Editing G. K. Chesterton (section)

==Views==
=== Advocacy of Catholicism ===

Chesterton's views, in contrast to Shaw and others, became increasingly focused towards the Church. In ''Orthodoxy'' he wrote: "The worship of will is the negation of will{{nbsp}}... If Mr Bernard Shaw comes up to me and says, 'Will something', that is tantamount to saying, 'I do not mind what you will', and that is tantamount to saying, 'I have no will in the matter.' You cannot admire will in general, because the essence of will is that it is particular."{{Sfn|Chesterton|1905|loc=[https://web.archive.org/web/20170115201317/http://www.cse.dmu.ac.uk/~mward/gkc/books/heretics/ch20.html chapter 20]}}

Chesterton's ''[[The Everlasting Man]]'' contributed to [[C. S. Lewis]]'s conversion to Christianity. In a letter to [[Sheldon Vanauken]] (14 December 1950),<ref>Vanauken, S., ''[[A Severe Mercy]]'' (New York: [[Harper (publisher)#Harper & Row (1962–1990)|Harper & Row]], 1977), p. 90.</ref> Lewis called the book "the best popular apologetic I know",<ref>[http://www.discovery.org/cslewis/articles/writingspblcdmn/letters.php ''Letter to Sheldon Vanauken''], {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130303112207/http://www.discovery.org/cslewis/articles/writingspblcdmn/letters.php |date=3 March 2013 }} 14 December 1950.</ref> and to Rhonda Bodle he wrote (31 December 1947)<ref>{{Citation |last=Lewis |first=Clive Staples |title=The Collected Letters |volume=2 |page=823}}</ref> "the [very] best popular defence of the full Christian position I know is G.&nbsp;K. Chesterton's ''The Everlasting Man''". The book was also cited in a list of 10 books that "most shaped his vocational attitude and philosophy of life".<ref>{{Citation |title=The Christian Century |date=6 June 1962}}</ref>

Chesterton's hymn "O God of Earth and Altar" was printed in ''[[Christian Social Union (Church of England)#Development|The Commonwealth]]'' and then included in ''[[The English Hymnal]]'' in 1906.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Routley |first=Erik |title=An English-speaking Hymnal Guide |publisher=GIA publications |year=2005 |page=129}}</ref> Several lines of the hymn appear in the beginning of the song "Revelations" by the British heavy metal band [[Iron Maiden]] on their 1983 album ''[[Piece of Mind]]''.<ref>{{Cite book |title=Music in American Life: An Encyclopedia of the Songs, Styles, Stars, and Stories That Shaped Our Culture |publisher=Greenwood |year=2013 |editor-last=Edmondson |editor-first=Jacqueline |location=Santa Barbara, CA |page=39}}</ref> Lead singer [[Bruce Dickinson]] in an interview stated "I have a fondness for hymns. I love some of the ritual, the beautiful words, ''[[And did those feet in ancient time|Jerusalem]]'' and there was another one, with words by G.&nbsp;K. Chesterton ''O God of Earth and Altar'' – very fire and brimstone: 'Bow down and hear our cry'. I used that for an Iron Maiden song, "Revelations". In my strange and clumsy way I was trying to say look it's all the same stuff."<ref>{{Cite web |title=Bruce Dickinson: Faith And Music (1999) | date=25 July 2012 |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4fYfLcKKPw#t=521 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170218174832/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4fYfLcKKPw#t=521 |archive-date=18 February 2017 |access-date=11 September 2017 |via=YouTube}}</ref>

[[Étienne Gilson]] praised Chesterton's [[Saint Thomas Aquinas (Chesterton)|book on Thomas Aquinas]]: "I consider it as being, without possible comparison, the best book ever written on Saint Thomas{{nbsp}}... the few readers who have spent twenty or thirty years in studying St. Thomas Aquinas, and who, perhaps, have themselves published two or three volumes on the subject, cannot fail to perceive that the so-called 'wit' of Chesterton has put their scholarship to shame."<ref>{{Citation |last=Gilson |first=Etienne |title=Guide to Thomas Aquinas |pages=6–7 |year=1987 |editor-last=Pieper |editor-first=Josef |contribution=Letter to Chesterton's editor |publisher=University of Notre Dame Press}}</ref>

