Let me ask you some questions about these common features in these stories, the significance of the forbidden fruit.
JOSEPH CAMPBELL:
Well, there’s a standard folktale motif called
“The One Forbidden Thing.”
Remember, in Bluebeard, “Don’t open that closet.”
You know, and then one always does it.
And in the Old Testament story, God gives the one forbidden thing, and he knows very well, now I’m interpreting God, he knows very well that man’s going to eat the forbidden fruit. But it’s by doing that that man becomes the initiator of his own life. Life really begins with that.
BILL MOYERS:
I also find in some of these early stories, the human tendency to find someone to blame.
JOSEPH CAMPBELL:
Yeah.
BILL MOYERS:
Let me read Genesis 1, then I’ll ask you to read one from the Bassari legend.
JOSEPH CAMPBELL:
All right.
BILL MOYERS:
Genesis 1: “And God said, ‘Have you eaten from the tree which I commanded you that you should not eat?’ Then the man said, ‘The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me of the tree and I ate.’ And the Lord God said to the woman, What is this you’ve done?’ And the woman said, ‘The serpent deceived me, and I ate.’ Now, I mean, you talk about buck-passing, it starts very early.
JOSEPH CAMPBELL:
That’s right.
BILL MOYERS:
And then there’s the Bassari legend.
JOSEPH CAMPBELL:
It’s been tough on serpents, too. “One day Snake said, ‘We too should eat these fruits. Why must we go hungry?’ Antelope said, ‘But we don’t know anything about this fruit.’ Then Man and his wife took some of the fruit and ate it. Unumbotte came down from the sky and asked, ‘Who ate the fruit?’ They answered, ‘We did.’ Unumbotte asked, ‘Who told you that you could eat that fruit?’ They replied, ‘Snake did.’ It’s the same story.
BILL MOYERS:
Poor Snake.
JOSEPH CAMPBELL:
It’s the same story.
BILL MOYERS:
What do you make of this, that in all of these stories the principal actors are pointing to someone else as the initiator of the fall?
JOSEPH CAMPBELL:
Yeah, but it turns out to beSnake.
And Snake in both of these stories is
The Symbol of Life throwing off The Past
and continuing to live.
BILL MOYERS:
Why?
JOSEPH CAMPBELL:
The Power of Life, because The Snake sheds its skin,
just as The Moon sheds its Shadow.
The Snake in most cultures is positive.
Even the most poisonous thing, in India, The Cobra,
is a sacred animal.
And The Serpent, Naga,
The Serpent King, Nagaraga,
is the next thing to The Buddha,
because The Serpent represents
The Power of Life in The Field of Time
to throw offDeath,
and The Buddha represents
The Power of Life in The Field of Eternity
to be eternally alive.
Now, I saw a fantastic thing of a Burmese priestess,
A Snake Priestess, who had to bring rain to her people
by calling a king cobra from his den
and kissing him three times on the nose.
There was The Cobra,
The Giver of Life, The Giver of Rain,
which is of Life, as The Divine Positive,
not negative, figure.
BILL MOYERS:
The Christian stories turn it around,
because The Serpent was the seducer.
JOSEPH CAMPBELL:
Well, what that amounts to
is a refusal to affirm life.
Life is Evil in this view.
Every natural impulse is sinful unless you’ve been baptized or circumcised, in this tradition that we’ve inherited. For heaven’s sakes!
BILL MOYERS:
By having been The Tempter,
Women have paid a great price,
because in mythology, some of this mythology,
they are the ones who led to the downfall.
JOSEPH CAMPBELL:
Of course they did. I mean, they represent Life.
Man doesn’t enter life except by woman,
and so it is Woman who brings us into
The World of Polarities and Pair of Opposites
and suffering and all.
But I think it’s a really childish attitude,
to say “No” to Life with all its Pain,
you know, to say this is something
that should not have been.
Schopenhauer, in one of his marvelous chapters,
I think it’s in The World as Will and Idea, says:
“Life is something that should not have been.
