Faith | Janie B. Cheaney

September 8, 2017September 16, 2021

Schrodinger’s Baby

James Franco may be a little weird (for lack of a better word), but I like that he has wide-ranging interests, like philosophy. In his short-lived YouTube series, Philosophy Time, he and Eliot Michaelson talked deep with various academics. This video of their interview with Princeton Professor Liz Harmon was making the rounds four years ago, but it’s worth another look:

Did that go by too quickly? Here’s Prof. Harmon’s argument (if you want to call it that) in her words with paraphrases. The italicized responses are mine, but James and I seemed to be thinking along the same lines at times.

Harmon: Some of our terminology when talking about abortion suggests it’s, like, always sad to end a life, even if you, like, feel you have to. But nah, not really. “. . . what I think is that among early fetuses, there are two different kinds of beings,” and one has moral status (i.e., a right to keep living) while one does not. “Your future as a person defines your moral status.”

Uh . . . okay. But what if you, Dr. Harmon, had been aborted as a, whaddayacallit, “early fetus”?

Harmon: Not a relevant question. Because I’m here.

But, isn’t that kind of 20/20 hindsight? I mean, like, what makes the difference between this nice garden spot we’re talking in here and the medical waste bin behind a Planned Parenthood clinic (where you might have ended up if you didn’t have a future)?

Harmon: What makes the difference is “that [a woman’s] intentions negates the moral status of that early fetus.” If she decides to have the abortion, that is.

So . . . what you’re saying is, the abortion is permissible because you had it, but it wouldn’t have been permissible if you hadn’t had it. [At this point, circular arrows are superimposed on the screen, indicating what kind of argument it is.]

The professor tries to clarify: “If your mother had chosen to abort her pregnancy—”

Whoa, mama! I mean, literally: are you sure you want to use the word “mother”?

“—then that wouldn’t have been the case, that you had moral status . . .”

(My head is starting to hurt)

Harmon: “. . . You would have had this very short existence in which you wouldn’t have mattered morally.”

Speaking of “morally” . . . .

(By now the guys look politely confused, as if they had finally given in to their wives’ demands to stop and ask for directions, and Prof. Harmon was the first passer-by they stopped to ask. (Just wait until they roll up the car window again—the wives are going to get an earful.)

__________________________________________________________

You have to be pretty clever to keep with this argument. It’s not rocket science; it’s quantum physics. Just as a particle can be there and not there, a developing human being in the womb—what the professor calls an early fetus and a doting grandma calls a baby—is endowed and not endowed with moral status. Just as the figurative cat in the box was presumed to be alive or not-alive on the whim of a single particle, the early fetus (or possibly even late fetus) is futured or unfutured, depending on the thought processes of someone who is not him or her.

The elephant in the room is the being in the womb—not a thought experiment, like Schrodinger’s live-and-dead Cat, but a real biological phenomena. The DNA identify it as a human: more than that, a distinct human, with sex and hair color and fingerprints already determined. Figments of the imagination can disappear without consequence, but 58 million aborted human souls (more or less, since Roe v. Wade) add up in unforeseen consequences of guilt, carelessness, sexual irresponsibility, and general devaluation. The subterranean effects of legal abortion are impossible to measure, but don’t be fooled: they exist. And one consequence is irrational rationalization like this.

September 5, 2017December 25, 2017

Bible Challenge Week One: The Setting

(Today we begin a series of posts about the “whole story” of the Bible. I plan to run one every week, on Tuesdays, with a printable PDF. The printable includes a brief 2-3 paragraph introduction, Bible passages to read, a key verse, 5-7 thought/discussion questions, and 2-3 activities for the kids.)

Every story has certain elements in order to be a story. We often think of characters first–somebody has to act in the story, and there’s usually a hero, or protagonist. Usually, though not always, there’s also an adversary, or antagonist. And then, of course, something has to happen. Some kind of problem develops, or a conflict arises, that the hero has to solve or resolve. The plot develops around this conflict and resolution, working its way to a climax.

But there’s another story element that we often overlook, and that’s the setting. In some contemporary stories, the setting is not especially consequential: it could be any modern city, or Midwestern small town. But in historical fiction, or science fiction, or regional fiction, the setting leans in, shaping a plot that couldn’t take place anywhere else, or in any other time. (I wrote about the importance of setting in great westerns on my other website.)

The Bible story also starts with setting: the heavens and the earth. We often pass over it in order to get to characters and plot, but for this week, let’s linger and think about what the setting means for this particular story. What meaning is packed into the very first sentence of the world’s greatest story?

Here’s the download for our first week:

Bible Reading Challenge, Week One: The Setting

I neglected to add a Key Verse to the download, so I’ll put it here: Genesis 1:31–

And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good.

Next: Week Two: The Problem – Rebellion

September 2, 2017

Power & Light

Time hurtles on. We swoop through space on our little teeming rock, already forgetting the news that was everywhere two weeks ago. Just two weeks ago . . .

Campers and vans were already clogging two-lane roads in Oregon and hysterical headlines were predicting traffic nightmares in Nashville and St. Joe MO. But when Monday arrived we were on the road by 8:30 a.m. and encountered no complications on the two-hour to the “path of totality.” After reaching the mid-size Midwestern town of our destination we found a city park, stretched out legs, watched the kids run around the playground, spread our blankets for a picnic and kept an eye on the sky.

I don’t need to describe a total eclipse of the sun: enough has been written already. To me, it was both greater and less than anticipated. I expected darkness but it was more like a bright moonlight or even a very heavy cloud cover (like before a tornado—I’ve seen that too). I expected more stars, but we only saw Venus (I think) glowing wanly as though embarrassed to be waking up so early. Totality was indeed spectacular: when the round disk of the moon slipped over the sun a gasp went around the park and a cry went up, as though we were cheering some great accomplishment. Which was true enough. The sun was suddenly, indescribably, a void—a hole in the sky surrounded by a writhing circle of subtly-colored rays, like nothing ever seen in all creation.

All the more astonishing when compared to only a few moments before. We’re so accustomed to the sun: glorying in it after a long winter, sweltering under it during a long summer; joyfully welcoming it after days of rain, desperately wishing it would hide its face after weeks of drought. But I never really appreciated the power of the sun until I watched it whittled down to almost nothing: a sliver, 5% or less of surface exposed. And still as bright as day, forbidding as death, fully capable of singeing your eyeballs. All its power present in every part or portion of it: if it could be cut in pieces, every piece would burn just as bright as the whole.

St. Francis addressed it as Brother Sun, bringing the flaming chariot of the gods down to human level. And he wasn’t wrong. Our immortal souls will outlast that ball of gas in the new heavens and new earth, where God Himself is our Light. But it doesn’t do to get too cocky. If the sun is a brother creature, he’s a big BIG brother, bending us under an elbow one minute and affectionately tousling our little heads the next, for the rest of our earthly lives.

Less than a week later, the sun hid its face from the Texas coast and thousands of people had their lives dramatically changed. Anyone I know? Not personally, but friends of relatives and relatives of friends. The stately dance of the heavens is forgotten when calamity strikes close to home—down here where wind and clouds stomp around like rowdy kids. Nobody was looking up (certainly not with NASA-approved paper glasses) except to pray desperately for the rain to stop. Disaster usually comes from the sky, where the storehouses of wind (Ps. 135:7) and precipitation (Job 38:22) occasionally bust open and let us have it. All for a reason, say the faithful. No reason at all, just blind lunacy, say the skeptics. To both sides, it’s proof of whatever they already believe.

As for me, I believe in Power. And Light. Specifically, I believe they have a Name, and that Name knows my name, and because of it I can lie down in safety.

August 29, 2017December 25, 2017

What’s the Bible All About?

I was raised in a denomination that took the Bible very seriously: “We speak where the Bible speaks, and are silent where the Bible is silent!” In many ways, it was a great advantage, because I had quite a bit of knowledge by the time I graduated high school graduation: not only could I name all 66 books by sixth grade, but I could also sketch the life of Jesus, Paul’s missionary journeys, the kings of united Israel and major kings Israel and Judah, the miracles of Elisha, the plagues of Egypt , and the sons of Jacob. Name the twelve apostles? No problem. Find Jerusalem, Samaria, and the Sea of Galilee on a map? I could draw the map.

