dianeduane | Screwtape on Democracy

Entry tags:

Screwtape on Democracy

As a US expat I have the delightful opportunity to vote by mail in national and state elections (for expats they use your last state of residence, which for me is California), and I cast my vote last week. There’s a strange satisfaction about being able to walk down to the mailbox in our local village, slide in the envelope, and walk away knowing that this particular civic duty’s been handled. And a peculiar feeling of calm settles over the weeks that follow in the runup to the first Tuesday in November in any given election year: now I can sit back and watch it all unfold, my part having been played to the last move before the really hectic and desperate ballyhoo sets in.

I got up this morning and found a phrase tickling at the back of my brain, an itch I couldn’t scratch. “Be like stalks.” It itched and itched and wouldn’t go away.

Be like stalks?? WTF?, I thought while I made the tea, and fed the cats, and cleaned up the kitchen a little, and turned on the computer, and did other morning things. The phrase kept niggling. Fortunately, the source-memory popped up before I had to sink to the level of Googling for it.

The phrase comes from here. I should have known the source would have been C.S. Lewis, who’s long served as virtual Obi-Wan to my Luke in various matters. (“What, you mean for once you’re not quoting Eddison??” I hear an ironic husband-voice mutter in the next room. To which the only possible response is, “Oh, shut up, sweetie.”)

I don’t know that the sudden irruption of the stalks-memory had anything to do with last week’s debate, or last night’s. But the core of the article, which Lewis wrote for the Guardian in 1961, expresses some sentiments that I’ve been feeling very strongly lately, and does it in language that in our semantically gun-shy times would be difficult (if not impossible) to get away with. A few passages particularly bear quoting: in them the experienced senior devil Screwtape holds forth on the technique of mass damnation for his colleagues and subordinates at the College of Tempters —

Democracy is the word with which you must lead them by the nose. The good work which our philological experts have already done in the corruption of human language makes it unnecessary to warn you that they should never be allowed to give this word a clear and definable meaning. They won't. It will never occur to them that democracy is properly the name of a political system, even a system of voting, and that this has only the most remote and tenuous connection with what you are trying to sell them. Nor of course must they ever be allowed to raise Aristotle's question: whether "democratic behaviour" means the behaviour that democracies like or the behaviour that will preserve a democracy. For if they did, it could hardly fail to occur to them that these need not be the same.
You are to use the word purely as an incantation; if you like, purely for its selling power. It is a name they venerate. And of course it is connected with the political ideal that men should be equally treated. You then make a stealthy transition in their minds from this political ideal to a factual belief that all men are equal. Especially the man you are working on. As a result you can use the word democracy to sanction in his thought the most degrading (and also the least enjoyable) of human feelings. You can get him to practise, not only without shame but with a positive glow of self-approval, conduct which, if undefended by the magic word, would be universally derided. The feeling I mean is of course that which prompts a man to say I'm as good as you.
The first and most obvious advantage is that you thus induce him to enthrone at the centre of his life a good, solid, resounding lie. I don't mean merely that his statement is false in fact, that he is no more equal to everyone he meets in kindness, honesty, and good sense than in height or waist measurement. I mean that he does not believe it himself. No man who says I'm as good as you believes it. He would not say it if he did. The St. Bernard never says it to the toy dog, nor the scholar to the dunce, nor the employable to the bum, nor the pretty woman to the plain. The claim to equality, outside the strictly political field, is made only by those who feel themselves to be in some way inferior. What it expresses is precisely the itching, smarting, writhing awareness of an inferiority which the patient refuses to accept.
And therefore resents. Yes, and therefore resents every kind of superiority in others; denigrates it; wishes its annihilation. Presently he suspects every mere difference of being a claim to superiority. No one must be different from himself in voice, clothes, manners, recreations, choice of food: "Here is someone who speaks English rather more clearly and euphoniously than I -- it must be a vile, upstage, la-di-da affectation. Here's a fellow who says he doesn't like hot dogs -- thinks himself too good for them, no doubt. Here's a man who hasn't turned on the jukebox -- he's one of those goddamn highbrows and is doing it to show off. If they were honest-to-God all-right Joes they'd be like me. They've no business to be different. It's undemocratic."