It is in its very essence and character,
a terrible thing to consider,
this business of living by killing and eating.”
I mean, it’s in sin in terms of
all ethical judgments all the time.
BILL MOYERS:
As Zorba says, you know,
“Trouble? Life is Trouble.
Only Death is no Trouble.”
JOSEPH CAMPBELL:
That’s it. And when people say to me, you know,
“Do you have optimism about The World,
you know, how terrible it is?”
I said, ‘Yes, just Say,
“It’s great! Just the way it is.”
BILL MOYERS:
But doesn’t that lead to
a rather passive attitude
in the face of Evil,
in the face of Wrong?
JOSEPH CAMPBELL:
You participate in it.
Whatever you do
is Evil for somebody.
BILL MOYERS:
But explain that for The Audience.
JOSEPH CAMPBELL:
Well, when I was in India,
there was a man whose name was
Sri Krishnamenon
and his mystical name was
Atmananda and he was in Trivandrum,
and I went to Trivandrum,
and I had the wonderful privilege of
sitting face to face with him
as I’m sitting here with you.
And the first question,
first thing he said to me is,
“Do you have A Question?”
Because The Teacher there always answers questions,
he doesn’t tell you anything,
he answers.
And I said,
“Yes, I have a question.”
I said,
“Since in Hindu thinking all The Universe is Divine,
is a manifestation of
Divinity Itself,
How can we say ‘No.’ to anything in The World —
How can we say ‘No.’ to Brutality,
to Stupidity, to Vulgarity,
to Thoughtlessness?”
And he said,
“ For you and me,
we must Say ‘Yes.’”
Well, I had learned from my friends
who were students of his, that
that happened to have been
the first question he asked his guru,
and we had a wonderful talk for about an hour
there on this theme, of The Affirmation of The World.
There’s an idea in Christianity of the image of God as a Trinity.
There’s the element of The Father, there’s the element of The Son, and there’s the element of The Holy Spirit.
It’s something like The Spirit of Tradition, Human Beings as the living incarnation of that Tradition, and The Spirit in People that makes relationship with The Spirit and Individuals Possible.
I’m going to bounce my way quickly through some of the classical, metaphorical attributes of God, so that we kind of have a cloud of notions about what we’re talking about.
There’s a Fatherly Aspect, So here’s what God as a Father is like :
You can enter into a Covenant with it, so you can make a bargain with it.
It responds to Sacrifice.
It Answers Prayers
It Punishes and Rewards.
It Judges and Forgives.
It’s notNature.
It built Eden for Mankind and then banished us for disobedience.
It’s Too Powerful to be Touched.
It granted Free will.
Distance from it is Hell.
Distance from it is Death.
It reveals itself in dogma and in mystical experience, and it’s The Law.
FATHER :
Come with me.
I know what to do with you.
You go in there, I go in there.
FLEABAG :
And you make me tell you all my secrets so you can ultimately trap and control me?
FATHER :
Yeah.
No.
[LAUGHS.]
FATHER :
You tell me what's weighing on your heart and I listen without judgment - and in complete confidence.
FLEABAG :
Sounds dodgy!
FATHER :
I just listen.
At the very least it'll shut me up for a minute.
FLEABAG :
I'm not Catholic.
FATHER :
Tonight, that doesn't matter.
FLEABAG :
Won't I catch fire or something?
FATHER :
If you did, it would confirm my faith, so let's try it.
Go on.
Go on.
FLEABAG :
All right.
FATHER :
Okay, now you say,
"Bless me father for I have sinned."
FLEABAG :
I'm not going to say that!
FATHER :
Well, very good.
"It's been"Uh, enter days, years, months - "since my last confession."
FLEABAG :
Mm-hmm.
FATHER :
Then I say, "That's okay, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah", till you tell me what's on your mind.
Tell me your ssss -
FLEABAG :
Sins.
FATHER :
Sins, if you want.
[CHUCKLES.]
FLEABAG :
Why would I tell you my sins?
FATHER :
Because it will make you feel better!
And because I want to know....
[THEY BOTH CHUCKLE.]
