uctory Remarks on the Importance of Orthodoxy

Nothing more strangely indicates an enormous and silent evil of modern
society than the extraordinary use which is made nowadays of the word
"orthodox." In former days the heretic was proud of not being a
heretic. It was the kingdoms of the world and the police and the
judges who were heretics. He was orthodox. He had no pride in having
rebelled against them; they had rebelled against him. The armies with
their cruel security, the kings with their cold faces, the decorous
processes of State, the reasonable processes of law--all these like
sheep had gone astray. The man was proud of being orthodox, was proud
of being right. If he stood alone in a howling wilderness he was more
than a man; he was a church. He was the centre of the universe; it was
round him that the stars swung. All the tortures torn out of forgotten
hells could not make him admit that he was heretical. But a few modern
phrases have made him boast of it. He says, with a conscious laugh, "I
suppose I am very heretical," and looks round for applause. The word
"heresy" not only means no longer being wrong; it practically means
being clear-headed and courageous. The word "orthodoxy" not only no
longer means being right; it practically means being wrong. All this
can mean one thing, and one thing only. It means that people care less
for whether they are philosophically right. For obviously a man ought
to confess himself crazy before he confesses himself heretical. The
Bohemian, with a red tie, ought to pique himself on his orthodoxy. The
dynamiter, laying a bomb, ought to feel that, whatever else he is, at
least he is orthodox.

It is foolish, generally speaking, for a philosopher to set fire to
another philosopher in Smithfield Market because they do not agree in
their theory of the universe. That was done very frequently in the
last decadence of the Middle Ages, and it failed altogether in its
object. But there is one thing that is infinitely more absurd and
unpractical than burning a man for his philosophy. This is the habit of
saying that his philosophy does not matter, and this is done
universally in the twentieth century, in the decadence of the great
revolutionary period. General theories are everywhere contemned; the
doctrine of the Rights of Man is dismissed with the doctrine of the
Fall of Man. Atheism itself is too theological for us to-day.
Revolution itself is too much of a system; liber