One of the books I use in my Introduction to Philosophy course is Lewis’s Mere Christianity. It’s very clear and accessible and covers a wide range of traditional religious philosophical themes. I’m reviewing it now in preparation for the new semester which begins (yikes) in two weeks.
I find Lewis’s chummy, let’s-pop-round-to-the pub-for-a-quick-one writing style a bit much — and especially irritating when combined with breathtakingly anti-human statements.
For example, in a chapter (Book 3, Chapter VIII) lambasting pride as “The Great Sin” and as the “complete anti-God state of mind,” Lewis contrasts it to humility. Humility is based upon a full realization of your original sinfulness and helplessness. When that realization happens and you accept it, Lewis states, you feel “the infinite relief of having for once got rid of all the silly nonsense about your own dignity.” Humility enables us to “take off a lot of silly, ugly, fancy-dress in which we have all got ourselves up and are strutting about like the little idiots we are.”
All of that set us up for a right relationship with God: “The real test of being in the presence of God is, that you either forget about yourself altogether or see yourself as a small, dirty object.”
Wow. Tell us what you really think, Clive.
If philosophy is autobiography, that’s quite a statement.
It’s quite a statement even if it isn’t: the generalization about human nature is audacious.
This is the 3rd post I’ve read today reporting on the anti-man drivel of lesser minds. The other two concerned environmentalists who (as reported by Ari Armstrong) regard every human birth as an assault against the earth and (via Popehat) those who approvingly regard bridge suicides as “soil replenishment.” Creepy indeed. Too bad these creatures don’t practice what they preach and cease to exist altogether. I think I’ll go off and read some life-affirming authors who have a bit of self esteem now!
Likewise, Susan. Any religion teaching that human beings are born in need of redemption is profoundly wicked.
I’m not a professional philosopher, nor Christian, nor a fan of C.S. Lewis (or of anyone who likes to habitually dance with words for that matter), but I also don’t think that “Lewis gives me the creeps” is productive at all.
I found this post after a Google search looking for another of Lewis’ quotes: “humility is not thinking less of yourself but thinking of yourself less” — which seems to conflict with “seeing yourself as a dirty little object”.
Clearly Lewis isn’t completely consistent in regards to that notion, but it does suggest that he’s not entirely “anti-human” either, as you seem to suggest, and that philosophy, at least in practice, is not autobiographical.
And sure, Lewis’ statement you’ve posted here are audacious and creepy, but surely “audacious and creepy” isn’t a widely accepted reason to dismiss an idea in philosophy.
In response to Susan and Terry, I don’t think that an emotional appeal to nature is an effective way to argue against Lewis either. If we are to speak of matters of value, by, for instance, accusing certain religions of being wicked, then we also need to acknowledge that one does, under some circumstances, need to be “redeemed” — even if only for practical reasons, i.e. for the sake of society. By Terry’s reasoning, Christians all need to be redeemed from the wickedness of Christianity. How much less wicked is it to claim that one needs to be redeemed from the wickedness of their religion (which they might in fact have been born and immediately indoctrinated into, for better or worse) than it is to say that one needs to be redeemed from the wickedness of their own birth?
Also, there is a difference between the statement that humans are inherently bad and must be punished or removed, and the statement that humans are inherently bad and are in need of some kind of positive change. From what I know, the former is understood as spite; the latter, misanthropy. To compare Lewis’ misanthropic comments to the spiteful comments of environmental fundamentalists and suicide cults, to me, seems like a bit too much scarecrowing.
How dare Lewis, in a piece of light writing meant for live radio talks to a wide audience and, as such, meant to be sound conversational, suggest that there might be some relief in surrendering that part of our nature that takes the trouble to identify oneself as “Ph.D.” Why not just a simple “Stephen Hicks”? Think about that moment when setting up your profile to include this detail. You had to make a choice to type those letters in a data field. Why? Why is it important that I think you are more “professionally qualified” to blather about Lewis than the stoned blogger living with his mum?
Considering human beings track record, I think we can say for a fact – that human beings are more often then not pretty evil. Nuclear weapons, constant wars, famine, capitalist economic exploitation… how many people kill themselves over their finances or jobloss, etc, etc? How many people would take a homeless person into their own house, etc? I could go on about all the great and nice things human beings DO NOT DO.
Nietzsche thinks most human beings are not worthy of life, and I agree that if you objectively viewed human beings, that’s a valid conclusion given our bloody history and our lack of kindness towards one another.
US –> Cuban relations are a case in point. Two children bickering over how they should organize themselves.
“Any religion teaching that human beings are born in need of redemption is profoundly wicked.”
Nice to see another bit of tolerance from the tolerance and basic human goodness crowd. Sheesh.
I believe Lewis’s point was in keeping with the teachings of Jesus, who compared the Pharisees, who were outwardly the most pious and self-righteous of their day, to white-washed tombs full of corruption.
To repent of sins, first a sinner has to shed the self-justification that protects our self-image and keeps us from seeing ourselves as sinners. Jesus spent an enormous amount of time preaching against hypocrisy. Hypocrites become convinced that what they say is what makes them righteous, while their deeds show the opposite.
The pride and dignity Lewis speaks of is the facade of righteousness akin to the hypocritical Pharisees. True dignity is contained in the commandments Jesus called the most important- love the Lord with all your heart, mind and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself.
Hypocrites justify their own actions, regardless of how contradictory they are to what they preach, and place unrealistic expectations on others. That is the “pride” Lewis addresses.
It is not demeaning to man to admit pride, and ask forgiveness.
Hi Eric:
The creepy part about Lewis is his assumption that everyone is a hypocrite. Your comment too equates pride and dignity with hypocrisy. Why is that?
It’s one thing to say that some people are hypocrites — which is fine, as long as one accurately identifies them. It’s another thing to slander every human being with such accusations.
Lewis believes that everyone is by nature weak/evil/sinful, and that is what I am objecting to.
By contrast, I believe that deserved pride is possible, normal, and healthy for humans.
“All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” Romans 3:23
This is a core teaching of Christianity. Without it, there exists the possibility that man might achieve perfection on his own merits, without the grace of God. Lewis supports this.
In my experience, all of us are weak/evil/sinful, to varying degrees. Anyone claiming to have never had an impure thought is lying, myself included. We all cover our tracks when it comes to thoughts that would cast us in a bad light, which is human nature. Human nature= instincts for self-preservation of our self image+ a natural curiosity about sordid things.
The bad news, that we are sinful, comes with good news, that we can be forgiven, even in our current state, and all our sins wiped away as if they never happened. Admission of guilt (or, rather, honesty,) is not a prison, but a step to opening the prison door.
This belief also keeps the hypocrites and self-righteous (at least in theory) from browbeating those they consider greater sinners than themselves.
Perhaps your term “deserved pride” which you describe as healthy, might be better understood as “peace,” in the Christian tradition. Pride comes from the self, peace from the fruits of the Spirit. The following link lays out part of Galatians rather simply. Gal. supports the idea that it is not slander to shine a light on our own hypocrisy, and to turn to the fruits of the spirit and peace, rather than living in the flesh. http://www.loveallpeople.org/pearl-fruit.html
Dignity is a tricky word. It means self-respect, or or elevation of character. Christians are required to treat others with respect, so why would Lewis insist that dignity is false? I believe that Lewis meant that it was false only when applied to cover up our own human nature (sinfulness), before the perfection of God. In that case, it is merely an edifice, or as he puts it, “fancy dress”.
Eric,
You write, “Anyone claiming to have never had an impure thought is lying, myself included.”
In opposition, have you ever had a pure thought? While accepting the possibility of sounding like a moral relativist, I’d be interested for you to articulate 1. What impure is to you. 2. Why it should be for me or anyone else. 3. How your or my thoughts translate into anything that could be construed as good or bad in the physical world?
You define something you call “human nature” as “= instincts for self-preservation of our self image+ a natural curiosity about sordid things”. That is not a definition of human nature that I have heard or read before. I’m curious if it is something you have made up?
You write “The bad news, that we are sinful, comes with good news that we can be forgiven, even in our current state, and all our sins wiped away as if they never happened”.
Sinful? Forgiven? Forgiven by whom? Your writing reflects that you are both articulate and intelligent. Unfortunately, in your post all you do is simply regurgitate unfounded, uni-dimensional, theistic assertions without any evidentiary support. That makes what you are doing tantamount to preaching your theology. This is fine in the confines of your church, but mythology and fairytales cannot be awarded any credibility in logical, reasoned discourse.
I have put Lewis’s description of pride, and by extension Dr. Hicks statement “…the generalization about human nature is audacious” into the context of Christian theology. “Mere Christianity” is, after all, an attempt to explain Christian beliefs in terms that would help a non-Christians and Christians alike understand the theology. Otherwise Lewis would have titled it “Mere Philosophy based upon a Deity that cannot be proven by empirical means.”