FLEABAG :
Okay.
I lied.
FATHER :
Okay.
FLEABAG :
To you.
FATHER :
About?
FLEABAG :
About the miscarriage.
I was just covering for my sister who actually had the miscarriage, because her husband didn't know she was pregnant, and it just —
FATHER :
Okay.
Keep Going.
FLEABAG :
And I've stolen things.
I've had a lot of sex outside of marriage.
And once or twice inside someone else's.
And there's been a spot of sodomy.
Um, there's been much masturbation, a bit of violence, and of course the endless fucking blasphemy.
[HE CHUCKLES.]
FATHER :
And?
FLEABAG :
And -
FATHER :
Go on.
FLEABAG :
And I - I can't —
FATHER :
It's okay, go on.
FLEABAG :
Frightened.
FATHER :
Of what?
FLEABAG :
Forgetting things.
People.
Forgetting people.
And I'm ashamed of not knowing what I —
FATHER :
- What you want?
It's okay not to know what you want.
FLEABAG :
No, I know what I want.
I know exactly what I want right now.
FATHER :
What's that?
FLEABAG :
It's bad.
FATHER :
It's okay.
FLEABAG :
I want someone to tell me what to wear in the morning.
[HE LAUGHS.]
FATHER :
Okay, well, I think there are people who can —
FLEABAG :
No, I want someone to tell me what to wear every morning.
I want someone to tell me what to eat, what to like, what to hate, what to rage about, what to listen to, what band to like, what to buy tickets for, what to joke about, what not to joke about.
I want someone to tell me what to believe in, who to vote for, and who to love, and how to tell them.
I just think I want someone to tell me how to live my life, Father, because so far I think I've been getting it wrong.
And I know that's why people want people like you in their lives.
Because you just tell them how to do it.
You just tell them what to do, and what they'll get out of the end of it.
Even though I don't believe your bullshit, and I know that scientifically nothing I do makes any difference in the end anyway, I'm still scared!
Why am I still scared?!
So just tell me what to do.
Just fucking tell me what to do, Father!
FATHER :
Kneel.
FLEABAG :
What?
FATHER :
Kneel.
Just kneel.
[CHORAL MUSIC PLAYS.]
FLEABAG :
Is this a skirt and trousers?
FATHER : Sorry, sorry.
[PANTING.]
[LOUD THUD.]
I Love it When She Does That —
[CHORAL MUSIC PLAYS.]
Equality
"Equality"
is reprinted from The Spectator,
vol. CLXXI (27 August 1943), p. 192
I am a democrat (1) because I believe in the Fall of Man. I think most people are democrats for the opposite reason. A great deal of democratic enthusiasm descends from the ideas of people like Rousseau, who believed in democracy because they thought mankind so wise and good that everyone deserved a share in the government. The danger of defending democracy on those grounds is that they're not true. Whenever their weakness is exposed, the people who prefer tyranny make capital out of the exposure. I find that they're not true without looking further than myself. I don't deserve a share in governing a hen-roost, much less a nation. Nor do most people — all the people who believe advertisements, and think in catchwords and spread rumors. The real reason for democracy is just the reverse. Mankind is so fallen that no man can be trusted with unchecked power over his fellows. Aristotle said that some people were only fit to be slaves. I do not contradict him. But I reject slavery because I see no men fit to be masters.
This introduces a view of equality rather different from that in which we have been trained. I do not think that equality is one of those things (like wisdom or happiness) which are good simply in themselves and for their own sakes. I think it is in the same class as medicine, which is good because we are ill, or clothes which are good because we are no longer innocent. I don't think the old authority in kings, priests, husbands, or fathers, and the old obedience in subjects, laymen, wives, and sons, was in itself a degrading or evil thing at all. I think it was intrinsically as good and beautiful as the nakedness of Adam and Eve. It was rightly taken away because men became bad and abused it. To attempt to restore it now would be the same error as that of the Nudists. Legal and economic equality are absolutely necessary remedies for the Fall, and protection against cruelty.
