The Saunterer, a longtime subscriber to The Times Literary Supplement, read in a recent issue an extract of a book review of G. K. Chesterton’s What’s Wrong with the World? George Calderon wrote the review a hundred years ago, and in it he systematically discredits Chesterton’s ideas. Still, one of these ideas persists today: that teams of experts can solve big public problems (the money crisis, the problem of Afghanistan, the poor tests results in the schools, etc.). Not only are solutions by teams of expert do-gooders impossible, their attempts harm society. Here is Calderon writing of Chesterton:
He . . . does not realize that the evils of society are the result of conglomerate good intentions, not of individual ill-will. They arise from the incapacity of little private brains to settle big public problems.
To read the review in full, click here.
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