EXPERIENCE OVER THEORY

Common Sense: Chesterton & the Aristotelian Tradition (Patrick Henry Reardon, Touchstone)

Since Plato distrusted the testimony of the senses, it was probably inevitable that he should distrust also the instincts of ordinary, sense-oriented people. The thought of Aristotle, on the other hand, who insisted on commencing with the testimony of the senses, provided a justification for trusting those ordinary perceptions of ordinary people. The latter are those "common" citizens who share common impressions and instincts, such as the wetness of rain and a spontaneous disposition to come in out of it. Such folk may or may not entertain complicated theories about the nature of rain, though occasionally they do. They may or may not compose poems about the rain, though sometimes they do. What is important to both Aristotle and Chesterton, however, is that these common folk have a pretty good idea what rain is, and how it feels, and what it is capable of doing for the freshness of the air and the potatoes growing in the fields. The more observant and reflective among these common people may also detect that rain, like the sunshine, tends to fall alike on the just and the unjust. Likewise, if too much rain begins to fall, common folk will probably obey the impulse to construct a shelter or the command to build an ark.

Since he begins thought by using his five senses, an Aristotelian like Chesterton is inclined to have a soft place in his heart for these common people and their common trove of natural and inherited wisdom. He adopts the view that "the souls of all the ordinary hard-working and simple-minded people are quite as important as the souls of thinkers and truth-seekers." He tends to trust their outlook on reality over that of the abstract speculator, so lost in his inner thought that he forgets to come in out of the rain. Which is to say that the good Aristotelian, and most certainly Chesterton, cherishes a prior disposition to prefer the democratic impulses of culture. He feels more confidence in the tried-and-true experience of ordinary people than the theories of the experts. He will instinctively favor the legend told by the majority of people in the village over the book "written by the one man in the village who is mad." Like the Founder of his religion, Chesterton will pick a jury of twelve good men and true for the really important things in life, such as deciding whether an accused man will live or die.

This democratic instinct in Chesterton, for which he saw great justification in the thought of Aristotle, prompted him to place enhanced value on popular tradition, which he regarded as the proper extension of a democratic sympathy. He wrote:

"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. I, at any rate, cannot separate the two ideas of democracy and tradition; it seems evident to me that they are the same idea." 

"Democracy of the dead" is an especially appealing phrase and has the advantage of celebrating democracy even as while retraining it. Posted by Orrin Judd at June 19, 2003 7:59 AM