…There’s more, and it’s worth reading. But it resolves to this, where Screwtape says:

What I want to fix your attention on is the vast, overall movement towards the discrediting, and finally the elimination, of every kind of human excellence – moral, cultural, social, or intellectual. And is it not pretty to notice how “democracy” (in the incantatory sense) is now doing for us the work that was once done by the most ancient Dictatorships, and by the same methods? You remember how one of the Greek Dictators (they called them “tyrants” then) sent an envoy to another Dictator to ask his advice about the principles of government. The second Dictator led the envoy into a field of grain, and there he snicked off with his cane the top of every stalk that rose an inch or so above the general level. The moral was plain. Allow no preeminence among your subjects. Let no man live who is wiser or better or more famous or even handsomer than the mass. Cut them all down to a level: all slaves, all ciphers, all nobodies. All equals.* Thus Tyrants could practise, in a sense, “democracy.” But now “democracy” can do the same work without any tyranny other than her own. No one need now go through the field with a cane. The little stalks will now of themselves bite the tops off the big ones. The big ones are beginning to bite off their own in their desire to Be Like Stalks.

…So there’s that phrase. Screwtape closes this arc of discussion with a broad policy statement:

We, in Hell, would welcome the disappearance of democracy in the strict sense of that word, the political arrangement so called. Like all forms of government, it often works to our advantage, but on the whole less often than other forms. And what we must realize is that “democracy” in the diabolical sense (I’m as good as you, Being Like Folks, Togetherness) is the fittest instrument we could possibly have for extirpating political democracies from the face of the earth.
For “democracy” or the “democratic spirit” (diabolical sense) leads to a nation without great men, a nation mainly of subliterates, full of the cocksureness which flattery breeds on ignorance, and quick to snarl or whimper at the first sign of criticism. And that is what Hell wishes every democratic people to be.

…Whew! I seriously wonder if the Guardian would be willing to publish that article these days. (Then again, they might. But I doubt it would ever turn up in the Times of London, for reasons of its ownership’s political polarity.)

Anyway. That itch is scratched. Now back to work…. (BTW, The Screwtape Letters is being developed as a film at the moment. Boy, would I love to see that screenplay.)

*A strange echo here, for me, to the spot in The Incredibles (it was on here last night) where the former Buddy, now the faux-superhero Syndrome, snarls, “And when everybody’s special… nobody will be.”

Threaded | Flat

I think the Guardian would publish something of that sentiment but I greatly doubt it would have the same quality of writing. If it was on the anti monarchist movement then they definately would publish it. I think they were the only paper to have the possible changes to the laws of succession as a front page story last week.

Thanks for that.

Thank you. You have provided a link I need to send to a few people, with no comment, to let them draw their own conclusions.

I'm going to have to read this again, as it is, indeed, both food for thought as well as thought-provoking.

Especially as there is a frightening trend in society to use the diabolical sense of 'democracy' to encourage mediocrity as opposed to meritocracy; a prophecy, such as it is, in the last paragraph you quoted. ((Dare I say it was already fulfilled?)

Thank you for this. Thank you very much.

I hope you won't mind, but I intend to read that article in full and then link it (and your journal's post) in a post of my own.

Edited 2008-10-03 10:13 (UTC)

Having an 8 year old son, the next couple of paragraphs struck home:

"In that promising land the spirit of I’m as good as you has already begun something more than a generally social influence. It begins to work itself into their educational system. How far its operations there have gone at the present moment, I should not like to say with certainty. Nor does it matter. Once you have grasped the tendency, you can easily predict its future developments; especially as we ourselves will play our part in the developing. The basic principle of the new education is to be that dunces and idlers must not be made to feel inferior to intelligent and industrious pupils. That would be “undemocratic.” These differences between pupils – for they are obviously and nakedly individual differences – must be disguised. This can be done at various levels. At universities, examinations must be framed so that nearly all the students get good marks. Entrance examinations must be framed so that all, or nearly all, citizens can go to universities, whether they have any power (or wish) to profit by higher education or not. At schools, the children who are too stupid or lazy to learn languages and mathematics and elementary science can be set to doing things that children used to do in their spare time. Let, them, for example, make mud pies and call it modelling. But all the time there must be no faintest hint that they are inferior to the children who are at work. Whatever nonsense they are engaged in must have – I believe the English already use the phrase – “parity of esteem.” An even more drastic scheme is not possible. Children who are fit to proceed to a higher class may be artificially kept back, because the others would get a trauma -- Beelzebub, what a useful word! – by being left behind. The bright pupil thus remains democratically fettered to his own age group throughout his school career, and a boy who would be capable of tackling Aeschylus or Dante sits listening to his coeval’s attempts to spell out A CAT SAT ON A MAT.

"In a word, we may reasonably hope for the virtual abolition of education when I’m as good as you has fully had its way. All incentives to learn and all penalties for not learning will be prevented; who are they to overtop their fellows? And anyway the teachers – or should I say, nurses? – will be far too busy reassuring the dunces and patting them on the back to waste any time on real teaching. We shall no longer have to plan and toil to spread imperturbable conceit and incurable ignorance among men. The little vermin themselves will do it for us."