A short summary of the book, attached to a study guide for it supports that it is a work of theology: http://www.bookrags.com/studyguide-mere-christianity/plot.html
Theology: the study of religious faith, practice, and experience; especially : the study of God and of God’s relation to the world. (Merriam Webster dictionary)
You asked for my definition of what is impure, which is irrelevant. Biblical descriptions of what impure, or rather “sinful” thoughts and deeds are contained in Galatians, which contrasts the fruits of the Spirit with the works of the flesh. http://www.loveallpeople.org/pearl-fruit.html The works of the flesh are impure, while the works of the Spirit are pure, according to this passage.
Many other biblical passages have specific descriptions of what is acceptable, among them Luke 10:25-37, which contains the golden rule and the parable of the Good Samaritan. http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke+10%3A25-37&version=NIV
James 1:27 describes it this way: “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.”
Thus the “pure” thoughts and deeds you asked me to elaborate upon are when we help others, even our enemies. Samaritans and Jews despised one another, yet the Samaritan is the one in the story who does what is right, even though the more acceptable religious types passed the victim by.
Human Nature, as defined by the Oxford dictionary: “The general psychological characteristics, feelings, and behavioural traits of humankind, regarded as shared by all humans.”
In Christian theology, the definition of the behavioural traits of mankind is summed up by the passage “All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” Using the passage in Galatians alone, the works of the flesh (and humans are all made of flesh,) contends with the Spirit, the very nature of God.
In my experience, people who do bad things justify it with moral relativism, because of the psychological need to protect one’s own self-image. Perhaps a psych teacher would have a better description of this aspect of human nature than mine.
As I stated before, Jesus railed against the hypocrisy of the Pharisees, who appeared to be outwardly pious, yet were inwardly filled with pride and corruption. The Pharisees are the model upon which Lewis’s description of our own human nature can be explored. Humility enables us to “take off a lot of silly, ugly, fancy-dress in which we have all got ourselves up and are strutting about like the little idiots we are.”
You asked who has the power to forgive sins. Here is a discussion of the topic: http://bible.org/seriespage/authority-forgive-sins-matthew-91-8 . You then asked for empirical proof to all of my statements. Despite seminaries and thousands of years of anecdotal evidence, the empirical proof that God either exists or does not exist has eluded man. Nonetheless, the basis of this discussion is about a book that explores the Christian interpretation of the nature of man, and how it relates to God. In the end, belief in God is based upon faith. My aim is merely to clarify and support what Lewis has written about his religion, supporting his statements both biblically and with my own experience.
Little attention is paid to what Lewis stated, and conditions are now what we have and deserve.
To the PhD: Saw your video on H&N. Was very nice intellectual stimulation. Will serve up a couple of pronunciation hints:
Sartre is not pronounced “Sartrah”
Forte is not pronounced “Fortay”
All German words that begin with “v” have an “f” sound. So, Volk is pronounced, “Folk”
It is clear your education did not include German language, and hence the rather grating mispronunciations. Rather ironic that your livelihood comes from talking about what all those famous Germans had to say.
Please check these online pronunciation guides, George:
Sartre: http://www.forvo.com/word/sartre/.
forte: http://www.forvo.com/search-fr/forte/.
Also note the common practice of Anglicizing foreign words when speaking for an English-speaking audience.
Ah, it is now clear that you’ve drawn your pronunciations from “online” references. The latest Merriam Webster Collegiate Dictionary might serve you better, and I can’t help but notice that it agrees with me regarding “forte”.
Moreover, “Sartre” has a silent second “r”, as any French Canadian can demonstrate. Luckily, you’re nearby lots of them.
It would be interesting to hear your anglicized pronunciations of Weltschmerz, Weltanschhauung, Zeitgeist, etc., when they pop up in philosophical discussion.
Dr. Hicks, I think it’s possible that your view of Lewis may partly stem from too little exposure to his writing. Taking his opinions as a whole (Which are, more or less, in line with orthodox Christianity as far as I know) he has a much, much higher opinion of Man as a being than most secular humanists – certainly much different, but higher. I believe his picture of humanity (very briefly) goes a little like this:
Man was made as the pinnacle of creation by God, in Gods own image, and he was called good. Yet in this perfect state, Man was unsatisfied with his position and attempted to usurp God (“become like God”) and so fell. Now he is trapped in wickedness, in need of redemption which is beyond his own power to bring about. God is working in people to bring about that redemption. If we were to see a redeemed man now, we would be very tempted to worship him. The present is a much worse state of affairs than even a despairing man would think, and the future is a much grander one than we can imagine.
