{"id":72,"date":"2008-12-02T00:46:54","date_gmt":"2008-12-02T07:46:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.stormtiger.com\/collie\/bestiary\/?p=72"},"modified":"2010-07-20T08:18:36","modified_gmt":"2010-07-20T15:18:36","slug":"review-the-screwtape-letters-by-c-s-lewis-ii-of-ii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.stormtiger.com\/collie\/bestiary\/2008\/12\/review-the-screwtape-letters-by-c-s-lewis-ii-of-ii\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: &#8220;The Screwtape Letters&#8221; by C. S. Lewis (II of II)"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>When I was a child&#8230;<\/h2>\n<p><iframe src=\"http:\/\/rcm.amazon.com\/e\/cm?t=colliesbestia-20&#038;o=1&#038;p=8&#038;l=as1&#038;asins=0060652934&#038;fc1=000000&#038;IS2=1&#038;lt1=_blank&#038;m=amazon&#038;lc1=0000FF&#038;bc1=000000&#038;bg1=FFFFFF&#038;f=ifr\" style=\"width:120px;height:240px;margin-bottom:8px;margin-right:10px;\" align=\"left\" scrolling=\"no\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe>On the other hand, there were a few things I found perplexing, although it&#8217;s possible I found them so due to their being anachronistic (they are quite google-able for the curious, I may add). For example, who is Farinata? Why or how did Rousseau first reveal the supposedly &#8220;very human&#8221; deep hatred of personal freedom in the human striving for Liberty? Also, I can quite understand the need to act when one is moved, and the benefits of making a habit of action at such times. Thus I would guess a good active habit might be one such as, for example, making time to exercise every day. However, what is a good passive habit and why does Lewis think they are good for you?<\/p>\n<p>Unfortunately it&#8217;s a bit sadly clear Lewis lived in a different time and place when we reflect on his (few) views on women. The books are written with an emphasis on men &#8212; to the point, I feel, that Lewis can&#8217;t even see his non-conscious bias.<\/p>\n<p>For example, in the closing segment titled &#8220;<i>Screwtape Proposes a Toast<\/i>,&#8221; some time is spent emphasizing how to twist true democracy into nothing more than an insecure internal sense of &#8220;I&#8217;m as good as you.&#8221; I live in the land of &#8220;no child left behind,&#8221; and I know what that&#8217;s doing to both the education system and the morale of teachers and students alike. Nevertheless, while I might agree there are indeed some who are definitely better at some things than others are, I&#8217;m not willing to subscribe wholeheartedly to Lewis&#8217; assertion of the ills of democracy.<\/p>\n<p>His examples are especially telling: in one of them he uses a Chihuahua and a St. Bernard to assert the little dog is not &#8220;as good as&#8221; the larger one. But if the living space available is better suited to a tiny dog, or if the owner needs a good alarm-giving dog rather than a huge and easy-going one, then isn&#8217;t the Chihuahua &#8212; in <i>those<\/i> circumstances &#8212; actually <i>better<\/i> than the St. Bernard? And can&#8217;t other circumstances be equally easily derived which demonstrate a St. Bernard would be the better choice in <i>that<\/i> particular case?<\/p>\n<p>Perhaps most telling is when Lewis attempts to demonstrate the falsity of the &#8220;I&#8217;m as good as you&#8221; precept by comparing a plain and a beautiful woman. <i>Wow<\/i>, that&#8217;s a bad choice! I understand he may have believed the only means of comparison for women was looks, but fortunately things have changed since then. I would no more expect or validate comparing women via only that category than I would do so for men. What about intelligence, for heavens&#8217; sake? What about genetics, or context, or strength, or skills, or anything else by which you might compare one human to another?<\/p>\n<h2>The greatest of these is Love<\/h2>\n<p>Still, the books were more insightful than just as a handy means to sneer with superiority at others. More than once as I read I also found myself wondering with a touch of concern, &#8220;That sounds uncomfortably familiar&#8230; do <i>I<\/i> do that?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>I also found fascinating Lewis&#8217; description of how we are seen by god. One of the most frequent arguments I&#8217;ve heard against the christian heaven is how insecure a deity must be if it truly needs to be lauded through eternity by its creations, which it swallows into itself after their deaths. However, Lewis describes a deity who doesn&#8217;t wish to absorb its creations into a sort of personality-slaying hive-mind. Rather, he describes a deity who wishes there to be such joy and holiness in its creations that they become <i>more<\/i> &#8212; they progress from simple creations to trusted servants, and from servants to beloved children (or sons, as Lewis puts it). In such a view of the afterlife I could see, not a deity requiring constant reassurance, so much as a deity who, with its beloved offspring, sang the joy and holiness of being <i>with<\/i> them.<\/p>\n<p>With gentle humor and an absence of pomposity, in this thought-provoking epistolary novel Lewis has postulated a deity who actually seems to epitomize christian Faith, Hope, and Love. Simple in concept but complex in execution, there&#8217;s a lack of complacency or self-righteousness which I very much enjoyed. If only all the Christians I knew could be like this; I&#8217;d be tempted&#8230; to convert.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When I was a child&#8230; On the other hand, there were a few things I found perplexing, although it&#8217;s possible I found them so due&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,5,12,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-72","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-review","category-ethics-questions","category-library","category-religion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stormtiger.com\/collie\/bestiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stormtiger.com\/collie\/bestiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stormtiger.com\/collie\/bestiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stormtiger.com\/collie\/bestiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stormtiger.com\/collie\/bestiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.stormtiger.com\/collie\/bestiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1974,"href":"https:\/\/www.stormtiger.com\/collie\/bestiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72\/revisions\/1974"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stormtiger.com\/collie\/bestiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stormtiger.com\/collie\/bestiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stormtiger.com\/collie\/bestiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}