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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Saint C.S. Lewis?
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
All true, Enoch. I was just (for what little it was worth) giving my own subjective impression.
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
I think The Screwtape Letters do include the most appallingly sexist passage in the whole of Lewis. On the other hand, I think they also contain materials with which to criticise Lewis' sexism.
On the whole, I'm inclined to think that criticism of Lewis' sexism is overplayed. Certainly it makes awkward appearances throughout his work - it's one of the many flaws in the curate's egg that is That Hideous Strength. Still when it comes down to it, there are many things you can say about Narnia; but it is not guilty of the assumption that girls can't be the protagonists of stories. And in that regard I think Narnia is more feminist than, say, Harry Potter.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
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Alogon
Cabin boy emeritus
# 5513
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
sexism is... one of the many flaws in the curate's egg that is That Hideous Strength.
Would you like to go into more detail, Dafyd? You may be right, but I was never struck by sexism in this book so much as heterosexism. It is reminiscent in this respect of every novel by Charles Williams that I have seen (although not as bad).
But I forgive him, because it's otherwise one of my favorite Lewis books. In its description of an out-of-control corporate nightmare steeped in fraud and abuse of language, I think it has even more to say to us now than when it was written.
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ExclamationMark
Shipmate
# 14715
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eirenist:
Exclamation Mark, the Narnia books are not allegory, nor is the 'Sci-Fi trilogy', nor is 'Till We Have Faces'.
I'd be interested in what your reasons are here. Perhaps Lewis didn't claim he was writing allegory but few perhaps do make the admission as it seems to spoil the whole point of it.
Many others make the claims for him, and reading the books on my conversion in the 1970's (and with my children 10 years later), that's the place I got to with them. Theyt just seemed so transparently allegorical, so why bother?
It's all down I'm sure Tbh to my personal experience and prejudice.
I came and come at the books with a dislike for allegory as a literary device. It's true that I was already sceptical of smug, safe,middle class churches (and all the "stuff" that surroiunded them), when I did come to faith in the 1970's. Lewis's writings seemed to perpetuate that kind of world - a world I thought was changing or needed to be changed as it somehow passed by and failed to resonate with the real needs of the kind of people I lived with. Oxford Don to Cambridge Council Estate seemed an unbridgeable void.
Posts: 3845 | From: A new Jerusalem | Registered: Apr 2009
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Oscar the Grouch
Adopted Cascadian
# 1916
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Posted
I've recently read the entire series of Richard Hannay books, by John Buchan (to my shame, I've only recently discovered that "The Thirty Nine Steps" was just the first book in the series).
On the one hand, you can still read them as excellent adventure yarns (and books like "Greenmantle" and "Mr Steadfast" compare well with "39 Steps") - but you also have to read them as books written in a particular era which reflect the commmonly held opinions and prejudices of that era. So Hannay frequently expresses racist opinions that we would find unacceptable today. And even the (few) strong women in the stories tend to come over all girly and feeble whenever a man is in the room.
All this doesn't mean that you can't or shouldn't read the books - simply that you have to make allowances for the time it was written and read them with a discerning mind. I would suggest that the same be said for C.S. Lewis. He was a man of his time and his books should be read in that manner.
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Faradiu, dundeibáwa weyu lárigi weyu
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jacobsen
seeker
# 14998
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Alogon:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
sexism is... one of the many flaws in the curate's egg that is That Hideous Strength.
There is a good deal in the book about the female protagonist having rather humdrum academic ideas, and having lost her enthusiasm for writing her thesis/book on John Donne. Coupled with the explicit criticism of her having missed the due date for conceiving a child who should have solved the world's problems, the effect is very strongly of sexism. Lewis was quite hot on women's need for maternity. In I think The Screwtaper Letters Screwtape comments that having children is the only creativity women need. OK, the Devil is a liar! But that was certainly Lewis's attitude. Who knows what women who couldn't have children were supposed to do! Or why women are given gifts if they are not to use them... I suspect there is a dead horse in the offing here.