No doubt this offers are more bleak picture of the present state of the human race and the individual men we meet day-to-day than you’re comfortable with, but it is certainly more complex than simply saying that humans are wicked and of no value.
I find your assumption that there are people who are not in some way hypocrites troubling. I don’t know the inner lives of other people, but I know for myself that my beliefs and actions are rarely fully consistent. Are yours? Is it possible for anyone’s to be so? I do not have such profound faith in humanity.
– Side note: Lewis’s conversational style I’ve found to be both helpful and annoying at various points. It offers a nice contrast to the cumbersome language of many philosophers (Wittgenstein comes to mind :P), but can grate on the nerves when getting down the nuts and bolts of what he’s talking about.
C.S. Lewis was not only a writer of science fiction, children’s books, and essays, he was the foremost Christian apologist of his era. His lectures during WWII harp on the subject of the “moral law,” which is unique to man. It operates in all cultures, and seems to be part of our “firmware”, the brain being, at times, a most exacting organ. The argument from the Moral Law is convincing to many, and as a writer, Lewis is one of the ten greatest prose producers who ever lived. Moreover, he is sincere and continually searching for the truth.
There seems to be a concern that he regards, or prejudges, all men as dirty worms, or living in “sin,” but “sin” in Greek means “missing the mark.” It is man’s imperfection which results in the imperfect exercise of his free will. Socrates may have been right that no one willfully selects evil, but many Greek arguments presuppose (as does Aristotle) a level of culture and education which preclude barbaric customs. Lewis does not depart from Scripture, but restates it in often a more digestible form. Those who lived in antiquity and who listened to Jesus in person had no delusions about how difficult life could be. We need some adjustment in our twentieth century lives to understand his simple advice.
Lewis asserts (although I can’t quote him) the essential simplicity of the Bible message: “In the beginning, God [Elohim, used with a singular verb] created the heavens and the earth…” After untold milennia He made Man, and then Woman, and left them in considerable privacy in a perfect garden or park with the injunction to fill the world with their issue. However, Eve was seduced by a rebellious angel and tried the “forbidden fruit” [not an ‘apple’] and Adam followed her, knowing he was rebelling against his true father/creator and accepting the testimony of a serpent [doubtless, he’d heard parrots talk, and perhaps assumed other creatures did, and they are not unintelligent but lack abstract reasoning ability]. This situation might be compared to Bill Gates giving you a mansion, a secret formula for eternal youth, a yacht and even a computer that worked flawlessly, with the proviso, “Have some kids who can share in the wealth,” and you take the goods, but flip him the bird.
The issue of Adam was therefore “sinful” and “cursed [with death and disease]” and had to “earn their bread through the sweat of the brow”. To redeem His creation God sent his son as a ransom sacrifice, a perfect man for a perfect man. Kindly note, Jesus “became flesh” and his heavenly existence was suspended. He was “resurrected in spirit, not in the flesh.” Angels are living beings made of energy, it seems, although they can assume flesh, as in the visit of the angels to Lot in Sodom. Essentially, only through this sacrifice of “the lamb of God, which takes away the ‘sins’ of the world” can anyone obtain life everlasting. Let’s not forget this is the “real life” and that it is in an earthly Paradise, although some are resurrected in the spirit (another subject). Man must sleep in the grave until he is “resurrected” or “made to stand up again.”
Science now tells us through gene studies and DNA and chromosomes that this is mechanically feasible, but science can tell us nothing about the Moral Law, or God’s Will, or how many angels can surmount a pin, or how spiritual law may at times seduce physical law.
It is this basically simple message that C.S. Lewis propounds, though with considerable elegance and somewhat in an orthodox Church-of-England manner. No spiritual discussion is ever exhaustive, there is always something more, be it from Jesus or Socrates, to be said. Most of our knowledge is revealed, on authority, or second-hand. Most of us have had almost no original thoughts. At least a great many great men thought so.