But I didn’t really know what the Bible was about. I would have said it was about a lot of things—mostly Jesus, right? I didn’t see how it all held together. My first glimmer of the unity of scripture came during my sophomore year in a denominational college, in a course called “Old Testament Literature.” My professor was known for choking up in class. A lot of my fellow students were embarrassed by him, but I will always be grateful for the way he pushed me down the road to salvation.

I can’t go into all the insights and convictions of that pivotal class, but the light first came on when he mentioned the two trees. Skimming over Genesis, he paused to point out the description of the garden in Genesis 2. The Tree of Life at the center usually gets little notice, because of all the snaky glamour of that other tree, but he referred us to Revelation 22:2: “on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.” I don’t remember whether he implied it or said it, but the connection clicked: the tree of Revelation was the same tree that appears in Genesis. The beginning tied directly to the end.

The discovery that the Bible was a unified narrative led to my conviction that Jesus was the Messiah prophesied throughout scripture, and hence, my savior. Wasn’t I taught that before? Sure, but I wasn’t listening too closely, and the central teaching was surrounded and often obscured by secondary issues. It’s ridiculously easy for the church to tilt off-center and lost sight of what she’s all about. But to this day, I peg my salvation from that class, and the revelation that scripture tells one story. It tells the story.

Several years ago I joined forces with Emily Whitten, my blogging partner at RedeemedReader.com, to write a one-year through-the-Bible study guide for ages 10 and up. Our aim was to plant a sense of the scriptural unity in the minds of young students, or new students. A lot of people had the same idea at that time, such as Phil Visshur (creator of Veggie Tales) who produced a new series to teach kids What’s in the Bible? R. C. Sproul’s book by the same title was selling briskly.

We wanted to create something in the middle—for kids old enough to be independent readers, as well as new Christians of any age who don’t have a clue where to begin. (I wrote the lessons I’ll be posting; Emily adapted the material for younger kids.) We wanted the study to be accessible, easy to use, not too burdensome, and not too long. In a year, a family or study group or individual could get a firm grasp of all the major themes and chronology of scripture.

Lots of excellent Bible curriculums pace slowly through the depths; we frankly aimed at the highlights, but also for building a framework for deeper study. God’s revelation in history unfolded over time: beginning with hints, followed by covenants, followed by systems, followed by types and prototypes, followed by prophesies coming into ever sharper focus before the reality bursts through the screen. As we enter the brisk pick-up season of fall, huddle up during the winter, emerge from our caves in spring, and wind slowly down at the end of summer, we can watch His story unfold.

HERE’S THE PLAN

If you’d like to join me, the reading challenge will come in forty-nine installments, roughly four per month, to be posted on Tuesdays. Obviously, this leaves three weeks out of the loop, so I’ll skip Christmas week, Easter week, and the week of July.

The study follows a chronological rather than a canonical pattern. That is, rather than marching through the books of the Bible in the order they’re arranged, we’ll look at Job in connection with Genesis and selected Psalms of David along with I and II Samuel; team Daniel with Nehemiah, Joel and Malachi with the first chapters of Matthew and Luke, and so on.

Each week’s challenge will include 3-6 Bible chapters (or the equivalent), a short overview with further relevant scriptures, a key verse, 5-7 thought/discussion questions, and 2-4 suggested activities for kids. The readings can be divided up for family devotional times, homeschool Bible classes, or personal study times. The approach might also work well for a discipleship or mentoring situation where you meet with a new Christian once a week over coffee.

What does this look like? For a sneak peek at a sample weekly challenge, click here.

And click here for an overview chart of the whole year, including themes and readings.

We’ll kick off with Challenge One next week. Come along for a thrilling ride!

August 25, 2017April 22, 2021

That Hideous Strength: Denouement

Denouement is not a common word in everyday conversation, so for a long time I didn’t know how to pronounce it. It’s day-noo-MAHN (go easy on the final n). This is the resolution of the story, or (according to my dictionary), “the events following the climax of a drama or novel in which such a resolution takes place.” As we saw last week, the turning-point climax of THS arrives at the end of chapter 12, but the dramatic climax, which sees the defeat of Belbury, is yet to come. That defeat is not in doubt, though. It’s like the history of redemption: the denouement in which we’re living has plenty of drama, but the turning-point climax came with the Resurrection.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN: THEY HAVE PULLED DOWN DEEP HEAVEN ON THEIR HEADS

13-1 This may be the most difficult chapter of the whole novel for the contemporary reader. I had to skim over whole paragraphs the first time I read it, because of all the references I didn’t get. But there are also some interesting ideas that have affected my thinking. I’ve mentioned elsewhere that The Once and Future King was one of the formative books of my youth, and the lovable, backwards-living, eccentric figure of Merlin framed my conception of the Arthur legends. This Merlin is the polar opposite of of that one. But if there was such a person, I have no doubt he would be much closer to Lewis’s version: a creature of Celtic paganism and early Christianity, with ties to the old spirits of earth. He lived at a hinge in time, which Paul indicates in his message to the Athenians: “The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent . . .” (Acts 17:30, see also 14:16). Lewis, drawing from Chesterton’s The Everlasting Man, makes a distinction between “good paganism” and “bad paganism” in pre-Christian societies, the good leading eventually to Christ and the bad leading to demons. Merlin is of “good pagan” stock, and in fact a Christian—but very, very strange.

It’s interesting to compare his description of the moon with Filostrato’s in 8-3.

13-3 His accusation about Jane is disturbing to me. Can God’s plans really be thwarted by human will? We find ourselves at the intersection of destiny and choice, a question that has plagued philosophers, theologians, and even scientists since the beginning of time. In Perelandra, Ransom decides that God’s ultimate will can’t be thwarted, but he holds several paths in mind. If humans flub one plan, there will be another–but usually more difficult and with more painful consequences.

13-4 “Time is more important than we thought.” No kidding! Anyone who attempts to write serious historical novels must come up against the fact that the past is, if not utterly lost to us, then permanently out of reach. All our efforts to reconstruct it are tenuous at best, and if time-travel ever became practically possible we would soon learn how inadequate our efforts were. Dimble’s observation about “things always sharpening and coming to a point” is useful for all ages. He’s applying it to Merlin’s time, when a man could (supposedly) be semi-pagan and still justified, vs. the modern age, when people can no longer plead ignorance and must choose sides. But I think the statement has lots of applications: political, social, economical, spiritual. Vague principles come into sharper focus as a crisis approaches, and casual alliances no longer apply; people have to take sides.

13-5 Merlin learns that his pagan powers are no longer lawful (the image of his firelit face next to the bear’s–their earthy elemental kinship–is one of those literary pictures that will stick with me forever). As the inhabitants of St. Anne’s were profoundly discomfited by his presence, now Merlin learns how out of his element he is. The taint of corruption about him, due to his magic, is precisely what makes him useful to the cause. He is not totally sanctified. As Ransom says, “a tool (I must speak plainly) good enough to be so used, and not too good.” Upon learning his calling Merlin’s response is a bit like Christ’s, sweating drops of blood in the garden. Is there any alternative? Any other principality or power that can be called on to help? In the seventh paragraph from the end, notice his appeal to those who are not part of Christendom yet observe the “Law of Nature”—he’s talking about the Way, or the Tao, Lewis’s subject in Part Two of The Abolition of Man. But all earthly powers are to some degree under the sway of that Hideous Strength. Only powers beyond the earth can help now, and Merlin will contain them. Like an old wineskin filled with new wine, he will last only long enough to serve their purpose. And then he will lose his life, but save his soul.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN: “REAL LIFE IS MEETING”

14-1 After almost a whole chapter devoted to St. Anne’s, we now go back to Belbury. Mark’s conversion at the end of ch. 12 was real–he has no desire to go back, though it’s to his advantage to play along. Frost’s dissertations in this chapter are easy to skim because he quotes people who were very consequential in Lewis’s day but almost unknown today. (Lewis had several arguments with Waddington, either in public correspondence or in footnotes.) However, the idea that “Existence is its own justification” carries on today in philosophers such as Richard Rorty and Peter Singer, and catchphrases like “Whatever is, is right.” Thomas Huxley, whom Frost quotes in the fourth paragraph, was an early defender of Darwinism who, contrary to Frost’s interpretation here, denied that evolution provided any ground for morals whatsoever. That didn’t stop his own grandson Julius (and subsequent deep thinkers) from trying to theorize morality from evolution. Frost represents the dead end of such attempts.