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But God, holding a candle, looks for all who wander, all who search. - Shifra Alon
Beauty fades, dumb is forever-Judge Judy
The man who made time, made plenty.
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the long ranger
Shipmate
# 17109
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Posted
I'm sorry to be a pedant, but you do realise, I hope that the term Curate's egg means that something which is so hopelessly tarnished as to be entirely useless for the original function?
In the original Punch cartoon, the Bishop notices that the curate's egg is bad and tells him. "Oh, no, my Lord," says the Curate, "I assure you that parts of it are excellent!"
The cartoon is titled "True Humility" and is generally thought to show how people of the time were inclined to paper over the cracks of truly awful situations by finding silly positives.
I also love the story (which may or may not be true) that the final issue of Punch had the cartoon with this label: "Bishop, this fucking egg is off!"
Anyway, to say that Lewis' work is a Curate's Egg is a polite way to say that it is fundamentally and irreconcilably flawed.
[ 06. September 2012, 07:28: Message edited by: the long ranger ]
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"..into the outer darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth,” “But Rabbi, how can this happen for those who have no teeth?”
"..If some have no teeth, then teeth will be provided.”
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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by the long ranger:
In the original Punch cartoon, the Bishop notices that the curate's egg is bad and tells him. "Oh, no, my Lord," says the Curate, "I assure you that parts of it are excellent!"
The cartoon is titled "True Humility" and is generally thought to show how people of the time were inclined to paper over the cracks of truly awful situations by finding silly positives.
I think that might be over-subtle. It's more obviously about diffidence of the inferior who wants to keep in with his boss - and possibly even then about the need some clergy feel always to be nice rather than truthful.
quote:
I also love the story (which may or may not be true) that the final issue of Punch had the cartoon with this label: "Bishop, this fucking egg is off!"
I hadn't heard that one. Nice thought.
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Laurelin
Shipmate
# 17211
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Robert Armin:
Narnia? And called Peter? I find it hard to see that as co-incidence (and I'm no advocate of the authority of the Pope).
I obviously read Narnia with my evangelical filters on. ![[Biased]](wink.gif)
This had honestly never occurred to me before. And I can see all kinds of other obvious parallels in Narnia, including the Anti-Christ and Judgement Day in The Last Battle!
If that's really the analogy Lewis was drawing, it surprises me. I've always known he tended towards Anglo-Catholicism (although he was never partisan about his churchmanship) but he and Tolkien once had a serious spat in which Tolkien accused Lewis of being anti-Catholic (although that might say more about Tolkien than Lewis!)
Perhaps it was a Freudian slip on Lewis's part, or something. Tolkien got all huffy about how patchworky Narnia is as an imaginary universe (in contrast to his meticulously imagined Arda). What do we make of Father Christmas turning up in 'The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe'? ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
Not that I care. ![[Smile]](smile.gif) I do prefer Middle-earth, but Narnia is still charming.
I've never read That Hideous Strength (keep planning to do so) but I have come across the sexist passages and they do make me go ![[Eek!]](eek.gif)
But Charles Dickens couldn't write women for toffee. And I still think he was a great writer. By the same token, there is much in Lewis that I love, and will always love.
I do love Perelandra - Lewis's imagination is just gorgeous - although the portrayal of Green Lady is, yes, tinged with sexism. But, IMO, he redeems his past sexism with his brilliant Till We Have Faces - his most mature work of imaginative fiction.
I agree that A Grief Observed is a powerful antidote to shallow triumphalism. I find it very harrowing to read, but it's a powerful and important book.
