'But you and all the kind of Christ
Are ignorant and brave,
And you have wars you hardly win
And souls you hardly save.'
The ballad of the white horse

Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Euphemistic Eugenists

Before Chesterton tackles Eugenics itself in 'Eugenics and other evils', he spends a few sections discussing superficial proponents of the theory. Foremost are the 'euphemists': 'short words startle them, while long words soothe them. And they are utterly incapable of translating the one into the other, however obviously they mean the same thing'.
In Orthodoxy, years before, Chesterton already remarked: "It is a good exercise to try for once in a way to express any opinion one holds in words of one syllable."  

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