All Things Considered (Gilbert Keith Chesterton)

All Things Considered (Gilbert Keith Chesterton)
- Highlight Loc. 334-38  | Added on Monday, October 24, 2011, 01:00 AM

The whole error in both cases lies in the fact that the refined persons are attacking politics and journalism on the ground of vulgarity. Of course, politics and journalism are, as it happens, very vulgar. But their vulgarity is not the worst thing about them. Things are so bad with both that by this time their vulgarity is the best thing about them. Their vulgarity is at least a noisy thing; and their great danger is that silence that always comes before decay. The conversational persuasion at elections is perfectly human and rational; it is the silent persuasions that are utterly damnable.