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"I fear that to me Siamese cats belong to the fauna of Mordor." J.R.R. Tolkien
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mdijon
Shipmate
# 8520
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Laurelin:
If that's really the analogy Lewis was drawing, it surprises me. I've always known he tended towards Anglo-Catholicism
I don't think having Peter as the founder of the Church is especially Anglo-Catholic. If Lewis had gone on with a story line about Peter's descendants assuming his authority there might be more to it.
quote:
Originally posted by Laurelin:
But Charles Dickens couldn't write women for toffee.
Nor Jews. But the social commentary remains powerful despite that.
There is a cringe-inducing analogy about a negro with shiny white teeth in Mere Christianity I find painful. But Lewis was a product of his time, as described above regarding women, and it was ignorance rather than malice.
I agree about a grief observed. It is not well-written by any classical standard, but it is harrowing reading and communicates powerfully.
[ 06. September 2012, 09:31: Message edited by: mdijon ]
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mdijon nojidm uoɿıqɯ ɯqıɿou
ɯqıɿou uoɿıqɯ nojidm mdijon
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Laurelin
Shipmate
# 17211
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
I don't think having Peter as the founder of the Church is especially Anglo-Catholic. If Lewis had gone on with a story line about Peter's descendants assuming his authority there might be more to it.
You are quite right, of course.
quote:
Nor Jews. But the social commentary remains powerful despite that.
I agree.
quote:
Lewis was a product of his time, as described above regarding women, and it was ignorance rather than malice.
Yup. As I said before, I think his reactionary views on women in general changed after his marriage to Joy (who, from all accounts, was hardly a shrinking violet).
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"I fear that to me Siamese cats belong to the fauna of Mordor." J.R.R. Tolkien
Posts: 545 | From: The Shire | Registered: Jul 2012
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Garasu
Shipmate
# 17152
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Laurelin:
[QUOTE]What do we make of Father Christmas turning up in 'The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe'?
Frankly: ![[Projectile]](graemlins/puke2.gif)
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"Could I believe in the doctrine without believing in the deity?". - Modesitt, L. E., Jr., 1943- Imager.
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Kaplan Corday
Shipmate
# 16119
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Laurelin:
(although that might say more about Tolkien than Lewis!)
Well, imitation is supposed to be the sincerest form of philately.
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Laurelin
Shipmate
# 17211
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Garasu:
quote:
Originally posted by Laurelin:
[QUOTE]What do we make of Father Christmas turning up in 'The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe'?
Frankly:
Fair enough, although that seems a somewhat harsh response to a book written to enchant eight year olds ...!
![[Paranoid]](graemlins/paranoid.gif)
I'm guessing you didn't see the 2005 movie then. My inner eight-year-old loved it.
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by Laurelin:
(although that might say more about Tolkien than Lewis!)
Well, imitation is supposed to be the sincerest form of philately.
I've always thought so. Although I didn't realise that Lewis and Tolkien were stamp collectors. ![[Angel]](graemlins/angel.gif)
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"I fear that to me Siamese cats belong to the fauna of Mordor." J.R.R. Tolkien
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Eirenist
Shipmate
# 13343
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Posted
EM, when I say the Narnia books, the Space Trilogy, etc are not allegories, I mean they are not works in which each and every character and object stands for some moral or theological quality. That is the case with The Pilgrim's Regress, which can hardly be understood unless you know something of Lewis' own spiritual journey. It is, if you like, Surprised by Joy written as an allegory - Lewis' Apologia Pro Vita Sua in the style of The Pilgrim's Progress. More, I think, a personal Apologia than a work of Christian apologetic.
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'I think I think, therefore I think I am'
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Moo
Ship's tough old bird
# 107
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Posted
I think Lewis's ideas about women were very strongly colored by his own life experiences.
His own mother died when he was ten. She was apparently an excellent mother; when Lewis talks about how important it is for a woman to be a mother, he was probably thinking of her.
Then after he took his Oxford degree, he lived for years with a woman who was the mother of one of his army buddies who was killed in France. This woman appears to have been remarkably silly, and Lewis's friends wondered how he could bear to live with her. Her daughter, who wasn't much better, also lived with them.
