This reminds me of CS Lewis’s Abolition of Man, wherein he spoke of the pernicious subversion of traditional virtues by the modern sentiments, as though a quiet robbery of “another little portion of the human heritage”.
Thank you for sharing this disquisition, Brother. God Bless you and Keep you ❤️✝️
Modernity and postmodernity have succeeded in building a world of mutual resentment. Civilization's decay can only follow, leaving the common man buried in ruin.
Yet, the individual maintains that peculiar power: decision. For while the modernity hates him, he may love others. His "freedom" is his to give away, and in giving, he receives unbridled joy. Well done, as always, Sean.
Thanks so much for this piece. It’s a marker of where things went off the rails for modern man…for reasons that were, on the surface, enlightened. Like a pendulum swinging, it feels like there is a return to the values and lifestyle of the “common man” underway.
I agree with Chesterton insofar as ordinariness has indeed been pushed to the margins of our cultural imagination. In a world enamored with exceptionality, disruption, and endless self-invention, it has become increasingly difficult to recognize the value of the person who simply goes to work each day and does his job. This is why Cézanne feels so close to me. Not because he preached the virtues of ordinary life, but because he practiced them. For forty years he returned to the same apples, the same mountain, and the same trees. He sought neither sensation nor manifesto. He picked up his easel and went to work. If there is an artistic equivalent of Chesterton's "common man," it is this provincial painter who returns to the same hillside day after day and simply does what he has to do.
Yet I disagree with Chesterton where his defense of the ordinary man begins to slide toward a distrust of the extraordinary. The Romantic hero is not merely a product of pride, eccentricity, or contempt for community. In my essay, the modern individual, from Różewicz through Kafka to Świetlicki, is lost. He has no map, no answers, and no guarantee of meaning. And yet he acts. He rises in the morning like Janerka's protagonist, walks through the fog like K., cries out like Jeremiah. This, too, is a profoundly human experience and cannot be dismissed as the whim of the Uncommon Man.
For the ordinary man is not a slothful man. He does not simply sit by the apartment block waiting for life to pass him by. Ordinariness does not mean passivity. Quite the opposite. The deepest paradox of modernity is that the Romantic hero and the ordinary man may ultimately be one and the same person. He is the man who does not know the answers, who hears no voice from heaven, who often hears only "nothing yet," and nevertheless takes the next step. Not because he believes in triumph. Not because he sees himself as chosen. Simply because life must somehow be lived. And perhaps this stubborn willingness to act despite everything is today the most ordinary, and at the same time the most heroic, quality a human being can possess.
It's always interesting when conservatives act like Chesterton was one of their own. While he was religiously conservative and a traditionalist, politically Chesterton was a true champion of the common man- he vehemently opposed capitalism and believed strongly in the redistribution of wealth. Today's political conservatives would tar and feather him as a communist.
This is solely contingent on how you define the terms, both of which are quite broad. Chesterton’s assertion is that modernity was birthed in the 16th century, which makes globalism its conclusion as such.
Pretty ridiculous to refer to the 1500s as modernity, is it not? And the globalism we are currently dealing with is just about as old as the assaults on white men. Globabalists wish to rule, just as Hitler did, and as Napoleon did, and so many others, and I guarantee you there is one man at the head of this effort. I have seen a Saudi prince named.
No, the 16th century is a fairly normative and respected view amongst historians. The true start date depends on how you define it, as modernity is a broad term without consensus.
Just google “what century did modernity start?” If you don’t believe me :)
Well, frankly, I don't care. “The common man” has always been under assault, but not like now. I really don’t give a crap about “historians’ consensus.” Look at Wikipedia. If half of the leftist views get written into history, history won’t be worth buried dinosaur shit.
What caused me to read your article was not a love of history, but an interest in the assaults on society’s craftsmen. Which high-minded historians most likely regard as serfs. No, “modernity” as I know it began to arise in the 1920s and international banking, right on its heels. Fatcats financed the Great Depression and both world wars, and likely Vietnam. But the assault on white males is quite recent, within my lifetime.
Write it down. We’re going to war. International bankers will not be financing it.
This reminds me of CS Lewis’s Abolition of Man, wherein he spoke of the pernicious subversion of traditional virtues by the modern sentiments, as though a quiet robbery of “another little portion of the human heritage”.
Thank you for sharing this disquisition, Brother. God Bless you and Keep you ❤️✝️
Thank you sir! Abolition of Man is one of my all time favorite reads too. A phenomenal work
Modernity and postmodernity have succeeded in building a world of mutual resentment. Civilization's decay can only follow, leaving the common man buried in ruin.
