September 11, 2009

'Standardization by a low standard'

To put it shortly, the evil I am trying to warn you of is not excessive democracy, it is not excessive ugliness, it is not excessive anarchy. It might be stated thus: It is standardisation by a low standard.

~ Gilbert Keith Chesterton, “Culture and the Coming Peril” (lecture delivered at the University of London, reprinted in the “Chesterton Review,” Vol. 18, No. 2, August, 1992).