But medicine is not good. There is no spiritual sustenance in flat equality. It is a dim recognition of this fact which makes much of our political propaganda sound so thin. We are trying to be enraptured by something which is merely the negative condition of the good life. That is why the imagination of people is so easily captured by appeals to the craving for inequality, whether in a romantic form of films about loyal courtiers or in the brutal form of Nazi ideology. The tempter always works on some real weakness in our own system of values -- offers food to some need which we have starved.
When equality is treated not as a medicine or a safety-gadget, but as an ideal, we begin to breed that stunted and envious sort of mind which hates all superiority. That mind is the special disease of democracy, as cruelty and servility are the special diseases of privileged societies. It will kill us all if it grows unchecked. The man who cannot conceive a joyful and loyal obedience on the one hand, nor an unembarrassed and noble acceptance of that obedience on the other - the man who has never even wanted to kneel or to bow - is a prosaic barbarian. But it would be wicked folly to restore these old inequalities on the legal or external plane. Their proper place is elsewhere.
We must wear clothes since the Fall. Yes, but inside, under what Milton called "these troublesome disguises" (2). We want the naked body, that is, the real body, to be alive. We want it, on proper occasions, to appear -- in the marriage-chamber, in the public privacy of a men's bathing-place, and (of course) when any medical or other emergency demands. In the same way, under the necessary outer covering of legal equality, the whole hierarchical dance and harmony of our deep and joyously accepted spiritual inequalities should be alive. It is there, of course, in our life as Christians -- there, as laymen, we can obey – all the more because the priest has no authority over us on the political level. It is there in our relation to parents and teachers – all the more because it is now a willed and wholly spiritual reverence. It should be there also in marriage.
This last point needs a little plain speaking. Men have so horribly abused their power over women in the past that to wives, of all people, equality is in danger of appearing as an ideal. But Mrs. Naomi Mitchison has laid her finger on the real point. Have as much equality as you please – the more the better – in our marriage laws, but at some level consent to inequality, nay, delight in inequality, is an erotic necessity. Mrs. Mitchison speaks of women so fostered on a defiant idea of equality that the mere sensation of the male embrace rouses an undercurrent of resentment. Marriages are thus shipwrecked (3). This is the tragi-comedy of the modem woman -- taught by Freud to consider the act of love the most important thing in life, and then inhibited by feminism from that internal surrender which alone can make it a complete emotional success. Merely for the sake of her own erotic pleasure, to go no further, some degree of obedience and humility seems to be (normally) necessary on the woman's part.
The error here has been to assimilate all forms of affection to that special form we call friendship. It indeed does imply equality. But it is quite different from the various loves within the same household. Friends are not primarily absorbed in each other. It is when we are doing things together that friendship springs up – painting, sailing ships, praying, philosophizing, fighting shoulder to shoulder. Friends look in the same direction. Lovers look at each other -- that is, in opposite directions. To transfer bodily all that belongs to one relationship into the other is blundering.
We Britons should rejoice that we have contrived to reach much legal democracy (we still need more of the economic) without losing our ceremonial Monarchy. For there, right in the midst of our lives, is that which satisfies the craving for inequality, and acts as a permanent reminder that medicine is not food. Hence a man's reaction to Monarchy is a kind of test. Monarchy can easily be "debunked", but watch the faces, mark well the accents of the debunkers. These are the men whose taproot in Eden has been cut -- whom no rumor of the polyphony, the dance, can reach – men to whom pebbles laid in a row are more beautiful than an arch. Yet even if they desire mere equality they cannot reach it. Where men are forbidden to honor a king they honor millionaires, athletes, or film-stars instead -- even famous prostitutes or gangsters. For spiritual nature, like bodily nature, will be served -- deny it food and it will gobble poison.
That is why this whole question is of practical importance. Every intrusion of the spirit that says, "I'm as good as you" into our personal and spiritual life is to be resisted just as jealously as every intrusion of bureaucracy or privilege into our politics. Hierarchy within can alone preserve egalitarianism without. Romantic attacks on democracy will come again. We shall never be safe unless we already understand in our hearts all that the anti-democrats can say, and have provided for it better than they. Human nature will not permanently endure flat equality if it is extended from its proper political field into the more real, more concrete fields within. Let us wear equality; but let us undress every night.