So he had these two experiences--the excellent mother, probably idealized after her death, and these two silly women he lived with in Oxford.
After his marriage, he changed somewhat, but not completely. In A Grief Observed he tells of a conversation with his wife. He told her she had the mind of a man. She asked whether he would like to be told that he had the mind of a woman. In his account he says that this was an excellent riposte, but the implications did not appear to have sunk in.
Moo
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Lothiriel
Shipmate
# 15561
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Laurelin:
But, IMO, he redeems his past sexism with his brilliant Till We Have Faces - his most mature work of imaginative fiction.
quote:
Originally posted by Laurelin:
Yup. As I said before, I think his reactionary views on women in general changed after his marriage to Joy (who, from all accounts, was hardly a shrinking violet).
It's worth pointing out that Joy helped him plan Till We Have Faces. That book, as well as The Horse and His Boy, reflect his acquaintance with Joy and his "new" understanding of how a feminine woman could be strong intellectually and morally.
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Laurelin
Shipmate
# 17211
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Posted
Oh, that's very interesting, Lothiriel. Thanks. Makes a lot of sense.
(He dedicated Till We Have Faces to Joy, didn't he? Don't have book on hand to check).
I am wondering how much of Orual is Joy.
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"I fear that to me Siamese cats belong to the fauna of Mordor." J.R.R. Tolkien
Posts: 545 | From: The Shire | Registered: Jul 2012
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by jacobsen:
There is a good deal in the book about the female protagonist having rather humdrum academic ideas, and having lost her enthusiasm for writing her thesis/book on John Donne.
The twentieth century enthusiasm for John Donne was another of Lewis' pet hates.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
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Alogon
Cabin boy emeritus
# 5513
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by jacobsen:
There is a good deal in the book about the female protagonist having rather humdrum academic ideas, and having lost her enthusiasm for writing her thesis/book on John Donne. Coupled with the explicit criticism of her having missed the due date for conceiving a child who should have solved the world's problems, the effect is very strongly of sexism. Lewis was quite hot on women's need for maternity.
As are quite a few feminists themselves nowadays, as I recall.
What stands out for me is how the novel, on the other hand, deflates male self-importance. Mark was a disgusting brownnose. His wife was a much better person than he was. Out of ambition (more lust for power and status than for money, although the latter certainly interested him too) he let himself be flattered, manipulated, tempted, and toyed with by the NICE, thinking that he was the cat's meow and headed on a fast track for the coveted Inner Circle of its administration. But they saw through him even before he was hired. His talents were mediocre and he was rather lazy to boot. In reality, the only reason they gave him the time of day was in order to get to her. She eluded their grasp because she was too principled, saw through them, and knew better.
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Patriarchy (n.): A belief in original sin unaccompanied by a belief in God.
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Invictus_88
Shipmate
# 15352
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Albertus:
No, not really. See what Enoch says, three or four posts up.
Oh, quite right then. Now I feel daft, but I suppose at least reality has come back to accord with my expectation again.
Posts: 206 | Registered: Dec 2009
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Stranger in a strange land
Shipmate
# 11922
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Robert Armin:
High King above all other Kings in Narnia? And called Peter? I find it hard to see that as co-incidence (and I'm no advocate of the authority of the Pope).
To me the clincher is Peter being given charge of the gates at the conclusion of 'The Last Battle'.
Having said that I'd never thought of Lewis as 'catholic'; MOTR at most.
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Laurelin
Shipmate
# 17211
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Stranger in a strange land:
Having said that I'd never thought of Lewis as 'catholic'; MOTR at most.
What is 'MOTR'? ![[Confused]](confused.gif)
Having lurked at SoF for a little while before posting, I thought I'd decoded all the acronyms! But I've yet to see this one explained.
I thought we'd established that Lewis was pretty much a High Churchy Anglican. He was never a Roman Catholic, as one mistaken fellow evangelical once tried to tell me. He refused to accept that his info was inaccurate!