It is also true that “people” like Hitler, or Genghis Khan, or Stalin, Mao, Lenin or Trotsky (virtually any totalitarian!) inflicts death and misery when you get in their way. So, one might argue, does the Federal Reserve Bank, who tries to make money the god of all. Kindly note, Jesus clearly points out that one may serve God “in spirit and in truth” or serve Mammon, but no one can “serve two masters.” “Selfishness” or the neglect of others’ rights and interests so your own may be served is condemned, but this is not the “selfishness” of Ayn Rand. Let’s not forget that some very brutal people were selfless, they felt they acted only for the welfare of others. Hitler believed that destroying Bolshevism (the “Jewish virus” which infected the business/political world) would give millions (not merely Germans or Aryans) a happy world order. Spanish inquisitors believed that torture would free the “heretic” from judgment. A bomb-bearing Mahometan is not much different.
The essence of C.S. Lewis, perhaps better determined from his writing on Milton and Spenser (see THE ALLEGORY OF LOVE) is that of a civilized “Christian” scholar and writer who strove to make sense of the evils of his day, and who sought “the real life”, not that he advocated suicide, but that he hope to have a new life in a new world, should the Creator resurrect him. Obviously, his theology was medieval, but in the best sense of the word. He thought it was easier to understand the universe as controlled by demons or angels than by random atomic circumstance. Becoming a “Christian” or worshipping the One “True” God is a matter of free choice and cannot be compelled. Everyone, whatever his ‘religion’ has core beliefs, or premises but these, as Mrs. O’Connor said, need to be checked regularly. Theism is a matter of perception as much as thought, and of heeding revealed truth. The rise of “atheism” is a natural reaction to the innumerable excesses of synagogue, church, or revival tent, and of the admixture of State with Religion.
In order to know the real Mr. Lewis one must read the Bible, or Milton — ahem, you can’t get much from Paradise Lost if you haven’t read the Bible. Remember always, the choice is always based on “volitional consciousness” and “free will,” and that what you believe will give you life (and love) or death (and darkness). The mind and conscience cannot ignore each other. Nor should we toss Mr. Lewis’ exquisite arguments away because they initially offend our “sense of life.” Indeed, our civilization, up to the advent of Hugh Hefner, was a Christian European consciousness that kept alive the earnest logic of the Greeks, the martial ardor of Rome, and wove a tapestry of art, music, drama, and philosophy that is being continually unravelled by the “modern” theories of egalitarianism, “democracy”, and “liberation” so that Science is the new God, and his prophet is Richard Dawkins.
Or, to quote that saucy French duke, LaRochefaucault, “arguments would not last so long if the truth were on one side only.”
I did read Lewis– when I was a Christian 13 year old. (Being a teen and being a Christian both thankfully belong to my past).
I wonder what Freud would make of “seeing yourself as a small dirty object.” Actually I don’t wonder, I’m being rhetorical. And yes it’s creepy.
His kind of chumminess is sinister and not at all uncommon among priests and pastors. So often it rings false when these same people talk about what they see as the essential nastiness and vileness of humanity and even our basic bodily functions.
I have seen pastors and writers who will openly condone any and all types of intellectual dishonesty because they believe they are saving souls. And they will do so while wearing the mask of the “aw-shucks” friendly uncle. Yes, creepy is just the word.
There is dignity and there is dignity.
Lewis was speaking of what is in the Bible called “self righteousness,” which is liked to used toilet rags.
That is very different from the inherent dignity of being a creature created in the image of God.
It is as different as sin and redemption.
“like” = likened
(In order to teach philosophy — or theology — one should know the subject matter.)
Hi Arlen: Can you show me from Lewis’s text where he makes the distinctions you suggest? I don’t see anything in Mere Christianity that’s close to what you claim he’s saying.
If you don’t find C.S. Lewis’ writings life affirming, either you haven’t read more than a few quotes plucked out by some deranged fruitcake on his blog, or you are mentally retarded.
I’m hoping there’s a third alternative, Joe.
Haha, ok a bit harsh maybe… Anyway I’ve read as much C.S. Lewis as I can get my hands on, and most of it is brilliant writing, whether you agree with what he says or not. I can’t really relate to your feelings about him giving you the creeps or being irritating or ‘anti-human’ because I get a completely different impression from his own writings and others writing about him. I don’t know how many of his works you have read but if you were to read say The Four Loves, The Problem of Pain, A Grief Observed, a biography or 2, some of his letters, essays and a few fictional works, I would be extremely surprised if you would still describe him as anti-human. Sure being a Christian usually involves believing that humanity was created good and ‘fell’ through pride, or wanting to be God, but I’m pretty certain that C.S. Lewis would agree that humans are still essentially good, albeit fallen, creatures, and the way to recover our former glory is through humility and submission to God. Take for example this extract from a sermon titled The weight of glory:
“If there lurks in most modern minds the notion that to desire our own good and earnestly to hope for the enjoyment of it is a bad thing, I submit that this notion has crept in from Kant and the Stoics and is no part of the Christian faith. Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an
ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.” There are a million other quotes but you’ll have to read them yourself. I think the apparent anti human sentiment you detect in that short excerpt from Mere Christianity you would find then in all Christians (but not only Christians) and is a description of what they believe is true human nature, i.e. made in Gods image, corrupted through pride, but meant for glory.