(1) C.S. Lewis lived and wrote in England. Hence, his reference to "being a Democrat" had nothing to do with our (USA) "Democratic Party".
(2) John Milton, Paradise Lost (1667), Book IV, line 740. 18
(3) Naomi Mitchison, The Home and a Changing Civilization (London, 1934), Chapter I, pp. 49-50.
Democracy - or - 'I Am As Good As You Are !!'
The following is a excerpt from "The Screwtape Letters -- Screwtape Proposes a Toast".
(The scene is in hell at the annual dinner of the tempters' training college for young devils. The principal, Dr. Slubgob, has just proposed the health of the guests. Screwtape, a very experienced devil, who is the guest of honor, rises to reply:)
Do you realize how we have succeeded in reducing so many of the human race to the level of ciphers? This has not come about by accident. It has been our answer — and a magnificent answer it is — to one of the most serious challenges we ever had to face.
Let me recall to your minds what the human situation was in the latter half of the nineteenth century — the period at which I ceased to be a practicing Tempter and was rewarded with an administrative post. The great movement towards liberty and equality among men had by then borne solid fruits and grown mature. Slavery had been abolished. The American War of Independence had been won. The French Revolution had succeeded. Religious toleration was almost everywhere on the increase. In that movement there had originally been many elements which were in our favor. Much Atheism, much Anticlericalism, much envy and thirst for revenge, even some (rather absurd) attempts to revive Paganism, were mixed in it. It was not easy to determine what our own attitude should be. On the one hand it was a bitter blow to us — it still is — that any sort of men who had been hungry should be fed or any who had long worn chains should have them struck off. But on the other hand, there was in the movement so much rejection of faith, so much materialism, secularism, and hatred, that we felt we were bound to encourage it.
By the latter part of the century the situation was much simpler, and also much more ominous. In the English sector (where I saw most of my front-line service) a horrible thing had happened. The Enemy, with His usual sleight of hand, had largely appropriated this progressive or liberalizing movement and perverted it to His own ends. Very little of its old anti-Christianity remained. The dangerous phenomenon called Christian Socialism was rampant. Factory owners of the good old type who grew rich on sweated labor, instead of being assassinated by their work people — we could have used that — were being frowned upon by their own class. The rich were increasingly giving up their powers, not in the face of revolution and commission, but in obedience to their own consciences. As for the poor who benefited by this, they were behaving in a most disappointing fashion. Instead of using their new liberties — as we reasonably hoped and expected — for massacre, rape, and looting, or even for perpetual intoxication, they were perversely engaged in becoming cleaner, more orderly, more thrifty, better educated, and even more virtuous. Believe me, gentle-devils, the threat of something like a really healthy state of society seemed then perfectly serious.
Thanks to Our Father Below, the threat was averted. Our counterattack was on two levels. On the deepest level our leaders contrived to call into full life an element which had been implicit in the movement from its earliest days. Hidden in the heart of this striving for Liberty there was also a deep hatred of personal freedom. That invaluable man Rousseau first revealed it. In his perfect democracy, you remember, only the state religion is permitted, slavery is restored, and the individual is told that he has really willed (though he didn't know it) whatever the Government tells him to do. From that starting point, via Hegel (another indispensable propagandist on our side), we easily contrived both the Nazi and the Communist state. Even in England we were pretty successful. I heard the other day that in that country a man could not, without a permit, cut down his own tree with his own ax, make it into planks with his own saw, and use the planks to build a tool shed in his own garden.
Such was our counterattack on one level. You, who are mere beginners, will not be entrusted with work of that kind. You will be attached as Tempters to private persons. Against them, or through them, our counterattack takes a different form.
"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 behavior" means the behavior that democracies like or the behavior 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. It is, of course, 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, in ACTUAL FACT, 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 all human feelings. You can get him to practice, 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 center 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 goddam 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."