It was precisely that "nobody will be" sentiment that I found to be the most objectionable idea in The Incredibles ... for more reasons than I can clearly elucidate, but among them, the sheer mistaken arrogance of it. When everybody's special, well, everybody is special. In that world, anyone who had a super-power had a quixotic, personal and unique power. But it made no sense - Sure, Dash could run really fast, but jets, trains, cars, flying razor-edged personal death-craft, all could go really fast. He wasn't diminished. If someone else had super-speed, he would not be diminished by it. In fact, having someone to compete with honestly would give him something to test himself against.

Syndrome was mistaken, as was Dash, and in the end, when Dash was directed to hold back, he was doing what Lewis described - the big stalk biting off his own head to appear like the others. Fitting in by suppressing one's own excellence is as much a lie and a villainous thing as secretly using one's powers to cheat, just as a 22 year old athlete pretending to be a high-school student would be cheating if he competed in a track meet.

Lewis was an elitist, and often in an unconsciously oppressive way by holding up institutionalized practices that prevented access to people who COULD have benefited from them, but he did make the very good point that some form of control was needed to sustain the value of the educations being provided.

In America, we don't often enough teach that we are NOT all equal in all things, and that equality is not about superficial sameness.

Thank you for posting this. I've linked to it in my LJ, and I hope many people will read it.

As for me-- I don't want my leaders to be just like I am. I want them to be smarter, better, more able than I am. You know: leaders.

It seems to me that the people who get voted in do what they can to subvert the good aims of democracy, leaving us mainly with the drawbacks.

If our leaders were to be more democratically responsive, in the sense of trying to enact policies that matched the wishes of the voters, some destructive things would be done because, in some areas, making a good decision requires much study and thought. However, many other destructive decisions would likely be avoided, and in my estimation, the net effect would be beneficial.

Often I have heard the comment "If voting could change anything significant, it would have been made illegal". I think there is a degree of truth to this. Remember the National Socialist party was voted in, in Germany.

The Founding Fathers, in forming the government of the fledgling United States of America, felt much the same about democracy as CS Lewis. They feared it. They knew that a government of majority rule would dissolve into a tyranny of plunder and chaos. "Democrat" was an epithet of the worst sort. My favorite definition of "democracy" is a sheep and two wolves deciding what's for dinner. I would remind all and sundry that the United States is a Constitutional Republic, *not* a democracy.

Early voting has started in the States, so I went last week to cast my vote. Now I will join you in standing back and watching the frenzy.

Edited 2008-10-03 12:14 (UTC)

Thank you for this, it's a perspective I hadn't seen before, but it does ring true for me (less in motive, more in circumstance-- I don't believe it to be such a conscious method of subduing the masses so much as simply something that came as the baggage to a positive ideal).

I've been dying to ask how our political circus is being presented in other countries, both English-speaking and not. Apparently it's hot stuff in Australia, what do you see there in Britain?

Ah, yes, Screwtape. Do you ever feel like it should be required reading for primary school these days?

Thank you for reminding me of Screwtape! Have not read those letters in at least a dozen -- and maybe a score -- years.
Brother Lawrence, Kierkegaard, and C.S. Lewis are the three who most influenced the development of my own philosophy and my understanding of faith.

BTW, The Screwtape Letters is being developed as a film at the moment.

That has the potential to be unfortunately self-illustrating.

Definitely not a postmodern expression of equality and worth, and refreshing thereby IMHO.

I haven't read anything except Narnia by Lewis in a long time. Might be time to do that--thanks for the links!

BTW...would love to see YOU write the screenplay for _The Screwtape Letters_.

I'm just been re-reading _The Book of Night with Moon_ for the first time in many years, and I'm even more impressed than I was the first time. Besides being wonderful stories, many of your books are fast becoming spiritual reading for me, my dear. Thanks so much.

Too bad your last state-of-residence wasn't Pennsylvania, which I seem to recall you lived in for a time. (No?) We're blue, but not strong blue, and could use all the help we can get.

Ahh, Lewis. There's always something refreshing about his writing, even in those instances where you find yourself disagreeing.

That's a fantastic article. And a reminder I need to pick up the Screwtape Letters my roommate introduced me to and read beyond the first one.

I'd laugh at this much louder if it hadn't turned out to be so accurate. And if it weren't late and I'm baby-sitting because madam doesn't want to sleep tonight for some reason. Naming babies after strong-willed and often stroppy women can be asking for trouble...

Lovely post and comments, Diane. Any chance you could go over to DailyKos (http://www.DailyKos.com/) and diary it after the one-week waiting period for new accounts? Or should I just link here myself?

Edited 2008-10-10 12:45 (UTC)

Threaded | Flat

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject