ABSTRACT Chesterton and His Interlocutors: Dialogical Style and Ethical Debate on Eugenics Don M. Shipley, Jr., B.A., M.Div. Mentor: Ralph C. Wood, Ph.D. Before Nazi Germany’s eugenic practices had been completely exposed and denounced, G. K. Chesterton, a British writer best known for his fiction and Roman Catholic apologetics, published Eugenics and Other Evils in 1922. Therein he fiercely opposed eugenics and state sponsored eugenic practices; but his was not an isolated text offered in monologic argument to some vague social menace. In fact, Chesterton never wrote monologically but always in an intrinsically dialogical manner. As this dissertation attempts to demonstrate, this dialogical style, epitomized in the eugenics debate, energized Chesterton’s fiction, most notably his novel The Man Who Was Thursday and serves as a way of reading all of Chesterton, his fiction and non-fiction alike. This dissertation will attempt to demonstrate the historical and dialogical context of that conflict, explicate the exact arguments of both Inge and Chesterton, provide commentary on the dialogical style inherent in Chesterton’s literary works specifically The Man Who Was Thursday, The Ball and the Cross, and The Napoleon of Notting Hill, and Manalive and demonstrate both the prophetic nature and the literary excellence of Chesterton’s dialogical discourse. The importance of this dissertation is, at least, three-fold: first, to recover the historical context of Chesterton’s writings concerning eugenics, particularly his Eugenics and Other Evils, by returning him to conversation with his sparring partner on the subject, Dean Inge; secondly, to explicate Chesterton’s argument against eugenics by showing its relationship to Chesterton’s other writing, more particularly to those texts which are intrinsically dialogical. Nothing to date has been written concerning Chesterton’s dialogical style, and only a handful of articles attempt to explicate Chesterton’s position against eugenics. It is my hope that the explication of Chesterton’s dialogical style will serve as a new way of reading all of Chesterton’s works. The dissertation is important furthermore because it will attempt to uncover an important theological development in Christian ethical practice, even as it will also offer an example about how such monumentally important moral questions might be engaged dialogically rather than polemically and thus monologically. Obviously the work of the Russian literary philosopher Mikhail Bakhtin will figure prominently in this effort. Chesterton and His Interlocutors: Dialogical Style and Ethical Debate on Eugenics by Don M. Shipley, Jr., B.A., M.Div. A Dissertation Approved by the Department of English ___________________________________ Maurice A. Hunt, Ph.D., Chairperson Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of Baylor University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Approved by the Dissertation Committee ___________________________________ Ralph C. Wood, Ph.D., Chairperson ___________________________________ David Lyle Jeffrey, Ph.D. ___________________________________ Daniel H. Williams, Ph.D. ___________________________________ Phillip J. Donnelly, Ph.D. ___________________________________ Kevin J. Gardner, Ph.D. ___________________________________ Scott H. Moore, Ph.D. Accepted by the Graduate School May 2007 ___________________________________ J. Larry Lyon, Ph.D., Dean Copyright © 2007 by Don M. Shipley, Jr. All rights reserved TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgments iv Dedication v Chapter One: 1 “Evil Always Wins Through the Strengths of Its Splendid Dupes”: An Introduction to Chesterton’s Dialogical Style and the Eugenics Debate Introduction 1 Chesterton’s Early Interlocutors 5 The Slade School Crisis 9 Blatchford, Shaw, and Inge 13 Bakhtin and Dialogue 20 Eugenics and Dialogue 29 Positive and Negative Eugenics 33 The Feeble-Minded 35 Eugenics and Racism and Classism 39 International Eugenics 40 Chapter Two: 43 “The Gloomy Dean”: Chesterton’s Chief Interlocutor in the Eugenics Debate From Eton College to Gloomy Dean 43 Inge’s Neoplatonism 46 Inge’s Eugenics 50 Positive Versus Negative Eugenics 59 iii Eugenics, Birth Control, Euthanasia, Suicide, and Capital 62 Punishment Chapter Three: 70 Eugenics and Other Evils: Chesterton’s Attack on the Proposal to Eliminate the Feeble-Minded Eugenics and Other Evils 70 Eugenics and Euphemisms 73 Eugenics Defined 75 The Feeble-Minded 79 Science and the State 83 Social Ethics and Eugenics 89 Eugenics, Authority, and Incarnation 91 Chapter Four: 95 Literary Interlocutors and Dialogical Style: The Man Who Was Thursday, The Ball and the Cross, Manalive, and The Napoleon of Notting Hill Introduction 95 The Dialogical Context of The Man Who Was Thursday 98 Polyglot Language in The Man Who Was Thursday 100 Characters as Allegorical Representations of Particular Philosophies 108 in The Man Who Was Thursday Comic Vision as Alternate Vision in The Man Who Was Thursday 115 Dialogism in The Ball and the Cross, Manalive, and The Napoleon 121 of Notting Hill