The paintings in the room where Mark begins his training range from the obviously perverse to the slightly “off”—which are more dangerous? Do you recognize any art styles? In the 12^th paragraph from the end, he recalls reading of: “things of that extreme evil which seem innocent to the uninitiate . . .” Chesterton again, The Everlasting Man, ch.6. A pure heart and mind would be unaffected by these evil things (“to the pure all things are pure,” Titus 1:15), but Mark isn’t there yet. At least he recognizes the danger, and is soon delivered from it by a most unexpected circumstance.

14-2 Another difficult-but-rewarding section. If you have no patience with Lewis’s interplanetary mythology, okay, but notice that Jane still has her hang-ups and preconceptions that Mrs. Dimble is untroubled by (Titus 1:15 again?). Jane is not that different from present-day feminists who see sex as a power struggle; she may have some idea that her new “spirituality” has freed her from it, but the vision she sees in the Lodge says otherwise. The sensual woman in the flame-colored robe is easily understood as some sort of fertility goddess, but where do the dwarves fit in? Clearly, they’re all laughing at Jane, but further illumination will have to wait.

14-3 Tolstoy wrote a chapter of Anna Karenina from the POV of a dog—here’s a stream-of-consciousness from Mr. Bultitude. He, and all mammals, occupy a territory inaccessible to humans: pure quality, “a potent adjective floating in a nounless void . . .”

14-4 Mark has been having his own encounters with an earthy soul—a common tramp who shares certain characteristics with Merlin and others with Mr. Bultitude. Imagine how Mark would have reacted to him before his turning point in Chapter 12, and you can see some concrete effects of his altered attitude (it’s not quite a conversion—not yet).

14-5 Things are “sharpening and coming to a point” (as Dimble observes in 13-4) for Jane. She can’t exist in a spiritual vacuum for much longer; she’ll have to declare, either for Christ or for Ashtoreth. Which means necessarily that she will have to deal with her humanity, her place in the world. She’s been seeing herself as mostly a cerebral creature, a woman “without a chest,” made up of approved influences and pride and self-importance. Her conversation with the Director sets her up for “real meeting,” not just with God, but with her real self. Left to ourselves, we don’t know who we are; it’s impossible to disengage the true self from nature, nurture, and community. But God knows. Jane’s experience is hinted at in Colossians 3:3-4 and I John 3:2. Earlier her world was unmade; now she herself is remade by meeting the One who knows her fully. (Lewis was deeply impressed by Martin Buber’s I and Thou around the time he was writing That Hideous Strength. The title of this chapter comes from Part 1, sec. 13, where Buber writes, “All living is meeting.”)

CHAPTER FIFTEEN: THE DESCENT OF THE GODS

The narrative will pick up and move faster from this point to the dramatic climax (at last! sighs the patient reader).

15-1 “The gods” of this chapter are not only the ruling spirits of our solar system (the “Fields of Arbol”), but pure qualities proceeding from our creator: Meaning, Charity, Valor, Age and Time, Festival Joy. Notice the “inconsolable wound” that wakes in Merlin at the approach of Venus: this is a stab of what Lewis calls “Joy” in his spiritual autobiography Surprised by Joy: the inborn longing that no earthly remedy can satisfy for long. Try listening to Holst’s The Planets before or during a reading of this section.

15-3 Both Frost and Wither are beginning to unravel. How?

15-4 In 14-5, Jane was told she would soon have to take a stand. This is the point where Mark will have to take a stand—his literal encounter with the cross. Note the “non-religiousness” of his conversion, which reflects Lewis’s account of his own conversion in Surprised by Joy.

15-6 Jules, the figurehead director of the N.I.C.E. who imagines he’s the real director, has been mentioned twice before; now he makes his appearance (remember the rule of three). He’s also a product of modern education, a character who might have been a decent-enough reporter or hack writer if he’d been brought up with traditional values. As it is, he’s mostly a fool.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN: DINNER AT BELBURY

16-1 Recall Ransom’s observation to Jane in 14-5 that the demons hate their own minions as much as they hate us. This chapter will bear that out. The confusion of languages obviously recalls the Tower of Babel; the release of the animals suggests the Fall, when man and nature were set against each other. The plot to conquer nature has failed. Soon the earth itself will rebel . . .

16-3 – 16-6 Each of the Inner Ring meets a fate appropriate for him—how? Do they all get a chance to repent? When? Might Romans 1:14 have some relevance here?

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: VENUS AT ST. ANNE’S

17-2 The fashion show compliments 14-5 and the idea of our true selves being hidden: each woman has her dress picked out by the others; a dress that, once chosen, compliments qualities that they themselves didn’t fully appreciate. Why is the least said about Jane’s dress?

17-4 “Britain” vs. “Logres”: Lewis may get a little carried away here, with his idea of national “hauntings,” (any ideas as to what an American haunting would look like?), but the point is that humanity has had narrow escapes throughout history, some of them obvious and some not. There will always be a Logres, until Christ returns.

17-7 and 17-8 Mark and Jane are reunited. Recall that the novel began with their separation, and the narrative has pegged itself to their increasing distance. But there have been intriguing parallels throughout. They were each admitted to their respective Inner Rings in chapter 6. Jane was introduced to “the Head” of St. Anne’s, and Mark to “the Head” at Belbury, in chapter 7. Jane encounters the same holy fear at the beginning of ch. 11 that Mark encounters at the end. Jane’s true conversion in 14-5 is closely followed by Mark’s in 15-4.

Their final meeting involves a mutual descent: Jane coming down from her pretensions and Mark from his arrogance; she in her festival garments and he most likely naked. The world has been re-enchanted for them; they’ve rediscovered the magic of the commonplace. What happens next? A lot of baggage to work through, but remember Lewis called this “A modern fairy-tale for grownups.”

And so: “They lived happily ever after.”

August 18, 2017August 10, 2017

That Hideous Strength: Climax

To catch up with the reading, see the Introduction, Setup, and Development.

Climax? Isn’t it a little early for that? Most of us have the idea that the climax is a high point of the story (as the word would seem to suggest), after which nothing is left but tying up loose ends. But there’s another way to understand climax, in literary terms: it’s the point at which all the crucial decisions have been made. We’ll come to that point at the end of Chapter 12. The “high point” of the story will indeed wait until the fourth quarter, but it will be the working out of the characters’ choices, not the forcing of them.

CHAPTER NINE: THE SARACEN’S HEAD

9-1 Saracen means “Arabic,” referring to Alcasan’s ethnicity. Saracen was also the inclusive name given to Muslim groups who occupied the Holy Land and fought against the Crusaders. Poor Alcasan barely has the distinction of being a character in the story, and he’s not one now, as we’ll discover. These scenes with “the head” are the closest Lewis ever came to horror literature, but notice they are all experienced indirectly; narrated or mediated by a character rather than by direct action. He will take us into that forbidden chamber, but not yet.

9-2 No attribution has been found for the line quoted in the first chapter about “an inflammation swollen and deformed, his memory,” so Lewis himself could be the poet. Great line, underscoring Mark’s clash with cold reality. “They would kill him if he annoyed them; perhaps behead him.” Notice how the N.I.C.E. has become they, but Mark does not yet identify with another us. He’s between stools now, literally damned if he does and damned if he does not. Notice how his “modern” education has not equipped him to deal with an unambiguous crisis.