Archbishop [[Fulton J. Sheen]], the author of 70 books, identified Chesterton as the stylist who had the greatest impact on his own writing, stating in his autobiography ''Treasure in Clay'', "the greatest influence in writing was G.&nbsp;K. Chesterton who never used a useless word, who saw the value of a paradox, and avoided what was trite."<ref>Sheen, Fulton J. (2008). ''Treasure in Clay''. New York: Image Books/Doubleday, p. 79.</ref> Chesterton wrote the introduction to Sheen's book ''God and Intelligence in Modern Philosophy; A Critical Study in the Light of the Philosophy of Saint Thomas''.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Sheen |first=Fulton J. |title=God and Intelligence |publisher=IVE Press}}</ref>

===Common Sense===
Chesterton has been called "The Apostle of Common Sense".<ref>{{cite book |last1=Ahlquist |first1=Dale |title=G.&nbsp;K. Chesterton: The Apostle of Common Sense |date=2003 |publisher=Ignatius Press |location=San Francisco}}</ref>  He was critical of the thinkers and popular philosophers of the day, who though very clever, were saying things that he considered nonsensical. This is illustrated again in ''Orthodoxy'': "Thus when Mr H. G. Wells says (as he did somewhere), 'All chairs are quite different', he utters not merely a misstatement, but a contradiction in terms. If all chairs were quite different, you could not call them 'all chairs'."{{Sfn|Chesterton|1908b|loc=[https://web.archive.org/web/20170115201317/http://www.cse.dmu.ac.uk/~mward/gkc/books/orthodoxy/ch3.html chapter 3]}}

===Conservatism===
{{Conservatism UK|Intellectuals}}
Although Chesterton was an early member of the [[Fabian Society]], he resigned at the time of the [[Second Boer War]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Holroyd |first=Michael |url=https://archive.org/details/bernardshaw00holr/page/214 |title=Bernard Shaw Vol 2 |date=1989 |publisher=Chatto & Windus |isbn=978-0701133504 |location=London |page=[https://archive.org/details/bernardshaw00holr/page/214 214]}}</ref> He is often identified as a [[Traditionalist conservatism|traditionalist conservative]]<ref>{{Cite book |last=Fawcett |first=Edmund |title=Conservatism: The Fight for a Tradition |date=2020 |publisher=Princeton University Press |isbn=978-0-691-17410-5 |location=Princeton |page=252}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Kirk |first=Russell |title=Russell Kirk's Concise Guide to Conservatism |date=2019 |publisher=Regnery Publishing |isbn=978-1-62157-878-9 |location=Washington |page=4}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last=Lee |first=Michael J. |title=The Conservative Canon and Its Uses |journal=Rhetoric and Public Affairs |publisher=Michigan State University Press |volume=15 |issue=1 |year=2012 |issn=1094-8392 |jstor=41955606 |pages=1–39 |doi=10.1353/rap.2012.0008 |url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/41955606 |access-date=9 March 2025  |url-access=subscription}}</ref>{{rp|39}} due to his staunch support of tradition, expressed in ''Orthodoxy'' and other works with [[Edmund Burke|Burkean]] quotes such as the following:

{{blockquote|Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking about. All democrats object to men being disqualified by the accident of birth; tradition objects to their being disqualified by the accident of death. Democracy tells us not to neglect a good man's opinion, even if he is our groom; tradition asks us not to neglect a good man's opinion, even if he is our father.<ref>{{Cite encyclopedia |last=Hamilton |first=Andy |title=Conservatism |date=2020 |url=https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2020/entries/conservatism/ |encyclopedia=[[Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy]] |editor-last=Zalta |editor-first=Edward N.|access-date=2023-11-26 |publisher=The Metaphysics Research Lab|publication-place=Stanford University|issn=1095-5054}}</ref>}}

