps conservatives of Chesterton's time were more radically conservative. Contemporary conservatives are never right in their judgment of what's wrong, and thus -- disabled from posing authentic reformist questions -- they have no answers.

Blessedly, Chesterton commented on this matter:

Father Brown laid down his cigar and said carefully: “It isn’t that they can’t see the solution. It is that they can’t see the problem.”

Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874-1936) English journalist and writer

“The Point of a Pin,” The Scandal of Father Brown (1925)

Alan: Reformers, at least, see the problem.