9-3 A reader may be excused for feeling a little impatient with Lewis here; breaking off an exciting narrative to attend to MacPhee and his annoying discursions. On the other hand, it’s rather clever of the author to introduce the subject of supernatural beings by means of a hardboiled skeptic. MacPhee’s background is worth noting: he’s the descendant of Scottish Covenanters who were deported to Ireland by James I as a way of getting rid of them, and also helping to civilize the “wild Irish.” That’s why Northern Ireland is Protestant. As a native of Belfast, Lewis no doubt had Covenanter blood in his veins. He seems to have had some respect for the Scottish Calvinists who demanded proof in the word of God (like MacPhee’s uncle), but would probably fault them for lack of imagination and sympathy. (G.K. Chesterton, one of Lewis’s spiritual guides, had no regard for Calvinism whatsoever.) When Jane asks, about the eldila, “Are they perfectly huge?” she’s remembering her experience with hugeness in 7-2. ~ The poem Camilla quotes is by Charles Williams, a good friend of Lewis and member of the “Inklings” circle. ~ Logres derives from the ancient Welsh name for the England of King Arthur. Arthur is probably one of the “perhaps about six” humans who never died but were taken straight to Heaven. We can account for two more (Enoch and Elijah)—does the Bible preclude there being any others?

9-4 This strategy session produces no clear strategy, to MacPhee’s disgust, but we finally know what we’re up against. “Science” proposes to join with “magic,” new power with old power, to surround and ultimately crush humanity. Even in the midst of apocalyptic concerns, squabbles over authority and chain-of-command pop up. The Director’s question about personnel (“Were you all under the impression that I had selected you?”) raises an interesting question about choice and destiny. No one in the company can say either that they came freely or that they were compelled to come in; rather, it was both. Lewis says this about his own conversion, in Surprised by Joy. Recalls Jesus’ reminder to his disciples that their wills are not entirely their own: “You have not chosen me, but I chose you.”

9-5 The Director ponders. It’s worthwhile to ponder with him, but if you get swamped by obscure references and vocabulary, the relevant point is that science and magic are not that far apart (more on this later). Historically they were joined at the hip: “one was sickly and died; the other was strong and throve,” he wrote in The Abolition of Man. Both were born of the same desire, “to subdue reality to the wishes of men.” However, in reuniting with magic at this late date, science may be getting more than it bargained for. “What should they find incredible, since they believed no longer in a rational universe?” The Inner Ring is at the point that the inhabitants of Babel reached in Gen. 11:6: “They are one people, and they have one language, and this is only the beginning of what they will do. And nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them.”

Even if you don’t follow the entire sequence of thought, it’s helpful to understand a few terms: Numinor belongs to the world of Tolkien; it refers to the fall of the Second Era in Middle Earth mythology. (Tolkien was another member of Inklings* and Lewis was very familiar with his progress on The Lord of the Rings.) The lost continent of Atlantis was one inspiration for Numinor. ~ Elan vital = life force. ~ Panpsychism: the belief that plants and inanimate objects, as well as humans and animals, enjoy some form of consciousness. ~ Anima mundi = world soul.

CHAPTER TEN: THE CONQUERED CITY

10-1 Mark is at checkmate: stay at Belbury, and descend to levels he doesn’t want to go; leave Belbury, and face conviction for murder, followed by hanging. Take a moment to notice the wallet, a plot element with which Lewis has employed the Rule of Three: the first mention (4-3) introduces the object when Mark mentions to Straik that he has lost it. The second (6-2) reinforces that loss (and reminds the reader about it) when Mark frets to Captain O’Hara about money. The third mention springs the trap. We know, though Mark doesn’t yet, that it’s a deliberate frame-up. He’s also slow to recognize that guilt or innocence has no relevance whatsoever—no more than left or right, right or wrong, truth or falsehood. The Inner ring has moved “Beyond Good and Evil” (to borrow a title from Nietzsche who foresaw this very thing).

10-2 At least Mark is finally and permanently alerted to his danger. We want to cheer when he strikes out at Wither, but wait–Wither isn’t really there. His mode of being has altered in a way we’ll learn more about later. He is no longer a “person,” in any way we would understand. But Mark, by contrast, may be on his way to becoming one: note carefully the last paragraph.

10-3 It will take a while, though. He hasn’t a strong enough character to take a firm stand for either side. Dimble has acquired that strength, but has to struggle with his own self-righteousness because of it: “trying very hard not to hate, and to despise, and above all not to enjoy hating and despising . . .” This is a temptation for a lot of Christians (I’m one of them); how easy it is to look down on weakness or foolishness from our lofty perch! Like we’re the ones who have it all together. Our best antidote is I Cor. 6: “For such were some of you.” Dimble ends up doing the right thing, but Mark is undone by indecisiveness. Unable to make up his mind to take a genuine risk, he has his mind made up for him.

10-4 Dimble’s self-examination while driving home is another good reality check for Christians: if we feel ourselves getting carried away with outrage (and there’s plenty to outrage us these days), we should ask a similar question: “Is there a whole Belbury inside of you?” The Brother Lawrence quote–“Thus shall I always do . . .”–is found in The Practice the Presence of God (ca. 1650), a collection of letters and meditations.) Belbury is on the move elsewhere, as Dimble discovers when he reaches home and finds everyone in a state of high anticipation. Finally the King is on the move (this, I believe, is the first use of the name Maleldil in THS) and Dimble is wanted for an expedition.

“It was an age, not a man, they were going to meet”

CHAPTER ELEVEN: BATTLE BEGUN

11-1 And about time! as MacPhee might say.

The fear that Dimble, Denniston, and Jane experience, each in their own way, while searching the wood has the same root: a fear of the noumen, or spirit world, which exists alongside our own and yet is so completely different (huge, as Jane perceived it) that to touch it is something like stepping through a trap door. Dimble realizes that all ages still exist there: “it was an age, not a man, they were going to meet.” Jane’s world is still being unmade (cf. 7-1); “it now appeared that almost anything might be true.” Is she coming closer to God?

11-2 Miss Hardcastle’s account of shadowing Mark shows how little she understands the opposition. Wither and Frost have a better idea what they’re up against, but their sources are not infallible either. Their discussion once Miss Hardcastle is dismissed reveals that Frost really did have access to Jane’s mind—or his superiors did—when she dreamed about him. But shortly afterwards her mind was closed to them. Why, do you suppose? What happened to Jane around that time?

And what do they propose to do with Mark? What knowledge might they share with him that even Filostrato doesn’t know? What “desire” in him might they appeal to? (Wither’s stated wish to “to receive—to absorb—to assimilate this young man” reminds me of Uncle Screwtape.) We haven’t seen much of Frost so far, but he will come into sharper focus. He seems to be much more defined personality than Wither–until the last few paragraphs of this section, when we realize that both men have given up themselves in service to a “higher power.” What desire might have led them to do that?

11-3 Mark alone. Impending death can certainly wipe the lens of one’s perspective—if God is merciful. Mark undergoes a kind of “Pilgrim’s Regress”: looking over his life’s ambitions and seeing them for a sham . Notice the series of trivial steps, small compromises, and pygmy power plays employed to build up his ego, even from boyhood. He’s not going forward yet, but that’s because he must first go all the way back: “You must be born again.” As someone (I think is was Frederick Buechner) said, “the gospel is bad news before it’s good.” The bad news is about us, and to see ourselves as we are is amazing grace.

CHAPTER TWELVE: WET AND WINDY NIGHT

12-2 and 12-3 Recall Mr. Stone from 5-1, an organization man who got on the wrong side of the powers that be and is desperate to redeem himself. Obviously, Belbury and St. Anne’s are seeking the same prey—who will get to him first?

12-4 and 12-5 It’s interesting to compare these two conversations. Frost with his “macrobes” and Ransom with his “unities” are talking about the same supernatural reality, but in his explanation to Mark Frost takes the reductionist approach, breaking all human responses down to meaningless reflexes. Meanwhile Ransom, discussing the spiritual realm with his little band of followers, builds up a hierarchy of response reflective of God himself. Frost would decrease, Ransom would increase, the significance of human life. Does Frost know he’s talking about demons? If so, he doesn’t care; names and distinctions have become meaningless to him. But for Ransom and his band, a vague, unknown power is about to take a name—and a personality and distinctiveness they would never have imagined. The knock on the door, and what they see when the door crashes open is one of the most striking literary scenes I’ve ever read.