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"I fear that to me Siamese cats belong to the fauna of Mordor." J.R.R. Tolkien
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the long ranger
Shipmate
# 17109
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Posted
Middle of the Road maybe? I think it refers generally to the parts of the Anglican church which are not Anglo-Catholic, not Charismatic, not Evangelical, not particularly Liberal.
All the bits that are left when you take out all those fractions
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"..into the outer darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth,” “But Rabbi, how can this happen for those who have no teeth?”
"..If some have no teeth, then teeth will be provided.”
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Laurelin
Shipmate
# 17211
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Posted
Ah, OK. Thanks.
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"I fear that to me Siamese cats belong to the fauna of Mordor." J.R.R. Tolkien
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Robert Armin
All licens'd fool
# 182
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Stranger in a strange land:
quote:
Originally posted by Robert Armin:
High King above all other Kings in Narnia? And called Peter? I find it hard to see that as co-incidence (and I'm no advocate of the authority of the Pope).
To me the clincher is Peter being given charge of the gates at the conclusion of 'The Last Battle'.
I'd missed that link - thank you.
And I'm always amazed when people rate Till We Have Faces as Lewis' finest. To me, it is the most boring thing he ever wrote. Then again, I'm often wrong.
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Keeping fit was an obsession with Fr Moity .... He did chin ups in the vestry, calisthenics in the pulpit, and had developed a series of Tai-Chi exercises to correspond with ritual movements of the Mass. The Antipope Robert Rankin
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Alogon
Cabin boy emeritus
# 5513
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Robert Armin:
I'm always amazed when people rate Till We Have Faces as Lewis' finest. To me, it is the most boring thing he ever wrote. Then again, I'm often wrong.
I agree, and Perelandra comes a close second, but many critics rate it very highly, too. You and I are just hopeless philistines.
I guess it's a situation like the two kinds of fans of Scriabin's piano music: a given aficionado tends to prefer either the odd-numbered or the even-numbered piano sonatas. Ne'er shall the twain meet.
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Patriarchy (n.): A belief in original sin unaccompanied by a belief in God.
Posts: 7808 | From: West Chester PA | Registered: Feb 2004
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Robert Armin:
And I'm always amazed when people rate Till We Have Faces as Lewis' finest. To me, it is the most boring thing he ever wrote. Then again, I'm often wrong.
Some people don't dig subtle and thoughtful. People who prefer car crash movies to classic literature, for instance. Perhaps you are one of those?
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Arethosemyfeet
Shipmate
# 17047
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
quote:
Originally posted by Laurelin:
If that's really the analogy Lewis was drawing, it surprises me. I've always known he tended towards Anglo-Catholicism
I don't think having Peter as the founder of the Church is especially Anglo-Catholic. If Lewis had gone on with a story line about Peter's descendants assuming his authority there might be more to it.
It does place him at least toward the Catholic end, as the determined protestants I've encountered have always claimed that Jesus refers to himself as the rock upon which the church will be built, which seemed to be reaching a bit to me.
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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
Trying hard to see the world as Lewis would have seen it in his time, and remembering some of what he said about the churchmanship foibles of his day, I think MOTR is a more reliable guess.
I don't think he'd have wanted to be associated with any of the three more self-identifying factions in the CofE, as they were in his day.
He clearly did not reckon much to what I've described above as 'apostate and semi-apostate clergy', i.e. liberals as they were between 1920 and 1940.
Nor, as they were in that period, were the self-identifying anglo-catholics nor evangelicals very appealing. The one, with its Anglo-Catholic Congresses, thought it was on the brink of a great catholic revival but 'presented' as people who think Lowther Clark explained the basics of all that was needful to be a good priest. The other would have appeared less concerned with saving faith and more with the sort of regulation of society associated with Joynson Hicks as Home Secretary. Both were firmly convinced that God was as obsessed as they were with the technicalities of what clergy wore, what they did with their hands at Holy Communion, whether their interpolations into the liturgy were necessary or illegal and arguments for and against the 1928 Book.
I also doubt that calling one of the children Peter has any significance at all. It only would have, if one could identify comparable significances in the names of the others.
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Kaplan Corday
Shipmate
# 16119
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Robert Armin:
And I'm always amazed when people rate Till We Have Faces as Lewis' finest. To me, it is the most boring thing he ever wrote. Then again, I'm often wrong.
Some people don't dig subtle and thoughtful. People who prefer car crash movies to classic literature, for instance. Perhaps you are one of those?
Me too - I'm with LC on this one.
I think it's the only Lewis book I have ever had to force myself to finish.
Of course, all authors have their off days.
Despite my veneration for Evelyn Waugh, I threw Brideshead Revisited away after a few pages, not only because it was boring, but because it was ineffably silly.
It was reassuring to learn that Malcolm Muggeridge, another Waugh admirer, also found it unreadable.
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Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
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Posted
Even Shakespeare nods. Every time I see or read Two Gentlemen of Verona I want to slap him. Not a bearable character in the lot.
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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
Posts: 20059 | From: off in left field somewhere | Registered: Feb 2004
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Moo
Ship's tough old bird
# 107
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Posted
In Mere Christianity Lewis said that many people come to Christianity without coming to a particular denomination. He advised such people to wait patiently until it was clear to them which church was right for them.
Moo
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Posts: 20365 | From: Alleghany Mountains of Virginia | Registered: May 2001
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Lothiriel
Shipmate
# 15561
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
Despite my veneration for Evelyn Waugh, I threw Brideshead Revisited away after a few pages, not only because it was boring, but because it was ineffably silly.
Lewis didn't like BR, either. I don't know how he felt about Waugh in general.
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If you want to build a ship, don't drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea. St-Exupery
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snowgoose
Silly goose
# 4394
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
Some people don't dig subtle and thoughtful. People who prefer car crash movies to classic literature, for instance. Perhaps you are one of those?
Some people just don't like the book. Including me. It doesn't mean I do not like things that are "subtle and thoughtful", it means my taste is not the same as yours. I would certainly not put Till We Have Faces in the category of Classic Literature. Just my opinion.
FWIW, though it is not what the thread is about, I do strongly recommend his The Discarded Image for anyone interested in medieval Literature or who just wants to understand how folks in medieval Europe saw their world.
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Posts: 3868 | From: Tidewater Virginia | Registered: Apr 2003
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Ariel
Shipmate
# 58
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
I suppose I must be. The only more boring Lewis I can think of is The Pilgrim's Regress.
I really liked "Till We Have Faces". The Perelandra stuff, on the other hand, is something I can definitely live without. I re-read them a few years ago to see if I still thought the same, but they'll never be on my top reading list.
I have a book somewhere of his short stories which contains "The Dark Tower", an unfinished novel which is a fascinating read. I can't help wondering, though, whether it would be quite as gripping if he had finished it and the reader was no longer free to speculate on how it might turn out.
Posts: 25445 | Registered: May 2001
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ChastMastr
Shipmate
# 716
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Lothiriel:
But those evangelicals (again, speaking of the ones I know) who know his apologetics and other writings, such as the space trilogy, appreciate his political conservatism as much as they do his theological stance.
Wow. Irony. The stuff I see in the Space Trilogy (and in many of his other works) in many ways goes against a lot of modern US political conservatism. (I know what you mean, though. I've known people who seem to have just glossed over that stuff the same way they do his drinking and smoking...)
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My essays on comics continuity: http://chastmastr.tumblr.com/tagged/continuity
Posts: 14068 | From: Clearwater, Florida | Registered: Jul 2001
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ChastMastr
Shipmate
# 716
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Posted
Re the canonization of Jack:
I love Lewis. He's arguably the Earthly person who did more to convert me to Christianity than any other. I actually like many passages that many other people dislike.