Chesterton has been considered among the United Kingdom's conservative anti-imperialist wing, contrasted with his intellectual rivals in Shaw and Wells.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Deneen |first=Patrick J. |title=Conservatism in America? A Response to Sidorsky |journal=Nomos |publisher=[[American Society for Political and Legal Philosophy]] |volume=56 |year=2016 |issn=0078-0979 |jstor=26387881 |pages=140–159 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/26387881 |access-date=9 March 2025 |url-access=subscription}}</ref>{{rp|158}} Chesterton's association with conservatism has expanded beyond British politics; Japanese conservative intellectuals, such as {{ill|lt=Hidetsugu Yagi|Hidetsugu Yagi (legal scholar)|ja|八木秀次 (法学者)}}, have often referred to Chesterton's appeal to tradition as the "democracy of the dead".<ref>{{cite book |last=Winkler |first=Christian |title=Conservative Moments: Reading Conservative Texts |editor-last=Garnett |editor-first=Mark |editor-link=Mark Garnett |chapter=Conservatism in Japan: Dealing with discontinuity |pages=85–90 |series=Textual Moments in the History of Political Thought |publisher=Bloomsbury Academic |publication-place=London |date=2018 |isbn=978-1-350-00155-8 |quote=It is hardly surprising then that Japanese conservative intellectuals frequently refer to G. [K.] Chesterton's 'democracy of the dead'. |url=https://library.oapen.org/bitstream/20.500.12657/58809/1/9781350001558.pdf}} {{open access}}</ref>{{rp|89}} However, Chesterton did not equate conservatism with complacency, arguing that cultural conservatives had to be politically radical.<ref>{{cite book |last=Stapleton |first=Julia |title=Christianity, Patriotism, and Nationhood |publisher=Lexington Books |publication-place=Lanham (Md.) |date=2009 |isbn=978-0-7391-2613-4 |page=147}}</ref>

===Liberalism===
In spite of his association with tradition and conservatism, Chesterton called himself "the last liberal".<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Ahlquist |first1=Dale |author1-link=Dale Ahlquist |title=Remembering G. K. Chesterton |journal=[[Chronicles (magazine)|Chronicles]] |date=March 2021 |url=https://chroniclesmagazine.org/remembering-the-right/remembering-g-k-chesterton/ |access-date=26 November 2023}}</ref> He was a supporter of the [[Liberal Party (UK)|Liberal Party]] until he severed ties in 1928 following the death of former Liberal Prime Minister [[H. H. Asquith]], although his attachment had already gradually weakened over the decades.<ref name=davenport>{{cite journal |last1=Davenport |first1=John B. |date=2017 |title=The Distributists and the Liberal Party |url=https://liberalhistory.org.uk/journal-article/the-distributists-and-the-liberal-party/ |journal=Journal of Liberal History |issue=93 |publisher=[[Liberal Democrat History Group]] |pages=26–34 |access-date=28 April 2025}}</ref> In addition the ''Daily News'', for which Chesterton had been a columnist between 1903 and 1913, was aligned with the Liberals.<ref name=dn>{{cite journal |last1=Stapleton |first1=Julia |year=2013|title=Chesterton at the Daily News |url=https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1444320/chesterton-at-the-daily-news |journal=[[The Chesterton Review]] |volume=39 |issue=1–2|pages=49–62 |doi=10.5840/chesterton2013391/210  |access-date=28 April 2025}}</ref>

Chesterton's increasing coolness towards the Liberal Party was a response to the rise of [[New liberalism (ideology)|New Liberalism]] in the early 20th century, which differed from his own vision of liberalism in several respects: it was secular, rather than being rooted in Christianity like the party's previously predominant creed of [[Gladstonian liberalism]], and advocated a [[Liberal welfare reforms|collectivist approach to social reform]] at odds with Chesterton's concern about what he saw as an increasingly interventionist and [[technocratic]] state challenging both the primacy of the family in social organisation and democracy as a political ideal.<ref name=dn /><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Stapleton |first1=Julia|date=2015 |title=The Battle of Plutocracy: G. K. Chesterton, Wells, Masterman and the Future of Democracy |url=https://thewellsian.awh.durham.ac.uk/ojs/index.php/Wellsian/article/view/430 |journal=[[The Wellsian: The Journal of the H. G. Wells Society]] |volume=38 |pages=57–69 |access-date=28 April 2025}}</ref><ref name=davenport />

Despite this critique of the development of left-liberalism in this period, Chesterton also criticised the [[laissez-faire]] approach of [[Manchester Liberalism]] which had been influential among Liberals in the late 19th century, arguing that this had led to the development of [[monopolies]] and [[plutocracy]] rather than the competition classical theorists had predicted, as well as the exploitation of workers for profit.<ref name=davenport />

In addition to Chesterton, other distributists including Belloc were also involved with the Liberals before the First World War. They shared much common ground in terms of their policy agenda with the broader party during this time, including devolution of power to local government, [[Suffrage|franchise reform]], replication of the Irish [[Land Acts (Ireland)|Wyndham Land Act]] in Britain, supporting trade unions and a degree of social reform by central government, whilst opposing socialism.<ref name=davenport />