12-6 We know without being told that the stranger pounding on the door at St. Anne’s is Merlin himself. Any guesses as to who is ensconced at Belbury? (We saw his little campsite in 11-1.) Unintentionally, Frost and Wither provide us with some savory comic relief here. But note Wither’s comment that he knows “the look of a Master . . . One sees at once that Straik or Studdock might do; that Miss Hardcastle, with all her excellent qualities, would not.” Wither is wrong about the stranger, but right about Straik and perhaps Mark as well. But why would the Fairy not do? And “not do” for what?

12-7 We’re on Mark’s side now, or he’s on ours, but what happens almost at once? Idolatry—seeing himself as the hero—weakens his resolve and makes him easy prey. What’s different now is that for the first time he sees it: the true dimensions of the struggle. It started with self-knowledge in 11-3. Also, for the first time, he knows he can’t overcome his enemies alone. “All that could in any sense be called himself went into that cry . . .”

And the last corner has been turned. Whew!

August 15, 2017August 15, 2017

The Abolition of Man, Part Two

Last weekend, all eyes turned to Charlottesville, home of the University of Virginia–“Mr. Jefferson’s university”–where violent right-wingers faced off against violent left-wingers. A similar clash occurred in Seattle that same day, an event completely overshadowed by the Charlottesville ugliness, and Portland saw more of the same the weekend before. Shaking my head over the videos of people yelling and swinging at each other, I turn from the computer screen and pick up my copy of The Abolition of Man to read this, the first sentence in the second chapter: “The practical result of education in the spirit of The Green Book must be the destruction of the society which accepts it.”

Oh.

The Green Book, as you’ll recall (see The Abolition of Man, Part One) was a high school text sent to Lewis for his comment or recommendation. It got a lot more comment from him than it was looking for. The purpose of the authors was to teach young people to “see through” sentimentality and dogma and disregard traditional virtues as meaningless. The authors call for the “subjectivizing” of values—that is, proving that any sentiments judged to be commendable, or worthwhile, for their own sake are “merely” (fatal word!) expressions of the speaker’s own biases. But there would be no point in debunking suspect values unless you have other values in mind that are not so suspect, right? Lewis sketches the “correct” approvals and disapprovals as indicated in The Green Book. Approved: peace, democracy and tolerance. Disapproved, or at least outgrown: courage, patriotism, and courtesy.

(We have our own lists of approved and disapproved. One such system is derisively called “Political Correctness.”)

But the authors are fatally blind to the fact that without the latter (i.e., courage, patriotism, and courtesy), the former is impossible.

“It will be seen that comfort and security, as known to a suburban street in peace-time, are the ultimate values; [but] those things which can alone produce or spiritualize comfort and security are mocked. [It’s as if] Man lives by bread alone, and the ultimate source of bread is the baker’s van; peace matters more than honour and can be preserved by jeering at colonels and reading newspapers.”

What they don’t see is that under all lists of Approved and Disapproved is a deeper system, and that’s what Lewis addresses in Part Two of The Abolition of Man: “The Way.”

The Way goes by many names: Hindus refer to it as the Rta, to which even the gods are subject. In Western tradition it’s known as Natural Law. For the purpose of his argument, Lewis calls it the Tao: “It is the doctrine of objective value, the belief that certain attitudes are really true, and others really false, to the kind of thing the universe is and the kind of things we are.”

We all believe this, don’t we? For all our talk of relativism and finding our own truth, everyone has some sense of absolute right and wrong. Political discourse these days is nothing if not moral: to one side, the other side is not merely mistaken but nefarious or downright evil. I have to say, I see this kind of militant morality more on the left than on the right, and could it be because the left (much more than the right) has explicitly rejected Natural Law for a new improved system?

For the rest of “The Way,” Lewis shows how modern attempts to base our preference for peace, democracy, and tolerance on some solid footing other than Natural Law are doomed to fail. Appeals to utility (the greatest good for the greatest number), community, and common instinct all come up short, as he shows after close examination of each one. Nothing can perform the service of the Tao except the Tao itself. When we ditch it, what’s the last resort, our ultimate appeal?

Power. That’s what the street fights in our cities are all about–who has it, who wants it, who ends up with it.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

In That Hideous Strength, two sets of characters stand in direct opposition to each other. The little band at St. Anne’s have pledged their loyalty to the Director, who defers to his “Masters.” The Masters, in their turn, are subject to the highest power, understood as the Lord Himself, originator of Natural Law.

Jane’s conversation with Ransom in chapter 7 underscores this. “I don’t think I look on marriage quite as you do,” she says, in her best “sensible” mode. To which he replies, “Child, it is not a question of how you or I look on marriage but how my Masters look on it.” Natural Law is not merciless or unyielding: when Jane’s life is threatened, she is admitted to the circle without her husband’s knowledge or consent. That is not in defiance of the Law, but rather obedience to another part of the Law—to save her very life. “Only those who are practicing the Tao can understand it” (AoM, “The Way”), including what parts supersede others.

At Belbury there’s a group of “progressives” dedicated to replacing Natural Law with a set of “new, improved” values.* Mark is one of them, following the lead of Curry and Busby at the University; others are Steele, Crosser, and all their underlings and bureaucrats. Their goal is “reconditioning” society to think the way they do. But they don’t realize that conditioning works on them, too. Recall Miss Hardcastle in Chapter 5.1 on the subject of newspaper propaganda: “Don’t you see that the educated reader can’t stop reading the high-brow weeklies whatever they do? He can’t. He’s been conditioned.”

The progressives think that they’ve replaced outdated values with new ones, but they’ve actually undermined all value. That’s why, when Filostrato waxes eloquent about sexless reproduction and metal trees (Chapter 8.3), no one at the table can come up with an argument against him. They’ve scrapped the Tao. By selecting only the parts of it they like, they’ve weakened all of it and left themselves no firm principles to stand on.

But there’s a third group at Belbury, the “Inner Ring” whose purpose is not reforming humanity but remaking it. ** They are, in ascending order of venality, Filostrato, Straik, Wither, and Frost. (Feverstone belongs to a group of one, and Hardcastle is a special case.) To understand them, we should look at Lewis’s conclusion at the end of “The Way”:

[Some will say,] Why must our conquest of nature stop short, in stupid reverence, before this final and toughest bit of ‘nature’ which has hitherto been called the conscience of man? . . . You say we shall have no values at all if we step outside the Tao. Very well: we shall probably find that we can get on quite comfortably without them . . . Let us decide for ourselves what man is to be and make him into that . . . Having mastered our environment, let us now master ourselves and choose our own destiny.

If you say this, says Lewis, you are at least not guilty of self-contradiction, like those who suppose they can replace Natural Law with a better law. But you’re leaving yourself vulnerable to something far worse, as we’ll see in the third quarter of That Hideous Strength.

____________________________________________________________

* This is exactly the progressive agenda in the US today: the old values led to slavery, discrimination, and oppression. Therefore, we must rebuild on new values stressing tolerance for everyone, except everyone who disagrees with us.

**Today we call it transhumanism. Lewis did not foresee the rise of Silicon Valley and eager young tech moguls like Sergy Brin and Elon Musk. Their faith is in technology, not the dark forces of magic, but will they end up in the same place?

August 11, 2017August 8, 2017

That Hideous Strength: Development

If you’re just joining us, you might want to get oriented with the Introduction and Setup.

Almost all the main characters have been introduced and the potential conflicts are in place. Now development: that phase of a novel that builds tension and raises the stakes. All the major plot elements will be rounded up and herded in one direction, although the reader should feel that options are still open. In that sense, a novel is like a conspiracy theory: the unfolding plot looks like the best conclusion from the facts, but the facts have been carefully selected. Let’s look at how Lewis chooses incident to build tension and invest the reader in the story. (I thought this post might be shorter than the last one, but oh well . . . .)

CHAPTER FIVE: ELASTICITY

5.1 The Institute’s S.O.P. is to keep underlings off-balance: this is what Wither calls flexibility and Miss Hardcastle calls elasticity. Her advice to Mark is to get with the program, and understanding will come in time. This is a brutalization of Jesus’ words in John 7: 17: “If any man seeks to do God’s will he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God.” That is, one must willingly join in order to know. Jesus has authority to say that, but Miss Hardcastle’s version should be a clue to Mark that the aims of the N.I.C.E. are more expansive than mere social reform. He doesn’t pick up on it, possibly because, as she cynically observes, “it’s the educated reader who can be gulled . . . He’s been conditioned.” What do you think? And what does that say about what’s commonly understood as “education”?

