Week 5: Chapter V — The Flag of the World

1.Chesterton rejects both optimism and pessimism as frameworks for relating to the world. He says the optimist says "My cosmos, right or wrong," while the pessimist has no loyalty to the world at all. What is wrong with each position? What is he proposing instead?

2.He uses the analogy of patriotism: a patriot doesn't love his country because it is good — he loves it because it is his, and that prior loyalty is what motivates reform. "Men did not love Rome because she was great. She was great because they had loved her." How does this apply to your own relationship with the world, with the church, with your family?

3.The famous Pimlico passage argues that if someone truly loved Pimlico — arbitrarily, as a mother loves a child — Pimlico would become as fair as Florence. What is the difference between loving something for reasons and loving it without reasons? Which kind of love is more transformative, and why?