Heretics
by Gilbert Keith Chesterton · first published 1905
50% recommend50% neutral
Why HN recommends it
Witty, cleverly argued essays that challenge the reader's own views, with vivid metaphors like the lamp-post passage; suits readers who enjoy provocative, well-built arguments on philosophy and politics.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
Gilbert Keith Chesterton was born in London, England on the 29th of May, 1874. Though he considered himself a mere rollicking journalist, he was actually a prolific and gifted writer in virtually every area of literature. A man of strong opinions and enormously talented at defending them, his exuberant personality nevertheless allowed him to maintain warm friendships with people - such as George Bernard Shaw and H.
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…entertainment, and the administrative state — and after coming to hate the west and Christianity as a consequence of this indoctrination, I really found the following books to be the ultimate mindfucks: - Heretics by GK Chesterton - Orthodoxy by GK Chesterton - Debunking Howard Zinn: Exposing the Fake History That Turned a Generation against America by Mary Grabar - A Conflict of Visions by Thomas Sowell -…
on “List of books that will induce a mindfuck” ↗…controversial but cleverly put together essays. I like it when someone challenges my own views with a well thought through argument, Try Chesterton then. A little old but still relevant. E.g. could try Heretics.
on “The Most Intolerant Wins: The Dictatorship of the Small Minority (2015)” ↗…GK Chesterton, Hazlitt, Emerson, Robert Louis Stevenson, Santayana, Bertrand Russell, HL Mencken, Oscar Wilde, William James Almost everything they wrote, but some good starting points: Chesterton - Heretics, Varied Types Hazlitt - The Plain Speaker, Table-Talk Emerson - Essays: First and Second Series Stevenson - Virginibus Puerisque, Across the Plains Santayana - Little Essays ed. Logan Pearsall Smith…
on “Ask HN: What are your favorite Essays/Longform blogposts” ↗GK Chesterton is great on this subject, in Science and the Savages from Heretics (1905): The secret of why some savage tribe worships monkeys or the moon is not to be found even by travelling among those savages and taking down their answers in a note-book... The answer to the riddle…
on “Animal painting found in cave is 44k years old” ↗…Stevenson only wrote fiction, or Nietzsche's best is Zarathustra, or Chesterton's best The Man Who Was Thursday! (I've only read a small part of his huge output.. but) My favourite of his books maybe is Heretics, on some contemporary trends and errors of thought—Shaw, Nietzsche, Tolstoy, nihilism etc. It's just brilliant, and very funny, like most of his stuff, though more so. Endlessly re-readable. Also What's…
on “A Convivial Chap Led Easily Astray: On G. K. Chesterton” ↗Chesterton reiterated similar ideas to this in several of his writings. I like this expanded metaphor, from the book Heretics: 'Suppose that a great commotion arises in the street about something, let us say a lamp-post, which many influential persons desire to pull down. A grey-clad monk, who is the spirit of the Middle Ages,…
on “Taking a Fence Down” ↗…L/J Rationalism in Politics - Oakeshott Erving Goffman – Presentation of Self in Everyday Life Walter Lippmann – Public Opinion Art as Experience - John Dewey Plutarch's Lives G.K. Chesterton – Heretics (essay) William James - On A Certain Blindness in Human Beings (and its sequel) (essay) R.L. Stevenson - The Lantern-Bearers
on “Ask HN: Books on specific topics that have applied to many areas of your life?” ↗…times each: SARK's first 4-5 books, Robert Fulghum's books, Emerson's essays, Hazlitt's essays, Bertrand Russell's essays (e.g. Sceptical Essays, Unpopular Essays), GK Chesterton's essays and his book Heretics, Nietzsche's books, William James' essays, RL Stevenson's essays, La Rochefoucauld's Maxims, La Bruyere's Characters, Kurt Vonnegut's The Sirens of Titan, Ben Zander's The Art of Possibility...
on “Ask HN: What are your favorite books?” ↗…Chesterton and Santayana[0], but decided against including any of that. I'm a huge Nietzsche fan so answering properly would take a while; I decided your remark wasn't worth it. Sorry.) [0] Chesterton's Heretics and Orthodoxy contain good (and funny) critiques of Nietzsche, as do many of his other works, e.g. Varied/Twelve Types and GBS. Santayana's wonderful Egotism in German Philosophy has chapters on Schopenhauer…
on “A new book about Nietzsche: tethering philosophy to the mess of daily experience” ↗Some random things that come to mind: game theory, Nietzsche, Goffman's Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, Chomsky's political works, GK Chesterton (e.g. Heretics), Freakonomics, Cialdini's Influence, JR Saul (e.g. Voltaire's Bastards, The Doubter's Companion), Bertrand Russell (e.g. Unpopular Essays, Sceptical Essays, Freedom and Organization 1814-1914), Santayana…
on “Ask HN: Favorite “Adam Ruins Everything”-esque media? (blogs, podcasts, etc)” ↗Heretics GK Chesterton. By far one of the best books I have ever read, and I have read it about 10 times by now. One gem from the first chapter: "When the old Liberals removed the gags from all the heresies,…
on “List of books that will induce a mindfuck” ↗The best response I can give to you is quoting Chesterton's Heretics: "Mr. Rudyard Kipling has asked in a celebrated epigram what they can know of England who know England only. It is a far deeper and sharper question to ask, “What can they know of England who know only…
on “List of books that will induce a mindfuck” ↗I certainly see a through line between Chesterton and After Virtue. As a certified Heretics Enjoyer I'm sold.
on “Remembering Alasdair MacIntyre” ↗…choir. As part of the choir there is a lot I agree with, but I don't quite get the point of his fiction. But Chesterton's non-fiction books, The Everlasting Man, Orthodoxy, What's Wrong With the World and Heretics are some of the best and most insightful books I have ever read, and they really took me by surprise because I did not expect them to be what they are. They are full of speculation, and misunderstandings,…
on “George Bernard Shaw by G. K. Chesterton (1909)” ↗I am very thankful for librivox. I have listened to "Heretics", "Orthodoxy", and "Against Eugenics and Other Evils" by G.K. Chesterton. I've also listened to some works of St. Patrick read by librivox contributors, quality has been very high (exceptional when you…
on “Free public domain audiobooks” ↗