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Subject:      What Were Lewis's Politcal Views? (LONG)
From:         Andrew Rilstone <andrew@aslan.demon.co.uk>
Date:         1997/08/04
Message-Id:   <dKscxCARtl5zEwOK@aslan.demon.co.uk>
Newsgroups:   alt.books.cs-lewis
[More Headers]

In article <5ruu65$q66$2@nuacht.iol.ie>, Douglas Gresham <dhg@iol.ie>
writes
>Except that in Jack's case the above is not a statement about 
>politics at all, but one about morality.
>
>Doug.

>Elsewhere, Doug said: 

>Jack was about as apolitical as it is possible to 
>be. He deplored evil, waste, and stupidity whether 
>perpetrated by one poitical "side" or another. His 
>politics was Christianity. He knew so little of 
>politics that he once though Marshal Tito was the 
>king of Greece.


If "politics" means "current affairs" or "gossip about our leaders",
then, indeed, Lewis was not interested in politics. He never read
newspapers, and thought it better to read old books than modern ones. 

However, when the poster asked what Lewis' "politics" were, I took him
to be asking "where did he stand on issues of economics, law-and-order,
defence, education, trades-unions? Was he left-wing, right-wing,
liberal, conservative, or somewhere in between?" 

This is what's usually meant by asking someone "what are your politics"? 

In this sense, it is very, very, very misleading to say that Lewis's
politics were Christianity. His essay "Meditation on the Third
Commandment"(1) is an critique of precisely this position. He says that
if a Christian poltical party were to confine itself to stating "what
ends are desirable and what mean are lawful" then it would not be a
poltical party. All parties are agreed on these points. To be a
"poltical", it would have to "select from among the lawful means those
which it deems possible and efficacious and give to those its practical
support". He continues:

"We do not dispute whether citizens are to be made happy, but whether an
egalitarian or a hierarchical state, whether capitalism or socialism,
whether despotism or democracy is most likely to make them so."

Lewis argues that there is no specifically Christian view on these
questions. No, not even on whether despotism or democracy is better --
Lewis knows that there have been good, sincere Christians who were
absolute monarchists. He can imagine equally sincere and good Christians
siding with Conservatives, with Communists or with Fascists on social
issues. 

We can see this distinction -- between the Christian and the "political"
in a number of Lewis's essays. Thoughout "Screwtape", for example, the
issue of war and pacifism is seen as being of secondary importance.
Screwtape wants to stop the patient from obeying his conscience, and to
turn whichever position he adopts into an idol, but there is no sense
that the Enemy prefers one over the other. 

Elsewhere, Lewis makes a passing comment in favour of capital
punishment, and adds:

"I am not producing arguments to show that capital punishment is
certainly right; I am only maintaining that it is not certainly wrong;
it is a matter on which good men may legitimately differ." (2) 

I think from the context, he would regard capital punishment as
"certainly right" or "certainly wrong" only if 

a: it were a self evident axiom, at a level with "happiness is good"; or
b: it were explicitly and unambiguously stated to be so by scripture. 

The arguments he gives for capital punishment being "not certainly
wrong" are practical ones: that is to say, "political" rather than
"moral". Of course, there may be people who would want to argue that
this, and other issues that Lewis thought "political" are actually
"moral": I think what is important for the moment is that Lewis drew the
distinction. 

Christianity (or morality, or the Tao) tell us what is good and right,
and all good people agree on this. Politics deals with practical means
for bringing good and right things about, and Christians (moral people,
people within the Tao) may legitmately differ on these issues. Indeed,
he says, the most we can say about any poltical judgement is that it is
probably right. 

Some writers might have said "I will refrain from commenting on the
political issues, and confine myself to the purely moral." I do not
think that Lewis did so. Many of his essays make it very clear how he
would like to see society arranged; and which means to human happines he
favoured. 

Doug contends that the following quote is "not about politics, but about
morality":

"I believe that man is happier, and happier in a richer way, if he has
"the freeborn mind". But I doubt whether he can have this without
economic independence, which the new society is abolishing. For economic
independence allows an education not controlled by government and in
adult life it is the man who needs, and asks, nothing of the government
who can criticize its acts and snap its fingers as its
ideology....Admittedly, when man was untamed, such liberty belonged only
to the few. I know. Hence the horrible suspicion that our only choice is
between societies with few freemen and societies with none" (3)

This seems to me to be entirely untenable. The moral bit of the statment
is "man should be happy". The rest -- that liberty (more than material
well-being) promotes happiness; that state schools and state pensions
are (in the long run) uncompatible with liberty -- is clearly what Lewis
would regard as a a "poltical" statment. It's about the means to
achieving happiness; it's about how we arrange or society; it's a matter
on which good men may differ. Surely, surely, surely, Lewis would not
claim that a supporter of free education and unemployment beneifit was a
*wicked* (unChristian, outside the Tao) person.