The paragraph beginning with, “The confidential tone,” solidifies, perhaps unnecessarily, what we already know about Mark’s main motivation. In fact, Lewis makes his motivation more explicit than any other character’s. That’s because it was close to his heart.

In an address called “The Inner Ring” (1944) Lewis expanded on the theme: “I don’t believe that the economic motive and the erotic motive account for everything that goes on in what we moralists call the World. Even if you add Ambition I think the picture is still incomplete. . .” He identified this missing factor as “the lust for the esoteric, the longing to be inside . . . [T]his desire is one of the great permanent mainsprings of human action.” He experienced it, and so have I. It goes way back: when Eve’s hand finally reached out for the fruit, it was a lust for forbidden knowledge that drove her. Mark is not precisely aware that the knowledge is forbidden, only that it’s denied to him. In order to acquire it, he’ll have to stretch his principles, such as they are—and that’s where the real “elasticity” comes in.

5.2 Does he seem like a rat in a maze? Or a mouse between a cat’s paws? I almost feel sorry for him, especially when reading Curry’s letter. Compare Curry’s praise of David Laird with the doubts expressed in 4.7—is Curry prevaricating or has he convinced himself that this mediocre scholar is really the best man for the position? “He got a third” (Mark’s letter) refers to the lowest-degree university diploma. ~ Feverstone’s “nasty,poor, brutish, and short” is a slightly misquoted description of primitive man from Thomas Hobbe’s Leviathan (1651). Mark is learning he can’t really trust anyone–Feverstone’s easy manner can turn on a dime and Wither is impossible to pin down.

5.3 Unlike Mark, Jane is defined more by what she doesn’t want than by what she wants (making her a weaker, i.e. less memorable character, in the opinion of some critics). What she doesn’t want is to be messed with; she’s defensive about her self-image as an independent modern woman. (Lewis described himself this way in Surprised by Joy.) Though Jane is sincerely drawn to the Dennistons, they make her angry . . . and what else? ~ The Sura they mention is probably based on an actual Indian mystic, Sadhu Sundar Singh, who converted to Christianity in 1904 and lived as an itinerant evangelist until his disappearance in Tibet. ~ You may know Pendragon as King Arthur’s family name, but its earliest origin is in Wales, where it means Chief or Head. According to legend, Merlin bestowed it as a surname on Arthur’s father.

In the paragraph beginning, “You must see it from Mrs. Studdock’s point of view,” notice how Arthur Denniston echoes Miss Hardcastle’s advice in 5.1: Jane must first commit to the organization before she can understand what it’s all about. (Remember John 7:17). Matters of cosmic significance can only be understood from the inside. Do you believe this is true?

CHAPTER SIX: FOG

6.1 In fiction, weather is often a metaphor. Fog in this chapter is a metaphor for . . . what? ~ Feeling trapped, Mark finds his only recourse is to “do what he’s told” and maybe something will come of it. Notice how he tries to feel better about it by blaming Jane. Have you ever done that with your spouse?

6-2 Bracton College is totally out-maneuvered by the N.I.C.E. The last vestige of grace and tradition that the University is supposed to protect is destroyed, and the question returns: why do they want the wood, even that last little strip? A growing crisis in Edgetow is clamoring for a response. It’s not clear that Mark wrote the first newspaper article suggesting something must be done (and isn’t that always the way government is invited to take more control?), but we’re meant to assume that he is. ~ How does Hingest’s funeral contribute to the mood of this chapter?

6-3 The scene in the library represents Mark’s full conversion to the dark side. His pleasure at being received is so intense it dulls any twinge of conscience about what he’s asked to do. This is how even decent men are corrupted–step by step. We learn later that Rev. Straik was a much better man than Mark until led astray by bad theology, demonstrated here by his understanding of the resurrection. (Lewis hinted earlier that he was driven to fanaticism by the death of his young daughter.) ~ Ad metam properate, “Hurry on to the finish.” ~ Professor Frost is one of the inner Inner Circle, and alert readers will recognize him from the description as someone we’ve met before. In the very first chapter–remember?

6-4 Mark’s two editorials are very long (hard to imagine any newspaper that would publish them today). They can be skimmed, but it’s worth noting what audience he’s aiming at in in each and the different means he uses to reach them. He’s actually a talented writer, as the management perceives. In some circles, talent is everything, and its main purpose is to advance one’s own ambitions. Also, recall what Miss Hardcastle said about the educated being most vulnerable to “conditioning.” Mark has already learned that lesson.

6-5 Jane has another dream and soon after meets a nightmare in real life. No more question of holding herself aloof; one way or another, someone is going to mess with her, and she’d rather it be people she knows and likes. Notice the weather again . . .

CHAPTER SEVEN: THE PENDRAGON

7-1 The Fisher-King is a mysterious figure in Arthurian legend, associated with gentle, naïve Sir Percival during the Grail quest. Percival first meets the Fisher-King as an old fisherman who directs him to the right path. Later, the knight encounters him as a king with an incurable wound attended by keepers of the Grail itself. Our “Mr. Fisher-King” is none other than Dr. Ransom, who traveled to Mars and Venus and returned from the latter with an incurable wound in his heel. Meeting him marks Jane’s conversion: “Her world was unmade” (note the repetition). Ransom is obviously meant to represent Christ (though, unlike Aslan, he is not Christ in another form). How many resemblances do you see?

7-2 His conversation with Jane seems to touch on several issues but it’s really only one: love. That’s what all the talk about equality is about, though expressed more succinctly in Lewis’s essay “Membership” (from The Weight of Glory): “Equality is a quantitative term and therefore love knows nothing of it.” Equality is about giving everyone a “fair share”; love has no concern with fairness, or even sharing. Otherwise any couple will fall into the tired routine of blaming each other for their problems, as Mark earlier blamed Jane and now she wants to blame him. ~ I was once shaken to the core by Ransom’s observation that “Those who are enjoying something, or suffering something together, are companions [i.e., equals]. Those who enjoy or suffer each other are not [emphasis mine].” Marriage has no place for keeping tabs or trading favors; each is totally in debt to the other. And (as the mice demonstrate) it’s not meant to be a lifelong burden, but more like a dance. ~ The sensual trance that steals over Jane as he’s talking (“Stop it!” said the Director, sharply) is not explained but we’ll get some idea later of what it means. I think. ~ Brobdingnag, mentioned at the end of the section, is the land of giants visited by Gulliver.

7-3 Why does Lewis have to examine all of Jane’s feelings in such detail? Well, he probably doesn’t. He means to show her divided state of mind, and got carried away. But “the state of joy” that is Jane’s overarching emotion is central to Lewis’s religious thought (see Surprised by Joy), and soon enough that state will change.

7-4 Lewis may lay it on a little heavy in this section (such things as Rubens might have seen in delirium? Not going there!), but thankfully he curtails the torture scene, like most contemporary writers wouldn’t do. The segment accomplishes at least three purposes: ramps up the tension, shows the real violence and destruction of the Institute’s “engineered” riot, and provides excellent justification for Jane to flee to St. Anne’s.

CHAPTER EIGHT: MOONLIGHT AT BELBURY

8-1 We’re getting close to the heart of the matter at Belbury—the real Inner Ring. Readers may guess who “the Head” is, but Lewis is not going to spring it just yet. The conversation between Wither and Hardcastle hints that Mark was invited to the Institute not for his writing ability but for his wife—certainly the last thing he would have expected, and we should be rather surprised, too.

8-2 Jane’s introduction to the full circle at St. Anne’s. It’s an “equal” society, in the way discussed in 7-2, but note how Jane’s bland defense of equality to the Director doesn’t extend to her attitude toward Ivy Maggs. As for Mr. Bultitude—he may seem like comic relief, but he’ll serve a purpose later on. (Mr. Bultitude takes his name from a central character in the classic 1880s school story, Vice Versa). MacPhee is the “resident skeptic,” a hard-headed agnostic of the sort Lewis seems to have had great affection for (in Surprised by Joy, he describes his beloved tutor W. T. Fitzpatrick in similar terms). William Hingest, who was bumped off in Chapter 4, is cut from the same cloth. You can grasp the drift of MacPhee’s conversation without understanding all his references—I certainly don’t. Most of this section can be skipped as not essential to the plot, though interesting in its ideas.