Chesterton opposed the Conservative [[Education Act 1902]], which provided for public funding of Church schools, on the grounds that religious freedom was best served by keeping religion out of education. However, he disassociated himself from the campaign against it led by [[John Clifford (minister)|John Clifford]], whose invoking of the Act's provisions as resulting in "Rome on the [[Rates (tax)|rates]]" was judged by Chesterton to be bigotry appealing to [[straw man]] arguments.<ref name=dn /> The Chestertons and Belloc supported the Liberal leadership on the passage of [[David Lloyd George]]'s [[People's Budget]] and the weakening of the power of the House of Lords through the [[Parliament Act 1911]] in response to its resistance to the budget, but were critical of their timidity in pushing for [[Irish Home Rule movement|Irish Home Rule]].<ref name=davenport />

Following the War the position of the New Liberals had strengthened, and the distributists came to believe that the party's positions were closer to [[social democracy]] than liberalism. They also differed from most Liberals by advocating for home rule for all of Ireland, rather than [[Partition of Ireland|partition]]. More generally they developed a policy agenda distinct from any of the main three parties during this time, including promoting [[guild]]s and the nuclear family, introducing [[primary election]]s and [[referendum]]s, [[antitrust]] action, tax reform to favour small businesses, and transparency regarding [[Political funding in the United Kingdom|party funding]] and the [[Crown Honours Lists|Honours Lists]].<ref name=davenport />

===On War===
Chesterton first emerged as a journalist just after the turn of the 20th century. His great, and very lonely, opposition to the [[Second Boer War]], set him very much apart from most of the rest of the British press.  Chesterton was a [[Little Englander]], opposed to [[imperialism]], British or otherwise. Chesterton thought that Great Britain betrayed her own principles in the Boer Wars.

In vivid contrast to his opposition to the Boer Wars, Chesterton vigorously defended and encouraged the Allies in [[World War I]]. "The war was in Chesterton's eyes a crusade, and he was certain that England was right to fight as she had been wrong in fighting the Boers."<ref>{{cite book |last1=Ffinch |first1=Michael |title=G.&nbsp;K. Chesterton: A Biography |date=1986 |publisher=Harper and Row |location=New York |isbn=0-06-252576-X |pages=228–29}}</ref> Chesterton saw the roots of the war in Prussian militarism. He was deeply disturbed by Prussia's unprovoked invasion and occupation of neutral Belgium and by [[Atrocity propaganda|reports of shocking atrocities]] the [[Imperial German Army]] was allegedly committing in Belgium. Over the course of the War, Chesterton wrote hundreds of essays defending it, attacking pacifism, and exhorting the public to persevere until victory. Some of these essays were collected in the 1916 work, ''The Barbarism of Berlin''.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Chesterton |first1=Gilbert Keith |title=The Barbarism of Berlin |date=1914 |publisher=Cassell and Company |location=London}}</ref>

One of Chesterton's most successful works in support of the War was his 1915 tongue-in-cheek ''The Crimes of England''.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Chesterton |first1=Gilbert Keith |title=The Crimes of England |date=1915 |publisher=C. Palmer & Hayward |location=London}}</ref>  The work is ironic, supposedly apologizing and trying to help a fictitious Prussian professor named Whirlwind make the case for Prussia in WWI, while actually attacking Prussia throughout. Part of the book's humorous impact is the conceit that Professor Whirlwind never realizes how his supposed benefactor is undermining Prussia at every turn. Chesterton "blames" England for historically building up Prussia against Austria, and for its pacifism, especially among wealthy British Quaker political donors, who prevented Britain from standing up to past Prussian aggression.

===Accusations of antisemitism===
[[File:G. K. Chesterton at work.jpg|thumb|Chesterton in his office]]
Chesterton faced accusations of [[antisemitism]] during his lifetime, saying in his 1920 book ''[[The New Jerusalem (Chesterton book)|The New Jerusalem]]'' that it was something "for which my friends and I were for a long period rebuked and even reviled".<ref>Chesterton, G. K. (1920) ''[[The New Jerusalem (Chesterton book)|The New Jerusalem]]'', [[Hodder and Stoughton]], chapter 13.</ref> Despite his protestations to the contrary, the accusation continues to be repeated.<ref>{{Citation |title=Last orders |date=9 April 2005 |url=http://books.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,12084,1455054,00.html |work=The Guardian |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060827153802/http://books.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,12084,1455054,00.html |access-date=2 July 2006 |archive-date=27 August 2006 |url-status=live}}</ref> An early supporter of [[Alfred Dreyfus|Captain Dreyfus]], by 1906 he had turned into an [[Dreyfus affair|anti-Dreyfusard]].<ref>Chesterton, Gilbert. ''G.&nbsp;K. Chesterton to the Editor''. The Nation, 18 March 1911.</ref> From the early 20th century, his fictional work included caricatures of Jews, stereotyping them as greedy, cowardly, disloyal and communists.<ref name="Mayers85-7" /> [[Martin Gardner]] suggests that ''Four Faultless Felons'' was allowed to go out of print in the United States because of the "anti-Semitism which mars so many pages."<ref>{{cite book |last1=Gardner |first1=Martin |author1-link=Martin Gardner |title=Four Faultless Felons |date=1989 |publisher=[[Dover Publications]] |chapter=Introduction}}</ref>

The [[Marconi scandal]] of 1912–1913 brought issues of anti-Semitism into the political mainstream. Senior ministers in the Liberal government had secretly profited from advance knowledge of deals regarding wireless telegraphy, and critics regarded it as relevant that some of the key players were Jewish.<ref name="Frances Donaldson 2011 51">{{Cite book |last=Donaldson |first=Frances |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_JKMamWMSbAC&pg=PT51 |title=The Marconi Scandal |publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing |year=2011 |isbn=978-1448205547 |page=51 |access-date=24 October 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200801230903/https://books.google.com/books?id=_JKMamWMSbAC&pg=PT51 |archive-date=1 August 2020 |url-status=live}}</ref> According to historian Todd Endelman, who identified Chesterton as among the most vocal critics, "The Jew-baiting at the time of the Boer War and the Marconi scandal was linked to a broader protest, mounted in the main by the Radical wing of the Liberal Party, against the growing visibility of successful businessmen in national life and their challenge to what were seen as traditional English values."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Endelman |first=Todd M. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SMOQkrUtqkwC&pg=PA155 |title=The Jews of Britain, 1656 to 2000 |year=2002 |isbn=9780520227194 |page=155 |publisher=University of California Press |access-date=30 May 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200801232133/https://books.google.com/books?id=SMOQkrUtqkwC&pg=PA155 |archive-date=1 August 2020 |url-status=live}}</ref>

In a work of 1917, titled ''A Short History of England'', Chesterton considers the royal decree of 1290 by which Edward I [[Edict of Expulsion|expelled Jews from England]], a policy that remained in place until 1655. Chesterton writes that popular perception of Jewish moneylenders could well have led Edward I's subjects to regard him as a "tender father of his people" for "breaking the rule by which the rulers had hitherto fostered their bankers' wealth". He felt that Jews, "a sensitive and highly civilized people" who "were the capitalists of the age, the men with wealth banked ready for use", might legitimately complain that "Christian kings and nobles, and even Christian popes and bishops, used for Christian purposes (such as the Crusades and the cathedrals) the money that could only be accumulated in such mountains by a usury they inconsistently denounced as unchristian; and then, when worse times came, gave up the Jew to the fury of the poor".<ref>{{Citation |last=Julius |first=Anthony |title=Trials of the Diaspora: A History of Anti-Semitism in England |page=422 |year=2010 |publisher=Oxford University Press |author-link=Anthony Julius |title-link=Trials of the Diaspora: A History of Anti-Semitism in England}}</ref><ref>{{Citation |last=Chesterton |first=G. K. |title=A Short History of England |pages=108–109 |year=1917 |publisher=Chatto and Windus}}</ref>

In ''The New Jerusalem,'' Chesterton dedicated a chapter to his views on the [[Jewish question]]: the sense that Jews were a distinct people without a homeland of their own, living as foreigners in countries where they were always a minority.{{Sfn|Chesterton|1920|loc=[http://www.cse.dmu.ac.uk/~mward/gkc/books/New_Jerusalem.txt Chapter 13]}} He wrote that in the past, his position:

{{blockquote|was always called Anti-Semitism; but it was always much more true to call it Zionism.{{nbsp}}... my friends and I had in some general sense a policy in the matter; and it was in substance the desire to give Jews the dignity and status of a separate nation. We desired that in some fashion, and so far as possible, Jews should be represented by Jews, should live in a society of Jews, should be judged by Jews and ruled by Jews. I am an Anti-Semite if that is Anti-Semitism. It would seem more rational to call it Semitism.{{Sfn|Chesterton|1920|loc=[https://web.archive.org/web/20170115201317/http://www.cse.dmu.ac.uk/~mward/gkc/books/New_Jerusalem.txt Chapter 13]}}}}

In the same place he proposed the thought experiment (describing it as "a parable" and "a flippant fancy") that Jews should be admitted to any role in English public life on condition that they must wear distinctively Middle Eastern garb, explaining that "The point is that we should know where we are; and he would know where he is, which is in a foreign land."{{Sfn|Chesterton|1920|loc=[https://web.archive.org/web/20170115201317/http://www.cse.dmu.ac.uk/~mward/gkc/books/New_Jerusalem.txt Chapter 13]}}

Chesterton, like Belloc, openly expressed his abhorrence of [[Adolf Hitler]]'s rule almost as soon as it started.<ref name="Pearce2005">{{Cite book |last=Pearce |first=Joseph |title=Literary Giants, Literary Catholics |publisher=Ignatius Press |year=2005 |isbn=978-1-58617-077-6 |location=San Francisco |page=95 |author-link=Joseph Pearce}}</ref> As Rabbi [[Stephen Samuel Wise]] wrote in a posthumous tribute to Chesterton in 1937:

{{blockquote|When Hitlerism came, he was one of the first to speak out with all the directness and frankness of a great and unabashed spirit. Blessing to his memory!{{Sfn|Ward|1944|loc=[https://archive.org/stream/gilbertkeithches001579mbp#page/n301/mode/2up p. 265]}}}}

In ''The Truth About the Tribes,'' Chesterton attacked [[Nazi racial theories]], writing: "the essence of Nazi Nationalism is to preserve the purity of a race in a continent where all races are impure".<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=XsWrlo7P-5cC&lpg=PA593 ''The Collected Works of G.&nbsp;K. Chesterton''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200801224645/https://books.google.com/books?id=XsWrlo7P-5cC&lpg=PA593 |date=1 August 2020 }}, Volume 5, Ignatius Press, 1987, page 593</ref>

The historian Simon Mayers points out that Chesterton wrote in works such as ''The Crank'', ''The Heresy of Race'', and ''The Barbarian as Bore'' against the concept of racial superiority and critiqued pseudo-scientific race theories, saying they were akin to a new religion.<ref name="Mayers85-7" /> In ''The Truth About the Tribes'' Chesterton wrote, "the curse of race religion is that it makes each separate man the sacred image which he worships. His own bones are the sacred relics; his own blood is the [[Januarius#Blood|blood of St. Januarius]]".<ref name="Mayers85-7">{{Cite book |last=Mayers |first=Simon |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=pbmWBAAAQBAJ&q=Chesterton%E2%80%99s%20Jews%3A%20Stereotypes%20and%20Caricatures%20in%20the%20Literature%20and%20Journalism%20of%20G.K.%20Chesterton&pg=PA85 |title=Chesterton's Jews: Stereotypes and Caricatures in the Literature and Journalism of G.&nbsp;K. Chesterton |year=2013 |isbn=9781490392462 |pages=85–87 |publisher=Simon Mayers |access-date=4 October 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210529050436/https://books.google.com/books?id=pbmWBAAAQBAJ&q=Chesterton%E2%80%99s+Jews%3A+Stereotypes+and+Caricatures+in+the+Literature+and+Journalism+of+G.K.+Chesterton&pg=PA85 |archive-date=29 May 2021 |url-status=live}}</ref> Mayers records that despite "his hostility towards Nazi antisemitism … [it is unfortunate that he made] claims that 'Hitlerism' was a form of Judaism, and that the Jews were partly responsible for race theory".<ref name="Mayers85-7" /> In ''The Judaism of Hitler'', as well as in ''A Queer Choice'' and ''The Crank'', Chesterton made much of the fact that the very notion of "a Chosen Race" was of Jewish origin, saying in ''The Crank'': "If there is one outstanding quality in Hitlerism it is its Hebraism" and "the new Nordic Man has all the worst faults of the worst Jews: jealousy, greed, the mania of conspiracy, and above all, the belief in a Chosen Race".<ref name="Mayers85-7" />