And, therefore, I think his own words should be considered in this matter.
...
And, crap, I can't find the quote right now online, but it goes something like being glad there isn't a scheme for canonization in the Church of England, because it would be such a hotbed of conflict. Can anyone else find this thing? I think it was in Letters to an American Lady or the like. As it's 1:45 am now I have to go make a very, very, very late dinner, so I can't keep digging... ![[Frown]](frown.gif)
...
Dug through L.t.a.A.L. with no luck. Maybe other letters. :/ Re that book, though, regarding conservativism in politics, I did run across this:
"What you have gone through begins to reconcile me to our Welfare State of which I have said so many hard things. “National Health Service” with free treatment for all has its drawbacks . . . But it is better than leaving people to sink or swim on their own resources."
and
"I am sorry to hear of the acute pain and the various other troubles. It makes me unsay all I have ever said against our English “Welfare State”, which at least provides free medical treatment for all."
Anyway, since Jack didn't seem to want there to be a setup for canonization in the C of E, then it seems to me that canonizing him would not be very kind to him. I don't recall it being about canonization in itself, but the whole probability of the conflict and dissension which would result. (Personally, I'm not terribly fond of the quasi-canonization of people in some of the texts mentioned in the thread when I've encountered it, even though they may have been very saintly people.)
(Can someone find that quote? I know it exists!)
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My essays on comics continuity: http://chastmastr.tumblr.com/tagged/continuity
Posts: 14068 | From: Clearwater, Florida | Registered: Jul 2001
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Lothiriel
Shipmate
# 15561
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ChastMastr:
quote:
Originally posted by Lothiriel:
But those evangelicals (again, speaking of the ones I know) who know his apologetics and other writings, such as the space trilogy, appreciate his political conservatism as much as they do his theological stance.
Wow. Irony. The stuff I see in the Space Trilogy (and in many of his other works) in many ways goes against a lot of modern US political conservatism. (I know what you mean, though. I've known people who seem to have just glossed over that stuff the same way they do his drinking and smoking...)
Several times in different ways he expressed his horror of socialist collectivism. Some of this comes through in That Hideous Strength.
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If you want to build a ship, don't drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea. St-Exupery
my blog
Posts: 538 | From: Toronto, Canada | Registered: Mar 2010
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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Lothiriel:
quote:
Originally posted by ChastMastr:
quote:
Originally posted by Lothiriel:
But those evangelicals (again, speaking of the ones I know) who know his apologetics and other writings, such as the space trilogy, appreciate his political conservatism as much as they do his theological stance.
Wow. Irony. The stuff I see in the Space Trilogy (and in many of his other works) in many ways goes against a lot of modern US political conservatism. (I know what you mean, though. I've known people who seem to have just glossed over that stuff the same way they do his drinking and smoking...)
Several times in different ways he expressed his horror of socialist collectivism. Some of this comes through in That Hideous Strength.
Not sure I can follow this. I have a horror of socialist collectivism, but I also have a horror of modern US political conservatism as it appears from over here.
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Brexit wrexit - Sir Graham Watson
Posts: 7610 | From: Bristol UK(was European Green Capital 2015, now Ljubljana) | Registered: Nov 2008
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
By "socialist collectivism" I assume you mean "working together for a common goal"?
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Lothiriel
Shipmate
# 15561
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
By "socialist collectivism" I assume you mean "working together for a common goal"?
I don't know if you're asking me or Enoch, but what I meant by the phrase, in relation to Lewis's apparent stance, is collectivism forced upon unwilling or unaware participants. He talks somewhere (and I wish all my books weren't packed away for a move) about the mistaken belief in totaliarian regimes that the state is more important than individuals. And in That Hideous Strength, you see the collectivism in NICE, supported by a hoodwinked government, trampling over individuals in the name of a "greater good."
