I thought this was too good not to share. Here is an excerpt from pp. 69-72 of Reflections on the Psalms by C.S. Lewis:
“He had in fact been a strict socialist at Oxford. Everything ought to be run by the State; private enterprise and independent professions were for him the great evil. he then went away and became a schoolmaster. After about ten years of that he came to see me. he said his political views had been wholly reversed. You never heard a fuller recantation. He now saw that state interference was fatal. What had converted him was his experience as a schoolmaster of the Ministry of Education–a set of ignorant meddlers armed with insufferable powers to pester, hamper, and interrupt the work of real, practical teachers who knew the subjects they taught, who knew boys, parents, and all the real conditions of their work. It makes no difference to the point of the story whether you agree with his view of the Ministry; the important thing is that he held that view. For the real point fo the story, and of his visit, when it came, nearly took my breath away. Thinking thus, he had come to see whether I had any influence which might help him get a job in the Ministry of Education.
“Here is the perfect band-wagoner. Immediately on the decision ‘This is a revolting tyranny’, follows the question ‘How can I as quickly as possible cease to be one of the victims and become one of the tyrants?’ If I had been able to introduce the young man to someone in the Ministry, I think we may be sure that his manners to that hated ‘meddler’ would have been genial and friendly in the extreme. Thus someone who had heard his previous invective against the meddling and then witnessed his actual behaviour to the meddler, might possibly (for charity ‘believeth all things’) have concluded that this young man was full fo the purest Christianity and loved one he thought a sinner while hating what he thought his sin.
“Of course this is an instance of band-wagoning so crude and unabashed as to be farcical. Not many of us perhaps commit the like. But there are subtler, more social or intellecutal forms of band-wagoning which might deceive us. Many people have a very strong desire to meet celebrated or ‘important’ people, including those whom they disapprove, to talk or even (anyone may produce a book of reminscences) to write about. It is felt to confer distinction if the great, though odious, man recognizes you in the street. And where such motives are in play it is better still to know him quite well, to be intimate with him. It would be delightful if he shouted out ‘Hallo Bill’ while you were walking down the Strand with an impressionable country cousin. I don’t know that the desire it itself a very serious defect. But I am inclined to think a Christian would be wise to avoid, where he decently can, any meeting with people who are bullies, lascivious, cruel, dishonest, spiteful, and so forth.
“Not because we are ‘too good’ for them. In a sense because we are not good enough. We are not good enough to cope with all the temptations, nor clever enough to cope with all the problems, which an evening spent in such society produces. The temptation is to condone, to connive at; by our words, looks and laughter, to ‘consent’. The temptation was never greater than now when we are all (and very rightly so afraid of priggery or ‘smugness’. And of course, even if we do not seek them out, we shall constantly be in such company whether we wish it or not. This is the real and unavoidable difficulty.
We shall hear vile stories told as funny; not merely licentious stories but (to me far more serious and less noticed) stories which the teller could not be telling unless he was betraying someone’s confidence. We shall hear infamous detractions of the absent, often disguised as pity or humour. Things we hold sacred will be mocked. Cruelty will be slyly advocated by the assumption that its only opposite is ‘sentimentality’. The very presuppositions of any good life–all disinterested motives, all heroism, all genuine forgiveness–will be, not explicitly denied (for then the matter could be discussed), but assumed to be phantasmal, idiotic, believed in only by children.”
Cross-posted at The Beacon.
{ 17 comments }
I have a great concern when I see something like this, with typos and (more seriously) Americanisms like “recognizes” that are unlikely to have been in the original. That’s not because they are very important in themselves, but because they show there has been editing, some of it faulty but all of it unacknowledged. Since “he who is faithful in little is also faithful in much”, there is the serious possibility that something material has been edited. For instance, if a single sentence incidentally contained the word “negro” – quite possible in those days – it might simply have been cut, yet it might well have conveyed something important which we do not know is missing.
“We are not good enough to cope with all the temptations, nor clever enough to cope with all the problems, which an evening spent in such society produces. The temptation is to condone, to connive at; by our words, looks and laughter, to ‘consent’.â€
CS Lewis was a great thinker and writer. Thanks for sharing from the rich storehouse of his work, too many people think he only wrote fairy tales.
(cross-commented at The Beacon)
CS Lewis understood human nature better than any psychologist I have ever read. His “The Screwtape Letters” is the best study of human nature that exists.
“We are not good enough to cope with all the temptations, nor clever enough to cope with all the problems, which an evneing spent in such society produces.”
This is the main problem of politics. Political leaders depend on this human weakness. They reward freshmen with intimate meetings with the powerful and invite them to the most glamorous parties in order to encourage them to go along and get along. If you maintain your integrity, as have a few like Ron Paul, you are shunned, ignored and never invited to cocktail parties. Very few men have the character to stand alone like that.
I have a great concern when I see something like this, with typos and (more seriously) Americanisms like “recognizes”
“Recognizes” is not an Americanism. (I expect you think it should be “recognise”, which is a common error nowadays, but “-ize” is standard Oxford spelling…which Lewis, being an Oxford man, might be expected to use)
The typos have been fixed (my fault). I don’t have any reason to suspect foul play in the edition from which I was quoting.