Now, this useful phenomenon is in itself by no means new. Under the name of Envy it has been known to the humans for thousands of years. But hitherto they always regarded it as the most odious, and also the most comical, of vices. Those who were aware of feeling it felt it with shame; those who were not gave it no quarter in others. The delightful novelty of the present situation is that you can sanction it — make it respectable and even laudable — by the incantatory use of the word "democratic".
Under the influence of this incantation those who are in any or every way inferior can labor more wholeheartedly and successfully than ever before to pull down everyone else to their own level. But that is not all. Under the same influence, those who come, or could come, nearer to a full humanity, actually draw back from it for fear of being "undemocratic". I am credibly informed that young humans now sometimes suppress an incipient taste for classical music or good literature because it might prevent their Being Like Folks; that people who would really wish to be — and are offered the Grace which would enable them to be — honest, chaste, or temperate refuse it. To accept might make them Different, might offend against the Way of Life, take them out of Togetherness, impair their Integration with the Group. They might (horror of horrors! ) become individuals.
All is summed up in the prayer which a young female human is said to have uttered recently: "O God, make me a normal twentieth century girl!" Thanks to our labors, this will mean increasingly, "Make me a minx, a moron, and a parasite."
Meanwhile, as a delightful byproduct, the few (fewer every day) who will not be made Normal and Regular and Like Folks and Integrated increasingly tend to become in reality the prigs and cranks which the rabble would in any case have believed them to be. For suspicion often creates what it suspects. ("Since, whatever I do, the neighbors are going to think me a witch, or a Communist agent, I might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb, and become one in reality.") As a result, we now have an intelligentsia which, though very small, is very useful to the cause of Hell.
That, however, is a mere byproduct. 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 sniped 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 practice, 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.
My own experience, as I have said, was mainly on the English sector, and I still get more news from it than from any other. It may be that what I am now going to say will not apply so fully to the sectors in which some of you may be operating. But you can make the necessary adjustments when you get there. Some application it will almost certainly have. If it has too little, you must labor to make the country you are dealing with more like what England already is.
In that promising land the spirit of "I'm as good as you" has already become 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 the pupils — for they are obviously and nakedly individual differences — must be disguised. This can be done on 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 the things that children used to do in their spare time. Let them, for example, make mud pies and call it modeling. 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 impossible. 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 vanish. The few who might want to learn will be prevented; who are they to over-top 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.
Of course, this would not follow unless all education became state education. But it will. That is part of the same movement. Penal taxes, designed for that purpose, are liquidating the Middle Class, the class who were prepared to save and spend and make sacrifices in order to have their children privately educated. The removal of this class, besides linking up with the abolition of education, is, fortunately, an inevitable effect of the spirit that says "I'm as good as you". This was, after all, the social group which gave to the humans the overwhelming majority of their scientists, physicians, philosophers, theologians, poets, artists, composers, architects, jurists, and administrators. If ever there was a bunch of tall stalks that needed their tops knocked off, it was surely they. As an English politician remarked not long ago, "A democracy does not want great men."
It would be idle to ask of such a creature whether by want it meant "need" or, "like." But you had better be clear. For here Aristotle's question comes up again.
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. What we must realize is that "democracy" in the diabolical sense ("I'm as good as you", Being like Folks, Togetherness) is the finest 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 sub-literates, full of the cocksureness which flattery breeds on ignorance, and quick to snarl or whimper at the first hint of criticism. And that is what Hell wishes every democratic people to be. For when such a nation meets in conflict a nation where children have been made to work at school, where talent is placed in high posts, and where the ignorant mass are allowed no say at all in public affairs, only one result is possible.
The democracies were surprised lately when they found that Russia had got ahead of them in science. What a delicious specimen of human blindness! If the whole tendency of their society is opposed to every sort of excellence, why did they expect their scientists to excel?
