I continue in Chesterton's book, What's Wrong with the World; this time, on courage. To this much needed, personal quality, he writes (p. 23),
The really courageous man is he who defies tyrannies...and superstitions.... The only true free-thinker is he whose intellect is a much free from the future as from the past. He cares as little for what we be and what has been. He cares only for what ought to be,Chesterton continues by suggesting that old conventions (namely, the patriarchal system of Highland clans) is potentially much better than "the unnatural sense of obeying cold and harsh strangers, bureaucrats and police"; that in the former, there is less evil. Here, in these thoughts and suggestions, he considers what the state (or British empire) does (or has done) to others (nations, communities and cultures). Simply put, one is likely far better off with and among their neighbors or countrymen than with one predisposed to force, conflict and contention, on the claims of an empire or similar rouge nation.
What do you fear most?
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