Mayers also shows that Chesterton portrayed Jews not only as culturally and religiously distinct, but racially as well. In ''The Feud of the Foreigner'' (1920) he said that the Jew "is a foreigner far more remote from us than is a Bavarian from a Frenchman; he is divided by the same type of division as that between us and a Chinaman or a Hindoo. He not only is not, but never was, of the same race".<ref name="Mayers85-7" />

In ''The Everlasting Man'', while writing about [[human sacrifice]], Chesterton suggested that medieval stories about [[Blood libel|Jews killing children]] might have resulted from a distortion of genuine cases of devil worship. Chesterton wrote:

{{blockquote|[T]he Hebrew prophets were perpetually protesting against the Hebrew race relapsing into an idolatry that involved such a war upon children; and it is probable enough that this abominable apostasy from the God of Israel has occasionally appeared in Israel since, in the form of what is called ritual murder; not of course by any representative of the religion of Judaism, but by individual and irresponsible diabolists who did happen to be Jews.<ref name="Mayers85-7" /><ref name="Everlasting">{{Cite book |last=Chesterton |first=G. K. |title=The Everlasting Man |publisher=Dover publications |year=2007 |location=Mineola, NY |page=117}}</ref>}}

The [[Dale Ahlquist#Gilbert: The Magazine of the American Chesterton Society|American Chesterton Society]] has devoted a whole issue of its magazine, ''Gilbert'', to defending Chesterton against charges of antisemitism.<ref>[http://www.chesterton.org/was-chesterton-antisemitic/ "Was G.&nbsp;K. Chesterton Anti-Semitic?"], {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140429110816/http://www.chesterton.org/was-chesterton-antisemitic/ |date=29 April 2014 }} by Dale Ahlquist.</ref> Likewise, Ann Farmer, author of ''Chesterton and the Jews: Friend, Critic, Defender'',<ref>Ann Farmer, ''Chesterton and the Jews: Friend, Critic, Defender'' (Angelico Press, 2015)</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Ahlquist |first=Dale |title=Defending the Defender of the Jews |url=https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2015/07/27/defending-the-defender-of-the-jews/ |url-status=dead |website=www.catholicworldreport.com |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20210410180424/https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2015/07/27/defending-the-defender-of-the-jews/ |archivedate=10 April 2021}}</ref> writes, "Public figures from [[Winston Churchill]] to [[H. G. Wells|Wells]] proposed remedies for the '[[Jewish problem]]'&nbsp;– the seemingly endless cycle of anti-Jewish persecution&nbsp;– all shaped by their worldviews. As patriots, Churchill and Chesterton embraced Zionism; both were among the first to defend the Jews from Nazism", concluding that "A defender of Jews in his youth&nbsp;– a conciliator as well as a defender&nbsp;– GKC returned to the defence when the Jewish people needed it most."<ref>{{Cite web |date=28 August 2019 |title=The debate: Was Chesterton an anti-Semite? |url=https://catholicherald.co.uk/the-debate-was-chesterton-an-anti-semite/ |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20200801013420/https://catholicherald.co.uk/the-debate-was-chesterton-an-anti-semite/ |archivedate=1 August 2020}}</ref>

