Four Stupidities by G.K. Chesterton — Read

I have just seen a newspaper paragraph which, whether it refers to a fact or merely a suggestion, seems to me to go down pretty well into that depth of mindlessness which calls itself the modern mind. It is said that influence is being brought to bear on the American Government to induce them to break a bottle of water instead of a bottle of champagne when they christen a battleship. Now it is not easy to deal adequately with the rich stupidity of that. It is about five follies thick, stupidity obscuring stupidity until one reader can hardly see more than one of the jokes at a time. There is something almost fascinating in the idea of trying to disentangle them.

First Stupidity. Note the notion that there is something so intrinsically and supernaturally evil about an intoxicant that the pure temperance man will not touch it even when it cannot intoxicate anybody. It is as if a man were to insist on having a teetotal boot-polish or a teetotal printing-ink. A cup of tea, or even of hot milk, becomes diabolic if you have boiled the kettle with methylated spirit. Eau-de-Cologne is a blackguard indulgence, though you use it only to scent your handkerchief. A liquor containing alcohol (such as ginger-beer) is simply and superstitiously an accursed thing, which is not only not to be touched with the lips, but not to be touched with the hands. After this case, the more intemperate "Temperance" people cannot pretend any longer that their proposal is merely a social reform; it is obviously and literally a mystical taboo.