What were you prefer Lewis to say?
ooops….’would’
I totally agree about C.S. Lewis being “creepy.” He talks about humility, but I have read few authors as full of hubris as is this professor! His arguments always seem like syllogism to me!
I am taking an online course on Lewis and his writings, and hope I can make more sense of him after completion!
The first time CS Lewis gave me the creeps was when I was about 5 years old. I was reading /Prince Caspian/, one of his Narnia books. At the end, when the good guys win, one of the first things they do is tear down a bridge that the bad guys had built over a great river. This done at the behest of the river god, who pleads, “Break my chains.” Clearly Lewis meant that building bridges over rivers is unnatural and hence evil. By extension, humanity and civilization are inherently evil. I read the passage several times, trying to figure out some innocent interpretation of Lewis’ position, but could not. Later, I learned that Lewis shared this rabid hatred of technology with many of his fellow fanatical Christian despisers of modernity, including William Blake, JRR Tolkien, GK Chesterton, and Francis Schaeffer.
The second time CS Lewis gave me the creeps was not long after, reading /The Silver Chair/. When the evil queen tries, with fay glamour and argument, to persuade Puddleglum that Aslan is a figment of his imagination. Puddleglum replies,
“Suppose we have only dreamed, or made up, all those things–trees and grass and sun and moon and stars and Aslan himself. Suppose we have. Then all I can say is that, in that case, the made-up things seem a good deal more important than the real ones.”
I was a die-hard evangelical fundamentalist Baptist at the time, and found this shocking. Lewis was saying that the best reason to believe in Christianity wasn’t that it was /true/, but that it /felt nice/.
Lewis wrote about his own conversion experience several times, always saying that he was convinced not by reasons, but by feelings. Christianity made him feel the same way that Platonist fairy tales like Lilith did. “Faerieland”, to Lewis, was both the world of Platonic forms and the Heaven of Christianity. Lewis is thought of as an apologist for a hard-nosed, fact-based Christianity; yet his own Christianity was pure hedonism. I later saw this pattern in other dialectical apologists whose own Christianity was likewise based on feelings, not reason (for example, St. Augustine’s description in his Confessions).
CS Lewis reached maximum creepiness for me only recently, when I read Christian Reflections, a posthumous compilation Walter Hooper made in 1967 of essays by Lewis, and An Experiment in Criticism (1961). Here I found Lewis advocating post-modernist views decades before French philosophers did. For instance: it’s impossible for humans to have creativity or originality (a Platonist, medieval, and post-modernist doctrine; in Lewis 1939/1967 chapter 1 p. 6-7; compare Plato (Meno, Ion, Phaedrus, & Republic), St. Augustine (Eco 1959/1986 p. 108), Chesteron 2012 p. 82 (written 1931), and Barthes 1968 & 1971); reasoning about ethical values is impossible because we are always already in a moral framework (a post-modern doctrine; Lewis ~1943), or because values require a transcendental foundation (a Platonist, Christian, medieval, and post-modernist dogma; Lewis 1967 p. 57-71, “De Futilitate”, a speech given during WW2); critics can judge texts better from reader response to them than from the texts themselves (a post-modern doctrine; Lewis 1961 chapter 1; compare Fish 1980); representational art is not really art, but mere reference to a thing already known (a Platonist, medieval, modernist, and post-modernist doctrine; in Lewis 1961 chapter 3); naturalistic art is not merely in bad taste, but evil (Lewis 1967 p. 27-36, “Christianity and Culture”, 1940); and there is no such thing as progress (a medieval assumption and a post-modernist doctrine; in Lewis 1967 p. 83; compare Kuhn 1962). Also note Lewis’ claim (1967 p. 33) that the concept ‘progressive’ is inherently corrupting. [1]
It was finding this mix of ancient and radical ideas in Lewis which first forced me to recognize the close affinity between conservative Christians, radical leftists, and Nazis on metaphysical issues. The Nazis were, arguably, the first post-modernists [2]. They used the radical relativism and social constructivism of phenomenology, the Marxist/Nietzschian hatred of modern civilization, and the antiquarian sentimentality for antiquity, barbarism, feudalism, and hedonism [3], to justify using violence and intimidation (conflict theory) rather than debate (mistake theory), and to justify destroying German civilization and replacing it with German “Kultur”. Between them, the Nazis and the Spanish and Italian fascists purged Europe of any philosophy which inconveniently taught the existence of an objective reality or of non-hedonistic epistemology, leaving us with the social-constructivist anti-epistemology we now call “continental philosophy”.