===Opposition to eugenics===
{{Human enhancement sidebar}}
In ''Eugenics and Other Evils'', Chesterton attacked [[eugenics]] as Parliament was moving towards passage of the [[Mental Deficiency Act 1913]]. Some backing the ideas of eugenics called for the government to sterilise people deemed "mentally defective"; this view did not gain popularity but the idea of segregating them from the rest of society and thereby preventing them from reproducing did gain traction. These ideas disgusted Chesterton who wrote, "It is not only openly said, it is eagerly urged that the aim of the measure is to prevent any person whom these propagandists do not happen to think intelligent from having any wife or children."<ref name=Eugenics/> He condemned the proposed wording for such measures as being so vague as to apply to anyone, including "Every tramp who is sulk, every labourer who is shy, every rustic who is eccentric, can quite easily be brought under such conditions as were designed for homicidal maniacs. That is the situation; and that is the point{{nbsp}}... we are already under the Eugenist State; and nothing remains to us but rebellion."<ref name="Eugenics">{{Cite book |last=Chesterton |first=Gilbert Keith |title=Eugenics and Other Evils |publisher=Cassell and Company |year=1922 |location=London, UK}}</ref> He derided such ideas as founded on nonsense, "as if one had a right to dragoon and enslave one's fellow citizens as a kind of chemical experiment".<ref name=Eugenics/> Chesterton mocked the idea that poverty was a result of bad breeding: "[it is a] strange new disposition to regard the poor as a race; as if they were a colony of Japs or Chinese coolies{{nbsp}}... The poor are not a race or even a type. It is senseless to talk about breeding them; for they are not a breed. They are, in cold fact, what Dickens describes: 'a dustbin of individual accidents,' of damaged dignity, and often of damaged gentility."<ref name=Eugenics/><ref>[http://www.secondspring.co.uk/articles/sparkes.htm "The Enemy of Eugenics"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170323214803/http://www.secondspring.co.uk/articles/sparkes.htm |date=23 March 2017 }}, by Russell Sparkes.</ref>

===Chesterton's fence===
"Chesterton's fence" is the principle that reforms should not be made until the reasoning behind the existing state of affairs is understood. The quotation is from Chesterton's 1929 book, ''The Thing: Why I Am a Catholic'', in the chapter, "The Drift from Domesticity":

{{blockquote|In the matter of reforming things, as distinct from deforming them, there is one plain and simple principle; a principle which will probably be called a paradox. There exists in such a case a certain institution or law; let us say, for the sake of simplicity, a fence or gate erected across a road. The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, "I don't see the use of this; let us clear it away." To which the more intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer: "If you don't see the use of it, I certainly won't let you clear it away. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Chesterton |first=G. K. |date=1946 |orig-year=1929 |chapter=The Drift from Domesticity |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.475818/page/n35/mode/2up |title=The Thing<!-- The subtitle is omitted in this edition. --> |url=https://archive.org/details/thingwhyiamcatho0000gkch/page/n7/mode/2up |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181106171443/https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=inu.30000041581954;view=1up;seq=39 |archive-date=6 November 2018 |edition=Reprint |location=London |publisher=Sheed & Ward |page=29 |oclc=977629776 |access-date=29 May 2024}}</ref>}}

===Distributism===
{{Unreferenced section|date=April 2025}}
[[File:Three acres and a cow.JPG|thumb|upright|Self-portrait based on the [[Distributism|distributist]] slogan "[[Three acres and a cow]]"]]

Inspired by [[Leo XIII|Leo XIII's]] encyclical ''[[Rerum novarum]]'', Chesterton's brother [[Cecil Chesterton|Cecil]] and his friend, [[Hilaire Belloc]] were instrumental in developing the economic philosophy of [[distributism]], a word Belloc coined. Gilbert embraced their views and, particularly after Cecil's death in World War I, became one of the foremost distributists and the newspaper whose care he inherited from Cecil, which ultimately came to be named ''[[G.&nbsp;K.'s Weekly]]'', became its most consistent advocate.  Distributism stands as a third way, against both unrestrained capitalism, and socialism, advocating a wide distribution of both property and political power.

=== Scottish and Irish nationalism ===

Despite his opposition to Nazism, Chesterton was not an opponent of nationalism in general and gave a degree of support to [[Scottish nationalism|Scottish]] and [[Irish nationalism]]. He endorsed [[Cunninghame Graham]] and [[Compton Mackenzie]] for the post of [[Lord Rector of Glasgow University]] in 1928 and 1931 respectively and praised Scottish Catholics as "patriots" in contrast to Anglophile Protestants such as [[John Knox]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Brand |first=Jack |title=The National movement in Scotland |date=1978 |publisher=Routledge and K. Paul |isbn=978-0-7100-8866-6 |location=London Henley Boston}}</ref> Chesterton was also a supporter of the [[Irish Home Rule movement]] and maintained friendships with members of the [[Irish Parliamentary Party]]. This was in part due to his belief that [[Irish Catholics]] had a naturally distributist outlook on property ownership.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Davenport |first=John |date=2014 |title=G. K. Chesterton: Nationalist Ireland's English Apologist |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/24347821 |journal=Studies: An Irish Quarterly Review |volume=103 |issue=410 |pages=178–192 |jstor=24347821 |issn=0039-3495}}</ref>