Why G.K. Chesterton Defended the French Revolution—and Why His Critics Still Misread Him

Why G.K. Chesterton Defended the French Revolution—and Why His Critics Still Misread Him

Author: Society of G.K. Chesterton August 11, 2026 Duration: 41:29

Grettelyn Darkey and Joe Grabowski take up the most neuralgic subject in G.K. Chesterton scholarship: his defense of the French Revolution. Working through a 1921 Illustrated London News column, a 1905 Daily News essay setting the French and Russian revolutions side by side, and a 1918 New Witness piece that turns without warning to Prussianism, they trace his distinction between the ideals of a revolution and its working out, and his insistence that what a revolution exists to restore is the rights of man and not the wrongs of man. 

In This Episode:

  • Why G.K. Chesterton distinguished the motivations behind the French Revolution from its working out under Robespierre and the Terror
  • The negative equality G.K. Chesterton faulted the revolutionaries for—abolishing things for everybody instead of extending them to everybody
  • Why reading G.K. Chesterton on this subject without his British and monarchical audience in view produces anachronism, and what he held against Edmund Burke
  • G.K. Chesterton on positive and negative liberalism, and his warning that the modern revolutionist is free to hate anything, liberty itself included
  • The white post from Orthodoxy, radicalism as a return to the roots, and G.K. Chesterton's claim that revolution is the divine part of man

Resources Mentioned:

Chapters:

  • 00:00: Introduction
  • 00:30: Welcome—Revolutions, Independence Day, and Bastille Day
  • 03:55: "The Rightness of the French Revolution" (1921)
  • 05:26: Negative Equality and the Rationalist Epoch
  • 07:40: G.K. Chesterton's Audience and the Danger of Anachronism
  • 10:01: Politically Homeless—Belloc, the Vendée, and Edmund Burke
  • 13:12: Knowing What You Are Talking About
  • 17:11: "Two Revolutions" (1905) and the Songs of the Revolution
  • 23:46: The White Post and the Job of the Conservative
  • 26:27: "The Two Feasts of Freedom" (1918) and the Prussian Paralysis
  • 28:00: Revolution as the Divine Part of Man
  • 35:38: Watt Tyler and Painting the Fence Post

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Hosted by Grettelyn Darkey and Joe Grabowski, Uncommon Sense-The Official Podcast of the Society of Gilbert Keith Chesterton applies a timeless, joyful, and profoundly insightful worldview to modern life. This isn't a dry historical review, but a lively conversation that uses G.K. Chesterton's own writings and sprawling legacy as a starting point to examine just about anything. We might delve into the paradoxes of faith, the wonder of ordinary things, or the humor in politics, all through that distinctive Chestertonian lens which finds truth in paradox and gratitude in contradiction. You'll hear discussions that feel both refreshingly old-fashioned and urgently relevant, exploring topics in education, spirituality, and daily life with a sense of intellectual adventure. The aim is to recapture a sense of awe and common sense, which Chesterton argued is anything but common. Each episode invites you to step into a broader, more colorful world, one where logic and wonder comfortably coexist. This podcast, brought to you by the Society of G.K. Chesterton, is for anyone curious about seeing familiar things in a startling new light, finding depth in laughter, and discovering the radical nature of gratitude. For feedback, the hosts can be reached at podcast@chesterton.org.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 50

Uncommon Sense - The Official Podcast of the Society of Gilbert Keith Chesterton
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