Yet, the individual maintains that peculiar power: decision. For while the modernity hates him, he may love others. His "freedom" is his to give away, and in giving, he receives unbridled joy. Well done, as always, Sean.
This is very well said! Good to hear from you as well, my friend
.very nice.
Thanks so much for this piece. It’s a marker of where things went off the rails for modern man…for reasons that were, on the surface, enlightened. Like a pendulum swinging, it feels like there is a return to the values and lifestyle of the “common man” underway.
Indeed, it would be a welcome pendulum swing to re-embrace old-fashioned “commonalities!”
I remember when I first heard modernity was meant to “free” men but they do the opposite, lol.
“The most extraordinary thing in the world is an ordinary man and an ordinary woman and their ordinary children.”
- G.K. Chesterton -
I agree with Chesterton insofar as ordinariness has indeed been pushed to the margins of our cultural imagination. In a world enamored with exceptionality, disruption, and endless self-invention, it has become increasingly difficult to recognize the value of the person who simply goes to work each day and does his job. This is why Cézanne feels so close to me. Not because he preached the virtues of ordinary life, but because he practiced them. For forty years he returned to the same apples, the same mountain, and the same trees. He sought neither sensation nor manifesto. He picked up his easel and went to work. If there is an artistic equivalent of Chesterton's "common man," it is this provincial painter who returns to the same hillside day after day and simply does what he has to do.
Yet I disagree with Chesterton where his defense of the ordinary man begins to slide toward a distrust of the extraordinary. The Romantic hero is not merely a product of pride, eccentricity, or contempt for community. In my essay, the modern individual, from Różewicz through Kafka to Świetlicki, is lost. He has no map, no answers, and no guarantee of meaning. And yet he acts. He rises in the morning like Janerka's protagonist, walks through the fog like K., cries out like Jeremiah. This, too, is a profoundly human experience and cannot be dismissed as the whim of the Uncommon Man.
For the ordinary man is not a slothful man. He does not simply sit by the apartment block waiting for life to pass him by. Ordinariness does not mean passivity. Quite the opposite. The deepest paradox of modernity is that the Romantic hero and the ordinary man may ultimately be one and the same person. He is the man who does not know the answers, who hears no voice from heaven, who often hears only "nothing yet," and nevertheless takes the next step. Not because he believes in triumph. Not because he sees himself as chosen. Simply because life must somehow be lived. And perhaps this stubborn willingness to act despite everything is today the most ordinary, and at the same time the most heroic, quality a human being can possess.
https://tomaszpatalon.substack.com/p/paul-cezanne-malarz-prowincjonalny?r=7dcbv2
https://tomaszpatalon.substack.com/p/bohater-romantyczny-mimo-wszystko?r=7dcbv2
Chesterton had great insight
It's always interesting when conservatives act like Chesterton was one of their own. While he was religiously conservative and a traditionalist, politically Chesterton was a true champion of the common man- he vehemently opposed capitalism and believed strongly in the redistribution of wealth. Today's political conservatives would tar and feather him as a communist.
Indeed, he was a staunch distributist - to the chagrin of capitalists and socialists alike
Found an error. Globalism did not rise out of it, globalism is rather the cause of it.
This is solely contingent on how you define the terms, both of which are quite broad. Chesterton’s assertion is that modernity was birthed in the 16th century, which makes globalism its conclusion as such.
Pretty ridiculous to refer to the 1500s as modernity, is it not? And the globalism we are currently dealing with is just about as old as the assaults on white men. Globabalists wish to rule, just as Hitler did, and as Napoleon did, and so many others, and I guarantee you there is one man at the head of this effort. I have seen a Saudi prince named.
No, the 16th century is a fairly normative and respected view amongst historians. The true start date depends on how you define it, as modernity is a broad term without consensus.
Just google “what century did modernity start?” If you don’t believe me :)
Well, frankly, I don't care. “The common man” has always been under assault, but not like now. I really don’t give a crap about “historians’ consensus.” Look at Wikipedia. If half of the leftist views get written into history, history won’t be worth buried dinosaur shit.
What caused me to read your article was not a love of history, but an interest in the assaults on society’s craftsmen. Which high-minded historians most likely regard as serfs. No, “modernity” as I know it began to arise in the 1920s and international banking, right on its heels. Fatcats financed the Great Depression and both world wars, and likely Vietnam. But the assault on white males is quite recent, within my lifetime.
Write it down. We’re going to war. International bankers will not be financing it.
I remember when I first heard modernity was meant to “free” men but they do the opposite, lol.
Thank you sir!