But I think where some conservatives err in reading Lewis is thinking that because he doesn't like totalitarianism that he is a complete individualist. I think it's in Mere Christianity that he says that a Christian must be neither a totalitarian nor an individualist -- there is need to work together on common goals.
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If you want to build a ship, don't drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea. St-Exupery
my blog
Posts: 538 | From: Toronto, Canada | Registered: Mar 2010
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Kaplan Corday
Shipmate
# 16119
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
By "socialist collectivism" I assume you mean "working together for a common goal"?
Obviously.
The term has never been used to refer to anything else.
Has it?
Posts: 3355 | Registered: Jan 2011
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ChastMastr
Shipmate
# 716
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
I have a horror of socialist collectivism, but I also have a horror of modern US political conservatism as it appears from over here.
And in 1954, Jack said, "As for [Joseph] McCarthy I never met anyone, American or English, who did not speak of him with horror. A very intelligent American pupil said "He is our potential Hitler"."
I cannot imagine he would approve of the terrifying direction politics has taken on the right currently.
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Posts: 14068 | From: Clearwater, Florida | Registered: Jul 2001
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Kaplan Corday
Shipmate
# 16119
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ChastMastr:
A very intelligent American pupil said "He is our potential Hitler"."
Intelligent?
Sounds more like hysterical, mindless, adolescent hyperbole.
It is possible to despise McCarthy, while at the same time recognising that his power was illusory, as demonstrated by his abrupt collapse once he took on the allegedly "fascist" Army, and that the function of the endless invocation of "McCarthyism" is to distract attention from the radical chic veneration by far too many "liberals" from the 1930s to the 1950s of the infinitely worse Stalinism.
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ChastMastr
Shipmate
# 716
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Posted
It wasn't illusory for the people McCarthy viciously attacked. "No decency," indeed.
(Of course, the point here is not whether the pupil was correct in hindsight about McCarthy's potential power, but that Lewis was not the kind of conservative some people might claim.)
[ 10. September 2012, 08:42: Message edited by: ChastMastr ]
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My essays on comics continuity: http://chastmastr.tumblr.com/tagged/continuity
Posts: 14068 | From: Clearwater, Florida | Registered: Jul 2001
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Lothiriel
Shipmate
# 15561
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ChastMastr:
quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
I have a horror of socialist collectivism, but I also have a horror of modern US political conservatism as it appears from over here.
And in 1954, Jack said, "As for [Joseph] McCarthy I never met anyone, American or English, who did not speak of him with horror. A very intelligent American pupil said "He is our potential Hitler"."
I cannot imagine he would approve of the terrifying direction politics has taken on the right currently.
Nor can I. Lewis's conservativism was mild compared to that of some current-day right-wingers I know who mistakenly imagine that he would agree with them.
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If you want to build a ship, don't drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea. St-Exupery
my blog
Posts: 538 | From: Toronto, Canada | Registered: Mar 2010
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
the function of the endless invocation of "McCarthyism" is to distract attention from the radical chic veneration by far too many "liberals" from the 1930s to the 1950s of the infinitely worse Stalinism.
The function of the endless invocation of Stalinism in the 1930s to 1950s is to distract attention from what the heirs of McCarthy are doing now.
The 1950s are over. They were over half a century ago. I'm pretty sure, Kaplan Corday, that you weren't even alive in the 1950s. You do not genuinely care about whom liberals were venerating in the 1950s. Nobody alive today genuinely cares whom liberals were venerating in the 1950s. What people care about today is the fact that Obama's minimal health care reforms are making a tiny dent in the profits of the insurance industry; and the insurance industry think they can solve this by duping people into terror at the prospect of Uncle Joe and his tanks.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
It is possible to despise McCarthy, while at the same time recognising that his power was illusory
Bullfuckingshit. His power destroyed many a career. That he wasn't omnipotent doesn't prove his power was illusory.
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