# II: The Tribal Terror explained — What’s Wrong with the World

> Chapter companion for What’s Wrong with the World by G. K. Chesterton.

## What happens

Chesterton critiques the modern obsession with heredity as a pseudo-scientific, barbaric notion that reduces human birth to mere mechanical combination. He argues that true science would recognize each birth as a unique, miraculous event, and that the hereditary idea, like tribal superstitions, is used timidly in practice and never for genuine prediction or legislation.

## Themes in this chapter

### The Medical Fallacy in Sociology

Chesterton attacks the application of hereditary determinism to human society, calling it a barbaric and unscientific notion that ignores the miraculous uniqueness of each birth.

### Tradition vs. Progress

He contrasts the ancient, tribal superstition of heredity with the Christian ideal of civilized freedom, suggesting that modern 'progress' is actually a return to savagery.

## Character check-ins

### Mr. Blatchford

Cited for his simplistic analogy of heredity as mixing blue and yellow beads, which Chesterton ridicules as ignoring the organic mystery of birth.

### Zola

Mentioned for his novel 'The Human Beast' as an example of the barbaric, superstitious treatment of heredity in modern literature.

### The English

Implied as the audience for popular science and the subject of the creeping return to savagery through realism and problem plays.

## Key lines

> Every birth is as lonely as a miracle. Every child is as uninvited as a monstrosity.

Each human birth is a unique, unpredictable event that cannot be reduced to simple hereditary formulas.

_Chesterton emphasizes the mystery and individuality of each new life, rejecting mechanistic views of heredity._

> The curse of Rougon-Macquart is as heathen and superstitious as the curse of Ravenswood; only not so well written.

Zola's hereditary saga is no more scientific than a Gothic novel's family curse, and is inferior in literary quality.

_He dismisses naturalist determinism as a modern superstition, no better than old legends._

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/what_s_wrong_with_the_world_se/chapters/ii-the-tribal-terror
- Book: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/what_s_wrong_with_the_world_se
- All chapters: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/what_s_wrong_with_the_world_se/chapters