It is our function to encourage the behavior, the manners, the whole attitude of mind, which democracies naturally like and enjoy, because these are the very things which, if unchecked, will destroy democracy. You would almost wonder that even humans don't see it themselves. Even if they don't read Aristotle (that would be undemocratic) you would have thought the French Revolution would have taught them that the behavior aristocrats naturally like is not the behavior that preserves aristocracy. They might then have applied the same principle to all forms of government.
However, I would not end on that note. I would not — Hell forbid! -- encourage in your own minds that delusion which you must carefully foster in the minds of your human victims. I mean the delusion that the fate of nations is in itself more important than that of individual souls. The overthrow of free peoples and the multiplication of slave states are for us a means (besides, of course, being fun); but the real end is the destruction of individuals. For only individuals can be saved or damned, can become sons of the Enemy or food for us. The ultimate value, for us, of any revolution, war, or famine lies in the individual anguish, treachery, hatred, rage, and despair which it may produce. "I'm as good as you" is a useful means for the destruction of democratic societies. It has, however, a far deeper value as an end in itself --- as a state of mind which, necessarily excluding humility, charity, contentment, and all the pleasures of gratitude or admiration, turns a human being away from almost every road which might finally lead him to Heaven.
Democratic Education
"Democratic Education" is Lewis's title for his "Notes on the Way" from Time and Tide, vol. XXV (29 April 1944), pp. 369-70
Democratic education, says Aristotle, ought to mean, not the education which democrats like, but the education which will preserve democracy. Until we have realized that the two things do not necessarily go together we cannot think clearly about education.
For example, an education which gave the able and diligent boys no advantage over the stupid and idle ones, would be in one sense democratic. It would be egalitarian and democrats like equality. The caucus race in Alice in Wonderland, where all the competitors won and all got prizes, was a "democratic" race: like the Garter it tolerated no nonsense about merit (1). Such total egalitarianism in education has not yet been openly recommended, but a movement in that direction begins to appear. It can be seen in the growing demand that subjects which some boys do very much better than others should not be compulsory. Yesterday it was Latin -- today, as I see from a letter in one of the papers, it is Mathematics. Both these subjects give an "unfair advantage" to boys of a certain type. To abolish that advantage is therefore in one sense democratic.
But of course there is no reason for stopping with the abolition of these two compulsions. To be consistent we must go further. We must also abolish all compulsory subjects, and we must make the curriculum so wide that "every boy will get a chance at something". Even the boy who can't or won't learn his alphabet can be praised and petted for something — handicrafts or gymnastics, moral leadership or deportment, citizenship or the care of guinea-pigs, "hobbies" or musical appreciation — anything he likes.. Then no boy, and no boy's parents, need feel inferior.
An education on those lines will be pleasing to democratic feelings. It will have repaired the inequalities of nature. But it is quite another question whether it will breed a democratic nation which can survive, or even one whose survival is desirable.
The improbability that a nation thus educated could survive need not be labored. Obviously it can escape destruction only if its rivals and enemies are so obliging as to adopt the same system. A nation of dunces can be safe only in a world of dunces. But the question of desirability is more interesting.
The demand for equality has two sources -- one of them is among the noblest, the other is the basest of human emotions. The noble source is the desire for fair play. But the other source is the hatred of superiority. At the present moment it would be very unrealistic to overlook the importance of the latter. There is in all men a tendency (only corrigible by good training from without and persistent moral effort from within) to resent the existence of what is stronger, subtler or better than themselves. In uncorrected and brutal men this hardens into an implacable and disinterested hatred for every kind of excellence. The vocabulary of a period tells tales. There is reason to be alarmed at the immense vogue today of such words as "highbrow", "upstage", "old school tie", "academic", "smug", and "complacent". These words, as used today, are sores -- one feels the poison throbbing in them.
The kind of "democratic" education which is already looming ahead is bad because it endeavors to propitiate evil passions -- to appease envy. There are two reasons for not attempting this. In the first place, you will not succeed. Envy is insatiable. The more you concede to it the more it will demand. No attitude of humility which you can possibly adopt will propitiate a man with an inferiority complex. In the second place, you are trying to introduce equality where equality is fatal.
