XPost: rec.arts.books.childrens, alt.books.cs-lewis   
   From: hayesmstw@hotmail.com   
      
   On 15 Aug 2005 17:12:13 -0700, lenona321@yahoo.com wrote:   
      
   >   
   >Christopher J. Henrich wrote:   
   >   
   >> In VDT, the ship lands on an island infested by a very bad form of   
   >> authoritarianism - slavery.  Prince Caspian promptly becomes a   
   >> revolutionary.   
   >   
   >   
   >Yes, except he replaces the governor with a duke. Which leads to your   
   >next point....   
   >   
   >   
   >> This is an interesting and (to me) novel insight about CSL's views of   
   >> liberty and authority.  He is sometimes pictured as a grouchy old   
   >> would-be dictator.   
   >   
   >   
   >I should read one of his biographies at some point.....   
      
   The following quotations from one of his essays should throw some light on the   
   subject:   
      
   C.S. Lewis on politics.   
            Source: Lewis 1966:81.   
       I am a democrat... I am a democrat because I believe that no   
     man or group of men is good enough to be trusted with   
     uncontrolled power over others. And the higher the pretentions   
     of such power, the more dangerous I think it both to the   
     rulers and to the subjects. Hence Theocracy is the worst of   
     all governments. If we must have a tyrant a robber baron is   
     far better than an inquisitor. The baron's cruelty may   
     sometimes sleep, his cupidity at some point be sated; and   
     since he dimly knows he is doing wrong he may possibly repent.   
     But the inquisitor who mistakes his own cruelty and lust of   
     power and fear for the voice of Heaven will torment us   
     infinitely because he torments us with the approval of his own   
     conscience and his better impulses appear to him as   
     temptations. And since Theocracy is the worst, the nearer any   
     government approaches Theocracy the worse it will be. A   
     metaphysic, held by the rulers with the force of a religion,   
     is a bad sign. It forbids them like the inquisitor, to admit   
     any grain of truth or good in their opponents, it abrogates   
     the ordinary rules of morality, and it gives a seemingly high,   
     super-personal sanction to all the passions by which, like   
     other men, the rulers will frequently be actuated. In a word,   
     it forbids wholesome doubt.   
      
   C.S. Lewis on politics.   
            Source: Lewis 1966:82.   
       "Being a democrat, I am opposed to all very drastic and   
     sudden changes of society (in whatever direction) because they   
     never in fact take place except by a particular technique.   
     That technique involves the seizure of power by a small,   
     highly disciplined group of people; the terror and secret   
     police follow, it would seem, automatically. I do not think   
     any group good enough to have such power. They are men of like   
     passions with ourselves. The secrecy and discipline of their   
     organisation will have already inflamed in them that passion   
     for the inner ring which I think at least as corrupting as   
     avarice; and their high ideological pretensions will have lent   
     all their passions the dangerous prestige of the Cause. Hence,   
     in whatever direction the change is made, it is for me damned   
     by its modus operandi. The worst of all public dangers is the   
     committee of public safety. The character in 'That hideous   
     strength' whom the Professor  never mentions is Miss   
     Hardcastle, the chief of the secret police. She is the common   
     factor in all revolutions; and, as she says, you won't get   
     anyone to do her job well unless they get some kick out of   
     it."   
      
      
      
   --   
   Steve Hayes   
   Web: http://www.geocities.com/hayesstw/stevesig.htm   
        http://www.bookcrossing.com/mybookshelf/Methodius   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)