8/3 Mark’s dinner conversation with Filostrato goes on too long as well, but it’s more directly related to Lewis’s theme. The “Italian eunuch” finds organic life distasteful: his ideal is the clean, white moon. Note that he is a physicist rather than a biologist, which doesn’t seem to jibe with his experimental tinkering on animals and plants. Physics is the science of “elegant” theories and big pictures, such as the non-organic dream that Filostrato is sketching here. It’s not an appealing dream, but nobody at the table can find a reason to refute him.

Well, we can: he is calling good evil, and evil good (Is. 5:20; cf. Gen. 1:31) ~ The moon, bringer of madness, bears down hard on Belbury. Filostrato’s discussion of life there sounds like fanatical raving, but we’ll hear more of it. In fact, we’re hearing of it now, with “CRSPR” gene editing to remove inherited diseases. A benevolent motivation can easily become a ravenous desire to redesign humanity. And it will.

Finally, Mark comes close to the secret: compare his approach to the Head with Jane’s introduction to the Head of St. Anne’s in the last chapter. Remember that they are following parallel courses in radically different settings; though neither realizes it yet, they will be confronted with equally crucial decisions very soon.

* * * * * * * * * * *

Lewis described That Hideous Strength as a novelistic re-working of ideas he set out in the three essays that make up The Abolition of Man. I’ve also begun a read-along to The Abolition of Man, which dovetails nicely with THS. Even if you don’t have time to read the book (which is very short, but very dense), it’s interesting to see how the novel is reflected in the meditation, and vice versa.

August 8, 2017August 8, 2017

The Abolition of Man: Reading Along, Part One

In February of 1943 C. S. Lewis delivered three evening lectures at King’s College in Newcastle. Later that year the lectures were published in book form under the title of the third: The Abolition of Man. Over time Lewis came to regard this slender volume as his most significant work. It’s very short, only 91 pages plus an appendix. You could read it in an evening–but don’t. It’s incredibly packed: every sentence could be pondered over or discussed in an evening’s literary circle.

Lewis described the third volume of his Space Trilogy, That Hideous Strength, as “a ‘tall story’ about devilry, though it has behind it a serious ‘point’ that I tried to make in my Abolition of Man.” The point was that humanity is in danger of becoming inhuman.

The first essay of AoM, “Men without Chests,” raised the alarm about certain educational trends. He begins with Exhibit A: a literature textbook sent to him by an educational publisher who was probably hoping for an endorsement. Instead of a favorable blurb, the volume got to go down in history (though anonymously) as the notorious Green Book by “Gaius and Titius,”* educated barbarians who were contributing to the gutting of national character. G & T had bought into logical positivism, which generally holds that a statement has meaning only if it can empirically proved or objectively demonstrated. What we today call “values” (and an earlier age called “enduring principles”) are meaningless.

As an example, Gaius and Titius reference Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s story about the waterfall. There were two visitors besides Coleridge at a certain well-known tourist attraction, one of whom said the waterfall was sublime and the other said it was pretty. The poet mentally endorsed Tourist A—“sublime” was the proper value given to such a sight, while “pretty” was wholly inadequate. But G & T informed the young readers that value statements have no objective reality: isn’t one man’s sublime another man’s pretty? Thus, statements about feelings, metaphysics, or religion are meaningless in the public square, and the sooner English schoolboys and girls learn the difference between fact and value (and disregard the latter) the better off we’ll all be.

Lewis wasn’t buying it. As a classical scholar he could marshal the finest minds in Western tradition—and even Eastern tradition—to support his contention that hearts must be educated as well as heads, that emotion has as great a stake in human progress as reason. While allowing for individual preferences, there are right and wrong ways to feel. There are qualities that should be encouraged and qualities that should be condemned in no uncertain terms. If a man’s emotions are not trained along with his intellect, there will be no arbiter between his brain and his gut (the seat of animal appetite). That’s what the expression “Men without Chests” relates to, along with the much-quoted observation that we’re asking young people to demonstrate those very qualities we’ve educated out of them. “We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honour and are shocked to find traitors in our midst.”

* * * * * * * * * * *

In That Hideous Strength (see my post on The Setup) Mark Studdock, his wife Jane, and his colleagues at Bracton College are all victims of this sort of “progressive” education. Jane, immersed in quality literature (though she insists on putting her modern interpretations on it) is a little more sensitive to beauty and virtue. Mark the sociology major is unwittingly swimming with the sharks, for where there’s no objective scale of value—no authoritative word on whether loyalty is preferable to treachery or chastity to unfaithfulness—what’s left is survival of the fittest. Or the coolest, or the trendiest. You may have experienced a scale of value of this sort in high school (especially if you were considered the opposite of cool). If teenagers grow out of this phase it’s relatively harmless in the long run. But Mark clearly hasn’t. Because his education has given him no higher star to steer by, his one guiding light is to come out on top of whatever heap he’s in. He has set aside any real pleasure and enjoyment in things for their own sake; they only get in the way of striving and climbing. During his visit to Cure Hardy with Crosser he feels the unassuming charm of the place. It tugs at his better nature, but he pushes aside charm for the sake of “progress.” Education has almost nibbled his chest away. We see he still has a bit left, but will it be enough?

After Chapter 4 the action will shift away from the College and its resident Huns, Curry and Busby, but it’s worth taking a last look at these men lacking in the chest department (Chapter Two, “Dinner with the Sub-Warden,” section 1). They’ve become so involved with the process of education that they’ve lost sight of the content, except as it relates to creating soulless young academics like themselves. Feverstone–the epitome of cool, by the way–is on to them: “I see. In order to keep the place going as a learned society, all the best brains in it have to give up doing anything about learning.” “Exactly!” says Curry, before realizing he’s been had. Stamping out approved young minds has become the College’s business, and the educated people of Edgetow, as we’ll soon see, are by far the most gullible.

* * * * * * * * * * *

But it appears as though even intellectuals–or many of them–can’t live without honor and virtue for long. The devaluation of value that lumbered to its feet after the first World War, marched through academia throughout the 20th century and spread its poison through public education, has perhaps met its match in passionate political activism. The anti-war, anti-discrimination protesters of the 1960s and 70s demanded the right to feel. There was a right and wrong, only . . . they get to decide what it is. And they get to decide without reference to long-standing tradition, religion, or philosophy. How does that work out? Lewis will ponder the question in the next essay, “The Way.”

______________________________________________________________

*Hereby unmasked (via Wikipedia) as The Control of Language: A Critical Approach to Reading and Writing, published in 1939 by Alexander (“Alec”) King and Martin Ketley. Doesn’t that sound exactly like the title of a paper (almost any paper) published by the Modern Language Association today?

August 4, 2017August 4, 2017

That Hideous Strength Read-along: The Setup

In Chapters 1-4, we situate ourselves in a time and place: modern Britain sometime in the 1950s, with the memory of World War II’s devastation fresh and vivid.

The action takes place at three fictional locations: Edgetow, a university town similar to Cambridge, but smaller; St. Anne’s-on-the-Hill, a nearby village; and Belbury, a village in the opposite direction, currently undergoing a process of modernization. The plot is immediately tangled in University politics, so it helps to know that the University of Edgetow is composed of four separate colleges, each with its own administration and disciplines . Bracton College is the one that will concern us, because of the characters associated with it. In these first chapters Lewis, like any good novelist, is introducing his major characters and moving the conflict elements into place—like setting up a chessboard and marking out a strategy. The problem for contemporary readers is that he takes an awfully long time to do it and assumes a literary and history background that most Americans don’t have. So here, with the help of notes obtained from the Lewisiana website, are a few pointers.

CHAPTER ONE: SALE OF COLLEGE PROPERTY

1.1 Jane Tudor Studdock, a thoroughly modern post-war young woman, is at the beginning of a marriage that has already proved disappointing. The words she recalls in the first paragraph are from the Anglican Book of Common Prayer, the traditional ringing tones of which contrast sharply with Jane’s “improved” attitudes. She’s not a believer, but Anglicanism was the state religion (still is) with some authority over civil institutions like marriage. The clash between tradition and fashion sets Lewis’s theme, and Jane’s disturbing dream puts the plot in motion. She and her husband Mark will be the contrasting poles between which the action will shift and build.