Equality (outside mathematics) is a purely social conception. It applies to man as a political and economic animal. It has no place in the world of the mind. Beauty is not democratic -- she reveals herself more to the few than to the many, more to the persistent and disciplined seekers than to the careless. Virtue is not democratic -- she is achieved by those who pursue her more hotly than most men. Truth is not democratic -- she demands special talents and special industry in those to whom she gives her favors. Political democracy is doomed if it tries to extend its demand for equality into these higher spheres. Ethical, intellectual, or aesthetic democracy is death.
A truly democratic education — one which will preserve democracy — must be, in its own field, ruthlessly aristocratic, shamelessly "highbrow". In drawing up its curriculum it should always have chiefly in view the interests of the boy who wants to know and who can know (with very few exceptions they are the same boy). The stupid boy, nearly always, is the boy who does not want to know. It must, in a certain sense, subordinate the interests of the many to those of the few, and it must subordinate the school to the university. Only thus can it be a nursery of those first-class intellects without which neither a democracy nor any other State can thrive.
"And what", you ask, "about the dull boy? What about our Tommy, who is so highly strung and doesn't like doing 'sums and grammar'? Is he to be brutally sacrificed to other people's sons?" I answer -- dear Madam, you quite misunderstand Tommy's real wishes and real interests. It is the "aristocratic" system which will really give Tommy what he wants. If you let me have my way, Tommy will gravitate very comfortably to the bottom of the form; and there he will sit at the back of the room chewing caramels and conversing sotto voce with his peers, occasionally ragging and occasionally getting punished, and all the time imbibing that playfully intransigent attitude to authority which is our chief protection against England's becoming a servile State. When he grows up he will not be a Porson (2); but the world will still have room for a great many more Tommies than Porsons. There are dozens of jobs (much better paid than the intellectual ones) in which he can be very useful and very happy. In addition, there will be one priceless benefit that he will enjoy -- he will know he's not clever. The distinction between him and the great brains will have been clear to him ever since, in the playground, he punched the heads containing those great brains. He will have a certain half amused respect for them. He will cheerfully admit that, though he could knock spots off them on the golf links, they know and do what he cannot. He will be a pillar of democracy. He will allow just the right amount of rope to those clever ones.
But what you want to do is to take away from Tommy that whole free, private life as part of the everlasting opposition which is his whole desire. You have already robbed him of all real play by making games compulsory. Must you meddle further? When (during a Latin lesson really intended for his betters) he is contentedly whittling a piece of wood into a boat under the desk, must you come in to discover a "talent" and pack him off to the woodcarving class, so that what hitherto was fun must become one more lesson? Do you think he will thank you? Half the charm of carving the boat lay in the fact that it involved a resistance to authority. Must you take that pleasure – a pleasure without which no true democracy can exist – away from him? Give him marks for his hobby, officialize it, finally fool the poor boy into the belief that what he is doing is just as clever "in its own way" as real work? What do you think will come of it? When he gets out into the real world he is bound to discover the truth. He may be disappointed. Because you have turned this simple, wholesome creature into a coxcomb, he will resent those inferiorities which (but for you) would not have irked him at all. A mild pleasure in ragging, a determination not to be much interfered with, is a valuable brake on reckless planning and a valuable curb on the meddlesomeness of minor officials. Envy bleating "I'm as good as you", is, on the other hand, the hotbed of Fascism. You are going about to take away the one and foment the other. Democracy demands that little men should not take big ones too seriously -- it dies when it is full of little men who think they are big themselves !!
(1) The Order of the Garter, instituted by King Edward III in 1344, is the highest order of knighthood. Lewis had in mind the comment made by Lord Melbourne (1779-1848) about the Order: "I like the Garter; there is no damned merit in it."
(2) Richard Porson (1759-1808), son of the parish clerk at East Ruston, near North Walsham, showed extraordinary memory when a boy, and by the help of various protectors he was educated at Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge. In 1792 he became Regius Professor of Greek at Cambridge.