Chapter Five: 130 Chesterton and the Great Tradition: The Dialogical Style of Chesterton’s Literary Criticism Introduction 130 Criticism of Chesterton’s Criticism 132 iv Criticism and Dialogical Style 135 Chesterton’s Own Statements about His Criticism 138 The Connection to Criticism 142 Criticism and the Common Man 155 Chapter Six: 158 “So Terrible a Savor”: The Prophetic Nature of Chesterton’s Eugenics and Other Evils and the Lasting Merit of Chesterton’s Style Chesterton and Contemporary Eugenics 158 Chesterton and Contemporary Catholic Teaching on Genetics 170 An Evaluation of Chesterton’s Dialogue 175 Appendices 180 Appendix A: 181 Outlines of the Novels Discussed in Chapter Four Outline of The Man Who Was Thursday 181 Outline of The Napoleon of Notting Hill 183 Outline of The Ball and the Cross 184 Outline of Manalive 185 Appendix B: 186 The Character of Sunday in The Man Who Was Thursday Works Cited 188 v ACKNOWLEDGMENTS A task such as a dissertation is never an isolated one; many are the persons deserving of profound thanks. Dr. Ralph C. Wood is the embodiment of Christian scholarship. From the moment of our first meeting, he has encouraged my faith and my scholarly interests. For his pointing me to Gilbert Keith Chesterton in the first place and his direction on this project, I am forever indebted. Dr. Daniel H. Williams graciously accepted a part in this project though it meant stepping away from Patristics to do so. Dr. David Lyle Jeffrey agreed to read my dissertation despite that it added to an already hectic publication schedule. Drs. Kevin J. Gardner, Phillip Donnelly, and Scott H. Moore also read this project in the middle of busy semesters of teaching and scholarly pursuits of their own. Dr. Joe Aguillard hired me to teach at Louisiana College and gave me the time to complete my dissertation. Ms. Ellen Condict graciously printed and delivered multiple drafts of this dissertation to various readers. Mr. Eric Schaefer and Mrs. Kathryn Schielke Walston (Katy Beth) also assisted me in bibliographical pursuits. My student workers at Louisiana College, Jolaina Guillory and Rodney Jones, assisted me in matters most mundane. Dr. and Mrs. Don M. Shipley, D.D.S.—my beloved parents—encouraged my academic interests from my earliest of days. Dad not only bought me the books which began this journey but helped move them from place to place along this scholarly journey. The many Sunday lunches and Thursday evening suppers they provided for my family during the entirety of my graduate endeavors did not go unnoticed. Their love and support vi is a gift that cannot be acknowledged in a mere sentence or two; it is rather deserving of a lifetime’s love. Mr. and Mrs. Ronald Schielke provided generous financial and moral support to make going back to school possible. I am blessed to have in-laws whose company I genuinely enjoy. Angela Kubeczka has demonstrated her friendship to our family in countless ways that have made this project possible. My children, Cole Morgan, Corban Mace, Campbell Mattie, and the one on the way, devoted their love to me regardless of how much time I had to spend writing this dissertation. Their joy and laughter and love are gifts from God himself. They will never know the complete toll that writing a dissertation takes on a family, but I will not soon forget their sacrifice. Christine Marie Schielke Shipley agreed to leave a home, a secure place of employment, and supportive friends to be a poor graduate student’s wife. Tirelessly and without complaint, she nurtured our children, often alone, and took care of more than her share of the details of our life in Waco, all the while never ceasing to find new expressions of her love for me. She paid the greatest price for me to have this degree. I owe you a lifetime of devotion, Chris. Theology rightly ends in doxology, so it is appropriate that I lastly acknowledge the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ to whom belongs any glory that might come from the pages that follow. vii DEDICATION for Donald and Gladiola Shipley and Christine Marie, Cole Morgan, Corban Mace, Campbell Mattie, and Corinne Marie viii CHAPTER ONE “Evil Always Wins Through the Strength of Its Splendid Dupes”: An Introduction to Chesterton’s Dialogical Style and the Eugenics Debate Introduction It is ironic that both Harry Bruinius and Christine Rosen place G. K. Chesterton among the most noted and notable antagonists of eugenics and eugenics-based legislation in Britain during the first third of the twentieth century, yet there exists no systematic explication or analysis of Chesterton’s collection of essays on the subject, Eugenics and Other Evils.1 Additionally, Chesterton’s biographers all but ignore this aspect of Chesterton’s political, theological, and literary involvement. Even such important texts as Chesterton on Evil by Mark Knight and The Size of Chesterton’s Catholicism by David Fagerberg make no mention of Chesterton’s interest in eugenics. Lawrence Clipper’s and Margaret Canovan’s biographies are the exception but still pay only scant attention to the subject.