Short biassed digression: Thank God that English politics is still
largely free from the American phenomenon of preacher-as-politician; of
the doubtless-sincere evangelist for who (usually fundementalist)
religion and (usually right wing) poltics go hand in hand. One can
sometimes pick up the impression that God cares about nothing apart from
homosexuality, abortion, spanking children, killing criminals, evolution
and prayer in schools! But I think that the last British election saw a
not dissimilar trend. All three parties kept on saying that they, and
only they, were Good, Moral and Nice: that they, and only they, cared
about the Good of the Country. It's no longer sufficient to say that the
other side's penal policy is silly and won't work: you have to say that
they positively want there to be more crime (or worse schools, or more
poverty.)

Back to the subject. What statments can we make about Lewis's political
(in the sense outlined above) views?

He was aristrocratic, monarchist, hierarchical. *Legal* equality
(treating people *as if* they were equal) is essential -- but actual
equality is not a Good Thing in itself. (4) The British monarchy is a
good thing because it reminds us that we are *not* all equal. 

This is re-inforced in the dreadful "Democratic Education"(5) where he
argues that it is important that dull (i.e non-academic) boys should sit
in the same maths and Latin lessons as "their betters" so that he will
enjoy "the priceless benefit" of knowing that he is not clever. (In the
stage version of "Shadowlands", Joy Gresham criticises Jack for saying
that education is something to do with boys -- "What about the girls?")
He takes it as read, both here and in "Screwtape" that vocational,
practical, workshop school subjects are on a level with "making mudpies"
or "carving boats" -- some silly play that allow teachers to pretend
that "dull" boys are "just as good" as clever ones. 

He identifies and supports the petit-bourgeoise. In a disturbing and
frankly unpleasant essay called "Delinquents in the Snow" (in which he
regrets in passing not being allowed to "catch and thrash" the youths
who vandalized his shed) he states that the middle classes are
"provident, resolute, the men who want to work, ...who have built up
some sort of life worth preserving". They are therefore the bearers of
"what little moral, intellectual or economic vitality remains." (6)
Since the state is failing to protect them (read: adequately punish
those who damage their property) it would be understandable --though not
desirable--into something analgous to the Klu Klux Klan and defended
themselves.

He disaproves of the State having too much control of individuals lives.
Via Screwtape he delplors the state of affairs in which a man many not
cut down his own tree with his own saw and use the wood to build a shed
on his own land without planning permission from a council beaurocrat.
He also condemns the idea that National Military Service should be
retained in peace-time -- this he sees as an attempt by a minority of
busybudies to impose order and regimentation on society. 

As discussed at length in this forum a few months ago, he supported the
idea of the "just war" -- not as a forgivable evil, but as a moral duty.
"If war is ever lawful, then peace is sometimes sinful." (Note again
that he stated that this was "the universal opinion of mankind" -- not,
say, "the clear moral teaching of God." He could "respect an honest
pacfist, although I think he is entirely mistaken".)

He supported the traditional view of punishment and law and order --
punishment was a reaction to, and retribution for, a particular crime.
It was not, except incidentally, to do with reform, cure or re-
education. (7) He seems to have supported the corporal punishment of
children, and even of adult criminals.  

Although he thought that "masturbation, perversion, fornication and
adultery" were evils, he did not think that the law should be concerned
with them (except adultery, because it involves a promise and a
contract). Therefore, he supported the relaxation of the British
obscenity laws at the time of the Lady Chatterly trial (8).  This is
another clear example of the distinction he drew between the Christian
(pornography is wrong) and the poltical (pornography ought not to be
illegal). He also supported the legalisation of homosexuality for the
same reason (9)

Finally, in "Mere Christianity" he describes what he thinks a fully
Christian society might be like. I think he means "fully Christian" in a
the sense of "having fully applied Christian principles to social
organisation" not "a society made up of perfected Saints.

"Everyone is to work, with his own hands, ad what is more every one's
work is to produce something good: there will be no more manufacture of
silly luxuries...To that extent a Christian society would be what we now
call Leftist. On the other hand, it is always insisting on
obedience...from all of us to properly appointed magistrates,from
children to parents and (I am afraid this is going to be very unpopular)
from wives to husbands...We should feel that its economic life was very
socialistic and in that sense "advanced", but that its family life and
its code of manners were rather old fashioned -- perhaps even
ceremonious and aristocratic." (10)

If we are looking for a single word to describe Lewis's politics, then
"old fashioned monarchist Tory" would seem to be a pretty good bet. He
would have had more in common with Churchill than with Mrs Thatcher. 


(1) 1941, in "Christian Reunion" 
(2) "Why I am not a pacifist, 1940, in "Timeless at Heart"
(3) From "Willing Slaves of the Welfare State" 1958  in "Timeless at
Heart" 
(4) 1943, in "Present Concerns"
(5) 1944, "Present Concerns"
(6)  1957, "Christian Reunion"
(7) "The Humanitarian Theory of Punishment" 1949 in "First and Second
Things".
(8) "Sex in Literature" 1962, "Present Concerns"
(9) Somewhere in the "Collected Letters" Walter Hooper is a wonderful
man in many ways, doubtless but WHY OH WHY DIDN'T HE GIVE THAT BOOK A
DECENT INDEX :)
(10) Bk III Ch 3: "Social Morality"
-- 
Andrew Rilstone  andrew@aslan.demon.co.uk   http://www.aslan.demon.co.uk/
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       "Why can't I be a non-conformist like everybody else?"
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