Post-modernism is based on Aristotelian / medieval physics and metaphysics. This is why medieval scholars and post-modernists share so many metaphysical beliefs [4]. A post-modernist is just an Aristotelian who realizes that Aristotelianism doesn’t work. Knowing no other alternative science, (s)he concludes that there is no objective reality, no objective ethics, and no objective science. The Social Justice movement is now recycling this same hatred of civilization, privileging of conflict theory over mistake theory, and phenomenologist / social-constructivist epistemology and ethics, for the exact same purposes as the Nazis: to silence opposition, and to delegitimize and destroy Western civilization.
NOTES
[1] To understand the affinity between Platonist, Christian, medieval, modernist, and post-modernist beliefs, you must know that “modernism” refers to a philosophical movement /against/ modernity, and that “post-modernism”, while it refutes modernism’s faith in Aristotelianism, is in many ways a reversion to the more-purely Platonist epistemology of Christianity before Aquinas, and so is congenial to the most-conservative Christians, who say that everything post-modernists say would be true, if not for God’s revelation through Christ.
Modern art, for instance, was a Platonist reaction against the imaginative representational art of modernity. Modern artists, as Platonists, believed that the use of a single consistent viewpoint in space and time, and of logical and causal relations between objects, to tell an original story, was theoretically impossible. They believed that all art was the depiction of, or pointing to, eternal Platonic Forms, and therefore was necessarily non-re-presentational; and that all existing art had been made invalid by the death of the Christian God. They were attempting to restart the process of divining and portraying the Platonist Forms of reality. This is never taught anymore (see Evans 2014 for a brief explanation of why it has been suppressed), but is clear if you read the writings of the original modern artists, e.g., Gauguin, Matisse, Kandinsky, Gleizes, Mondrian, or Malevich. See, just for a few examples, (Cramer & Grant 2019), plus other references listed below.
For another example, the fundamentalist evangelical Calvinist Francis Schaeffer (1976) made the very same arguments that ancient Christians, modernists, and post-modernists did against the ability of reason to elucidate values (p. 148, 158-160), to create art (p. 182-196), to discern truth (p. 198-199), or even to attribute meaning to words (throughout). It should not surprise us to find (Schaeffer 1976) full of references not only to writings of medieval scholastics and Roman church fathers, but also to works of art and literature by early modernists.
[2] Hegel could claim priority, based on his claim that dialectics can be without presuppositions; as could Nietzsche for his call for the transvaluation of values. (Morris 2017) claimed that the Nazis were post-modernists before I did.
[3] My claim that “classical” ancient, Christian, medieval, modernist, and post-modernist philosophies are hedonistic will probably strike knowledgeable readers as my most-fantastic claim. But recall that, whereas Enlightenment thinkers saw philosophy as the pursuit of truth, classical philosophers (and here I use “classical” to exclude Thales, Democritus, and all Hellenistic philosophers, whom classical scholars studiously exclude from their canons) saw philosophy as the pursuit of–their own words, though in English–”the good life”. Christians seek above all personal deliverance from eternal pain and personal experience of eternal pleasure. Nietzschians, phenomenologists, and proto-existentialists such as Kierkegaard and Schopenhauer all claimed value derives not from facts, but from “lived experience” and subjective will (personal desire). Existentialism claimed a moral status, but its foundational texts refuted any objective moral claims, saying rather that morality consists just of doing what you really (“authentically”) want to do (e.g., Sartre 1938/1949 p. 437-438, 1943/1956; see Flynn 2006 p. 45-48 for commentary), and was in practice notoriously hedonistic. Also see Béland 2009 on parallels between Nietzsche’s “The Birth of Tragedy” and (Sartre 1938). Derrida (and, I think, Paul Feyerabend) saw philosophy as nothing more than a fun game. And this is mostly hedonism of the worst kind–not the social hedonism of Epicurus or Bentham, which sought the pleasure of all members of society; but selfish, personal hedonism. (The main exception is that Christians are to be compassionate. The Nazis don’t quite fit this pattern, as they could not even differentiate personal and social hedonism, since they saw races rather than people as having souls and agency.)
