Tuesday, January 05, 2010

Chesterton on Satire

When little boys in the street laugh at the fatness of some distinguished journalist, they are unconsciously assuming a standard of Greek sculpture. They are appealing to the marble Apollo. And the curious disappearance of satire from our literature is an instance of the fierce things fading for want of any principle to be fierce about.
~Orthodoxy

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I remember that passage from reading Orthodoxy a while back. But I'm not sure that satire is really on the way out, considering folks like Stephen Colbert. What do you think?

John Mahan said...

If you are a liberal satirist, you are classy (in the State of Minnesota, you might even get elected to the US Senate). If you are a conservative satirist, you are a hate-monger.