Lewis is the one person I credit more than any other with the shaping of my philosophy and, although indirectly, bringing me to an appreciation of radical liberty.
Though he was in no way an economic or political commentator, I cannot help but share these other Lewis gems with Mises readers:
“My contention is that good men (not bad men) consistently acting upon that position would act as cruelly and unjustly as the greatest tyrants. They might in some respects act even worse. Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth. Their very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be ‘cured’ against one’s will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level with those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals. But to be punished, however severely, because we have deserved it, because we ‘ought to have known better’, is to be treated as a human person made in God’s image.”
And, my personal favorite:
“I am a democrat because I believe in the Fall of Man. I think most people are democrats for
the opposite reason. A great deal of democratic enthusiasm descends from the ideas of people
like Rousseau, who believed in democracy because they thought mankind so wise and good that
everyone deserved a share in the government. The danger of defending democracy on those
grounds is that they’re not true. And whenever their weakness is exposed, the people who prefer tyranny make capital out of the exposure. I find that they’re not true without looking further than myself. I don’t deserve a share in governing a hen-roost, much less a nation. Nor do most people—all the people who believe advertisements, and think in catchwords and spread rumours. The real reason for democracy is just the reverse. Mankind is so fallen that no man can be trusted with unchecked power over his fellows. Aristotle said that some people were only fit to be slaves. I do not contradict him. But I reject slavery because I see no men fit to be masters.”
The second quote is from the compilation of essays “Present Concerns”. I beleive the first is from “God in the Dock”.
I highly recommend reading the epilogue to “The Screwtape Letters” called “Screwtape Proposes a Toast”. It has some of the best insights on the poisonous ideas of equality and democracy.
I also recommend “The Abolition of Man”, a great treatise on education; and my all time favorite book, “The Great Divorce”.
IMM
Thanks for the quotes, Isaac. They are great!
Art & Isaac, thanks so much for the quotes from Lewis. excellent stuff.
Thanks Issac and Art. That was good – much appreciated.
No, Peter, it’s not an error to want “recognise”. The general rule in Britain is that -ize words derive from Greek and -ise words from Latin, but it is always safe to use -ise; even though there are indeed variant British uses too, and also many exceptions, using -ize for the latter (Latin) sort is still an Americanism (it’s irrelevant that others use it too, just as driving on the right is an American practice even though the French do it too). And, I was careful to note that it only made it likely to have been edited – I am aware of the British exceptions.
No, Peter, it’s not an error to want “recognise”
The error I was referring to isn’t the use of “recognise”, it’s thinking “recognise” is British and “recognize” American. The modern preference for -ise is quite recent.
but it is always safe to use -ise
[Which is why it's so common now: people are being told "don't bother to learn how to spell the words, that's too complicated; just use -ise all the time and be happy"]
[Oh, BTW, the -ise spelling comes from French, not Latin. Words that come in English directly from Latin get -ize, too]
But ‘…thinking “recognise” is British and “recognize” American’ isn’t an error, it’s a piece of evidence towards the classification. So, purely as part of a taxonomy, “recognize” indicates an Americanism. By that I don’t mean it’s wrong or that others wouldn’t use it, just that it’s something an American would use. That doesn’t imply that others don’t use it.
“…the -ise spelling comes from French, not Latin. Words that come in English directly from Latin get -ize, too”.
Certainly it reached English through French, as many Latin and Greek words did, and certainly (some) words that came from Latin have -ize; I simply gave the general pattern. If the word started out in Latin, it is usually the -ise variant, and if in Greek, -ize, but the -ise variant is safe, or at any rate safer. I suspect that this is partly because the alphabets are different and partly because many made their way through Latin too, but that is just speculation.
the archaic roman alphabet didn’t include “z”, added only after the conquest of greece in the first century b.c.
wow, i love language fights!
Yes; z (and y) were added to spell Greek words (though earlier Latin had used “d” where the Greeks used “z”…e.g., Deus, Latin for God == Greek Zeus); but the “ize” coming from Latin is also ultimately Greek in origin, too; it became “-iser” in French, which is where the deprecated (by the OED) English “-ise” spelling comes from.
That ‘”recognise” is British and “recognize” American’ is a (quite widely-held) belief which is, however, factually incorrect…how is that distinct from “an error”?
[There are words ending in "ise", where it isn't a suffix, that can't be spelled "-ize" but which are misspelled that way in American dictionaries, but this ain't one of 'em]
Certainly, but that wasn’t the point. An American would practically never have “recognise”, so (in the sense that I was using it just there), “recognize” is an Americanism. Finding it shifts the odds that there was editing for an American audience. It was a single piece of evidence, just like the presence of typos, that raised the level of uncertainty that the primary material had not been selected in other ways.
In fact, the words, ‘in fact’ are not contained in the first sentence, of the excerpt, of my edition of “Reflections On the Psalms”, Harvest Books, 1986. But I didn’t recognise any other errors, omissions or additions. Why did you add those words, Art Carden?
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