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Uncommon Sense

Uncommon Sense

By: Society of GK Chesterton
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The Podcast of the Society of GKC, where we talk about everything, and everything else, with a Chestertonian perspective. The podcast is hosted by Grettelyn Darkey and Albert Saenz. Want to give us feedback? Email uncommonsense@chesterton.orgSociety of G.K. Chesterton (297168) Spirituality
Episodes
  • What G.K. Chesterton Knew About Technology That Took Science 15 Years to Prove

    What G.K. Chesterton Knew About Technology That Took Science 15 Years to Prove
    Jun 2 2026
    G.K. Chesterton once observed that after learning to do a great many clever things, the next great task would be learning not to do them. That line, from an early essay on Queen Victoria, has taken on new force as American schools reverse decades of tech-first policies—test scores and students' mental health alike in decline. In this episode, Joe and Grettelyn trace the screen crisis back to first principles, exploring how Chesterton's warnings against educational fads, his conviction that machines make us like machines, and his insistence that a thing worth doing is worth doing badly all speak directly to what Jonathan Haidt's data is now confirming. In This Episode: The G.K. Chesterton quote from Varied Types that frames the whole conversation—and why his intuition about educational tinkering was more than a hunchHow the Chesterton Schools Network's longstanding tech-light philosophy has been vindicated by over 15 years of data, a UNESCO report, and the Fortune magazine story that started this episodeWhat Chesterton's insight about machines making us like machines explains about the neuroscience of distraction—and why phone-free classrooms alone aren't enoughWhy G.K. Chesterton's principle that a thing worth doing is worth doing badly is the most important counter-argument to AI in education and the arts Practical steps for parents: building social pacts with other families, the case for delaying smartphones, and the Chesterton Schools Network as a proven alternative Chapters: 00:00: Welcome and Introduction 01:15: The Chesterton Schools Network's Tech-Light Philosophy 03:38: G.K. Chesterton on Learning Not to Do Clever Things 05:42: Jonathan Haidt and the Books Behind the Movement 09:06: UNESCO's Findings on Technology and Learning 13:35: How Devices Short-Circuit Attention and Memory 19:47: Embodied Learning—Handwriting, Doodling, and What Screens Miss 28:21: Schools Reversing Course: The Fortune Magazine Story 35:11: A Thing Worth Doing Badly: Chesterton vs. AI 44:13: Practical Steps for Parents and a Path Forward Resources Mentioned: Varied Types — G.K. Chesterton The Anxious Generation — Jonathan Haidt The Coddling of the American Mind — Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt Anxious Generation Action Resources Chesterton Schools Network FOLLOW US: Instagram Facebook X SUPPORT: Donate Shop Produced by Saint Kolbe Studios
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    53 mins
  • The Edwardian Socrates: G.K. Chesterton as Philosopher

    The Edwardian Socrates: G.K. Chesterton as Philosopher
    May 26 2026
    Landon Loftin, editor of Chesterton and the Philosophers and a speaker at this summer's Chesterton Conference, joins Joe Grabowski to discuss the first book to put G.K. Chesterton in direct conversation with figures of the Western philosophical tradition. Together they trace how G.K. Chesterton's literary and journalistic genius concealed a rigorous philosophical mind that professional academia has been slow to recognize—and why that neglect says more about the academy than about Chesterton. In This Episode: How a peer-reviewed journal's rejection of an essay on G.K. Chesterton and Hume sparked the idea for an entire edited volumeWhy G.K. Chesterton's best philosophical arguments are embedded in fiction and journalism rather than technical prose, and why that's a compliment to him, not a liabilityThe essay on Chesterton and Aristotle, and how G.K. Chesterton understood virtue as a furious clash of opposites rather than a mild Aristotelian meanG.K. Chesterton's distinctive philosophical method: taking thinkers like Hume and William James more seriously than they took themselves, thereby dismantling their own argumentsA preview of Loftin's Chesterton Conference talk on G.K. Chesterton as "the Edwardian Socrates," and what that comparison reveals about philosophy as a vocation versus a profession Chapters: 00:00: Introduction 00:26: Welcome and introducing Landon Loftin 01:25: Loftin's background: teaching, Owen Barfield, and G.K. Chesterton 03:03: Chesterton and the Philosophers: overview and contributors 04:43: Origin of the book: the rejected Hume essay 08:13: Book structure and Joe's essay on Chesterton and Kierkegaard 14:20: Chesterton and Aristotle: virtue as furious clash of opposites 18:30: G.K. Chesterton's philosophical method: out-Huming Hume 24:46: G.K. Chesterton as defender of philosophy 30:35: G.K. Chesterton's model of disagreement: furious friendship 33:52: Conference preview: "The Edwardian Socrates" Resources Mentioned: Chesterton and the Philosophers, ed. Landon Loftin (Wipf & Stock) 2026 Chesterton Conference — "The Outline of Sanity," June 25–27, Ave Maria, FL FOLLOW US Instagram Facebook X SUPPORT Donate Shop Produced by Saint Kolbe Studios
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    37 mins
  • How Frances Chesterton Found Her Way to Rome

    How Frances Chesterton Found Her Way to Rome
    May 19 2026
    One hundred years ago, Frances Chesterton quietly entered the Catholic Church on All Saints Day—the feast she chose for herself. In this episode, Grettelyn and Joe sit down with Nancy Carpentier Brown, author of The Woman Who Was Chesterton, to explore Frances's spiritual journey ahead of Nancy's talk at the 2026 Chesterton Conference. In This Episode: How Frances Blogg became a devout Anglican through the Clewer Sisters at St. Stephen's College—and why that formation made her path to Rome harder, not easierThe branch theory, and why Frances's emotional attachment to Anglicanism was every bit as powerful as G.K.'s intellectual arguments for Catholicism Gilbert's extraordinary patience: four years of waiting, never pressuring Frances—and how the Chestertons' story mirrors that of Scott and Kimberly HahnThe pivotal moments behind G.K.'s 1922 conversion: his near-death illness, Frances's anguished letter to Father O'Connor, and the death of his father Frances's reception into the Church on All Saints Day, 1926—quiet, discreet, in High Wycombe with Father Walker—and the New York Times headline that followed a week later Chapters: 00:00: Introduction & Welcome 01:00: Why 2026? The Year of Frances and St. Francis 03:24: G.K.'s Spiritual Formation Before They Met 06:29: Frances's Faith Journey and the Clewer Sisters 09:08: What Held Frances Back: Branch Theory and the Heart 13:22: G.K.'s Illness and Frances's Letter to Father O'Connor 16:27: G.K.'s Father, Cecil, and the Decision to Convert 20:09: Mutual Spiritual Freedom: Neither Held the Other Back 24:42: All Saints Day, 1926: Frances Enters the Church 30:00: Conference Preview and Closing Thoughts Resources Mentioned: The Woman Who Was Chesterton by Nancy Carpentier Brown 2026 Chesterton Conference Orthodoxy by G.K. Chesterton Rome Sweet Home by Scott and Kimberly Hahn FOLLOW US: Instagram Facebook X SUPPORT: Donate Shop Produced by Saint Kolbe Studios
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    33 mins
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