[4] All major post-modern French philosophers were scholars either of classical antiquity or of the Middle Ages, and all had at least one Nazi philosopher (usually Heidegger) as a primary influence.
REFERENCES
Rina Arya (ed), 2014. Contemplations of the Spiritual in Art. Oxford & Bern: Peter Lang.
Martine Béland, 2009. “Unveiling the Nietzschean Origins of Sartre’s Nausea.” Dogma, April 2009, http://www.dogma.lu/pdf/MB-NietzscheSartre.pdf .
Charles Cramer & Kim Grant, 2019. “Abstract art and Theosophy.” Smarthistory, September 28, 2019, accessed May 22, 2022, https://smarthistory.org/abstract-art-and-theosophy/. Note that theosophy was Neo-Platonist.
Umberto Eco 1959; transl. Hugh Bredin 1986. Art and Beauty in the Middle Ages. New Haven, CT: Yale.
Michael Evans, 2014. “Out of Nothing : Painting and Spirituality.” In Arya 2013 p. 77-96.
Stanley Fish, 1980. “How to Recognize a Poem When You See One.” In Is There a Text in this Class? The Authority of Interpretive Communities. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1980, p. 322-337.
Thomas Flynn, 2006. Existentialism: A very short introduction. Oxford U.
W. L. George, 1920. “A Painter’s Literature”. The English review, London (Mar 1920): 223-234.
Albert Gleizes, 1922 (or 1923); transl 2000. La Peinture et ses lois (Painting and Its Laws). London: Francis Boutle.
Albert Gleizes & Jean Metzinger, 1912. “Cubism.” In Harrison & Wood 1992, p. 187-196.
Charles Harrison & Paul Wood, eds., 1992. Art in Theory. Oxford: Blackwell.
Hans L.C. Jaffé (translator), 1971. De Stijl. NYC: H.N. Abrams.
Wassily Kandinsky, 1911; transl. Michael Sadler 2008. Concerning the Spiritual in Art. Floating Press.
Thomas Kuhn 1962. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. U Chicago.
Vincent Leitch et al., eds. 2nd ed. 2010, The Norton Anthology of Theory & Criticism. New York: Norton.
CS Lewis, 1939. Christianity and Literature. In Lewis 1967 p. 1-11.
CS Lewis, ~1943. On Ethics. In Lewis 1967 p. 44-56.
CS Lewis, 1961. An Experiment in Criticism. Cambridge U Press.
CS Lewis, 1967 (posthumous). Christian Reflections. Grand Rapids MI: Eerdmans.
Henri Matisse, 1908. Notes of a Painter (Notes d’un Peintre). In (Flam 1978): 32-40.
Henri Matisse; transl. Jack Flam 1973; Dutton edition 1978. Matisse on Art. NYC: Dutton.
Piet Mondrian (Dutch “Mondriaan”), 1917. Neoplasticism in Painting (Dutch: De niewu beelding in de schilderkunst, literally “the new representation in painting”), 1. Introduction. (Dutch: “1. Inleiding”). De Stijl 1(1): 2-6. Translated in (Jaffé 1971 p. 36-39).
Piet Mondrian 1936, transl. 1993. Plastic Art and Pure Plastic Art, part 2. In (Holtzman 1993), quoted at https://arthistoryproject.com/artists/piet-mondrian/the-collected-writings-of-piet-mondrian .
Mark Morris, 2017. Hitler: Philosopher King. Bedfordshire, UK: Arlesey Press.
Jean-Paul Sartre 1938, transl. Lloyd Alexander 1949. Nausea. Norfolk, CN: New Directions.
Jean-Paul Sartre 1943, transl. Hazel Barnes 1956. Being and Nothingness. New York: Philosophical Library.
Francis Schaeffer, 1976. How Should We Then Live? The rise and decline of Western thought and culture. Old Tappan, NJ: Fleming Revell. Later made into a video series with similar content, but fewer references.
Whoops. I forgot to list these references:
Roland Barthes, 1968. “The Death of the Author.” In Leitch et al., pp. 1322-1326.
Roland Barthes, 1971. “From Work to Text.” In Leitch et al., pp. 1326-1331.