Devoted to a Drivelling Dissipation

Today's quote from Chesterton Day by Day is another bit on the comradeship of men (see my previous post "Man Night"):

JUNE 20th

THERE are two very curious things which the critic of life may observe. The first is the fact that there is one real difference between men and women: that women prefer to talk in two's, while men prefer to talk in three's. The second is that when you find (as you often do) three young cads and idiots going about together and getting drunk together every day, you generally find that one of the three cads and idiots is (for some extraordinary reason) not a cad and not an idiot. In those small groups devoted to a drivelling dissipation there is almost always one man who seems to have condescended to his company: one man who, while he can talk a foul triviality with his fellows, can also talk politics with a Socialist, or philosophy with a Catholic.

G.K. Chesterton in Tremendous Trifles

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Man Night

My friend, Marcel, is a proponent of what he calls "Man Night". On these nights we can gather, with no gurlz alowd, in a backyard or a bowling alley. We can get a bit loud and need not pay excessive attention to manners. Throughout the night, with beverages and games for a framework, there is plenty of conversation.

Chesterton wrote about the Man Night in What's Wrong with the World, though he referred to it as comradeship: "No one has even begun to understand comradeship who does not accept with it a certain hearty eagerness in eating, drinking, or smoking, an uproarious materialism which to many women appears only hoggish. You may call the thing an orgy or a sacrament; it is certainly an essential."

And again, in response to a woman asking why should not there be this comradeship between the sexes, G.K. wrote: "Because if I were to treat you for two minutes like a comrade you would turn me out of the house."

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Marcel is burdened with a Masters degree in theology, and he is a director of campus ministry at St Mary's next to Texas A&M University. He writes a high-quality blog called Aggie Catholics. After a few more Man Nights I'm sure we'll be seeing him quote Chesterton and Belloc over there.

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