Честертон как даоист
Перечитывал сборник эссе Честертона "All Things Considered" (кстати, не этот ли сборник дал название интересной передаче на NPR?). Натолкнулся на следующий абзац: For my part, I should be inclined to suggest that the chief object of education should be to restore simplicity. If you like to put it so, the chief object of education is not to learn things; nay, the chief object of education is to unlearn things. The chief object of education is to unlearn all the weariness and wickedness of the world and to get back into that state of exhilaration we all instinctively celebrate when we write by preference of children and of boys. If I were an examiner appointed to examine all examiners (which does not at present appear probable), I would not only ask the teachers how much knowledge they had imparted; I would ask them how much splendid and scornful ignorance they had erected, like some royal tower in arms. But, in any case, I would insist that people should have so much simplicity as would enable them to see things suddenly and to see things as they are. I do not care so much whether they can read the names over the shops. I do care very much whether they can read the shops. I do not feel deeply troubled as to whether they can tell where London is on the map so long as they can tell where Brixton is on the way home. I do not even mind whether they can put two and two together in the mathematical sense; I am content if they can put two and two together in the metaphorical sense. But all this longer statement of an obvious view comes back to the metaphor I have employed. I do not care a dump whether they know the alphabet, so long as they know the dumb alphabet.
Это ведь Дао дэ Цзин, ст. 48: "Ищущий знаний каждый день что-то прибавляет. Ищущий Дао каждый день что-то убавляет [забывает]".
Честертон неоднократно обрушивался на "отвратительную восточную философию", "азиатчину", противопоставляя её западной (и прежде всего христианской) мысли. Тем интереснее такие параллели.