The title page of Bracton’s book, which fellows of his namesake college would have done well to heed

1.2 Mark Studdock is intent on advancing his academic career. He’s a sociologist, a relatively new field of study at the time, and Lewis doesn’t seem to think much of it. Mark’s conversation with Curry shows how the academic world (then and now) is obsessed with position: the whole of point of an academic career is levering oneself into a cushy sinecure where one can collect a handsome salary without doing a lot of work (nothing has changes). Henry de Bracton (ca. 1250), for whom Mark’s college is named, was the author of a book on common law, in which he argued that secular authority is subject to the law. This also plays into Lewis’s theme. If you haven’t read Out of the Silent Planet, it’s important to know that Dick Devine (Lord Feverstone), whom Curry mentions as the one who got Mark his position, is the same Devine who accompanied Drs. Westin and Ransom on their trip to Mars.

1.3 This is a lovely section that you can feel free to skip, because there’s a lot of history and atmosphere that you may not be susceptible to at this point. Suffice it to say that Bragton Wood, a small enclosure within the college, is redolent with mystery as well as history, because it’s the location of “Merlin’s well.” Merlin is not just a character in the Arthur legends, but rather the character around whom the legends collected. The earliest references to him (ca. 800 AD) suggest that he had no father, giving rise to the rumor that he was the devil’s son. More of this later. What Lewis suggests in this chapter is that the College, feverishly modernizing, is sitting on a vast reserve of ancient power and knowledge that will not be swept aside.*

1.4 Lewis draws this chapter out so long it’s like you’re sitting in on an actual college meeting! But it’s worth reading for the clever way in which the “progressive” element maneuvers the fellows into voting to sell Bragdon Wood–a sale they would never have approved on a straightforward vote. This section also introduces the National Institute of Co-ordinated Experiments, or N.I.C.E., the collective villain of the piece. (Lewis obviously named the Institute with the acronym in mind, but it’s worth a mention that the UK’s National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence, a division of its National Health Service, also takes the acronym NICE.) Why does the N.I.C.E. want Bragdon Wood? That’s the question . . .

1.5 Introducing Dr. and Mrs. Cecil Dimble, sympathetic characters who already have a connection with Jane. They happen to live on Bracton College property, though Dimble teaches at another college. The couple have recently learned that their lease is not being renewed, no telling why. Notice how the tension slowly builds as change comes quickly to this sleepy little town, and how the Arthur legend comes up again in the conversation over tea.

*The heedless modernization Lewis saw in the fifties–or actually after the first World War–came into its own during the sixties. He pictures the change being wrought by an axis of government and academic bureaucracy; he might not have foreseen the wave of radicalism that hit college campuses in the mid-sixties, fueled (in America) by the Civil Rights movement and the VietNam war. But it was brilliant of him to perceive the corruption of the University as the eventual collapse of civilization.

CHAPTER TWO: DINNER WITH THE SUB-WARDEN

2.1 Non-olet is Latin for “it doesn’t stink,” ascribed to Emperor Vespasian’s reference to tax proceeds from public toilets. The Sub-warden, remember, is Curry; the college bursar (treasurer) is Busby: these are two Bracton hot-shots who will be edged out of prominence as Lord Feverstone circles like a shark around Mark. Notice his mention of Dr. Westin, the antagonist of Out of the Silent Planet and Perelandra. The “respectable Cambridge don” is Dr. Ransom, hero of those books. Feverstone’s talk of “taking charge of our destiny” is exactly what some contemporary scientists–as well as futuristic entrepreneurs like Elon Musk–mean by taking control of evolution. The catchword today is “transhumanism.” The theme is coming clearer now, and Mark will not be able to claim that he wasn’t warned.

2.2 and 2.3 Jane has another dream; her fear grows even as she despises herself for it. Mark is totally out of his element with her. We will see them together only one other time (briefly) during the course of the novel, and it’s interesting analyze their relationship here: what are the danger signs you see? Have you noticed anything similar in couples you know? Remember that Jane and Mark are the two poles of the narrative: the action will shift back and forth between them, with ever-growing light and ever-increasing darkness.

2.4 Mark motors to Belbury, N.I.C.E. headquarters, with Feverstone: “a big man driving a big car to somewhere where they would find big stuff going on. And he, Mark, was to be in it all.” Already we’ve seen Mark’s hunger to be in the inner circle, a lust that goes back to high school for almost everybody—I can certainly sympathize. Incidentally, Lewis’s description of the sights may go on too long here, but I love his hinting at the ineffable potential of passing scenery: it’s like peeking into lighted windows as you walk by them. Belbury might have been based on Blewbury, a village south of Oxford that became the site of the first nuclear reactor in Europe.

CHAPTER THREE: BELBURY AND ST. ANNE’S-ON-THE-HILL

3.1 and 3.2 Out of the frying pan, into the fire, though Mark recognizes only that he must find his way to the real power source here, just as he did at Bracton College. He is first introduced to John Wither, Deputy Director of N.I.C.E. who can’t seem to direct a cogent thought. William Hingest, whom Mark knew at Bracton, strikes the first sour note. Crosser and Steele are the kind of mediocre talents that bureaucracy thrives on, and Professor Filostrato may be one of the inner circle.

3.3 Meanwhile, at St. Anne’s, Jane meets Camilla Denniston (whose husband was mentioned in 1.2 as Mark’s rival for his fellowship), and Grace Ironwood, to whom she forms an immediate dislike. Why? What is it in Jane’s character that reacts negatively to Miss Ironwood’s?

3.4 Mark’s introduction to “Fairy” Hardcastle, one of Lewis’s more vivid characters. She’s chief of the Institute’s police, and why should a government institution need its own law enforcement? That should raise questions right away, as it does for Dr. Hingest, but Mark falls in with the line that the work is too vital, though controversial, to lack protection. (By the way, did you know the the U. S. Department of Education has its own swat team? Would it be amiss to wonder why . . . ?)

3.5 The real trouble begins.

CHAPTER FOUR: THE LIQUIDATION OF ANACHRONISM

The title is a mouthful, referring to modernism’s goal of purging the past, along with its obscure symbolism and burdensome rules. This is a major theme of The Abolition of Man (see my first post on that a week from today).

4.1 and 4.2 The N.I.C.E. is demonstrating the swagger of Nazi hordes, an all-too-recent memory. Mrs. Dingle’s description of their mowing down the woods compares to the murder of the trees from Narnia’s Last Battle. I’m intrigued by her question, “do human beings really like being happy?” A lot of us certainly enjoy being angry, or feeling put upon (speaking for myself).

4.3 Mark shares a morning stroll with the Reverend John Straik, whose presence at the Institute is a mystery. Isn’t modern science supposed to root out fire-and-brimstone religious fanatics such as this? I can’t think of a contemporary parallel to Straik (can you?), but he’s not the only one to mold the image of Christ to his own inclination. Softer forms of Christianity have played in to hands of power often enough, as the National Church did in Hitler’s time. Notice Mark’s acute embarrassment “at the name of Jesus”—love it! The name of Jesus was, is, and will always be offensive: a “stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense.”

4.4 Foul play; your suspicions should be raised. I love the last paragraph!

4.5 All Jane wants is “to be left alone.” This was Lewis’s own desire, as described in Surprised by Joy. Is this reasonable? Is it possible?

4.6 The proposed “liquidation” of Cure Hardy reflects what is going to happen to Bracton Wood. It goes on a little too long; you can get the sense by skimming. Some redeeming aspects of Mark’s character emerge here, and a good thing too; major characters need to be somewhat sympathetic. What are these redeeming features? Notice how his field (sociology) concentrates on group identity rather than individual, exactly as political correctness does today.

4.7 This scene is just devastating: the colleges progressives have sown the wind and now reap the whirlwind of mindless destruction: the “liquidation of anachronism,” indeed. Notice how Mark is being maneuvered from afar—the inner circle he craves membership in is advancing him like a chess piece.