Congratulations on the new organization and thank you for your work. I’ve been wanting to mention an old but great essay (1959) that anticipated some of today’s issues. It appeared in The Saturday Evening Post and was written by CSLewis. It’s called “Screwtape Proposes a Toast” and appears as an addendum to most editions of his 1941 no…
Congratulations on the new organization and thank you for your work. I’ve been wanting to mention an old but great essay (1959) that anticipated some of today’s issues. It appeared in The Saturday Evening Post and was written by CSLewis. It’s called “Screwtape Proposes a Toast” and appears as an addendum to most editions of his 1941 novel The Screwtape Letters. (If you’re not familiar with the book, it takes the form of a series of letters to a “guardian devil” from his uncle, an undersecretary in hell. The human objects of his tempting are known as patients. With the book’s morality all in reverse, where good = bad, Lewis weaves in witty and incisive observations about human nature on nearly every page.) But, back to the essay, which is easily found online. “Being like stalks,” “democracy in the diabolical sense,” and the result of a hijacked educational system —-there is so much that is prescient. (“The enemy“ refers to God, of course, and he uses the term Pharisee for basically any self-righteous and showily religious person— you could substitute “televangelist” for similar effect.) I’ve thought of Screwtape’s biting words too often of late, and both the essay and the book are worth a read. Thank you so much for what you are doing. I hope you go far in helping to establish those new and wiser institutions you have spoken about.
Congratulations on the new organization and thank you for your work. I’ve been wanting to mention an old but great essay (1959) that anticipated some of today’s issues. It appeared in The Saturday Evening Post and was written by CSLewis. It’s called “Screwtape Proposes a Toast” and appears as an addendum to most editions of his 1941 novel The Screwtape Letters. (If you’re not familiar with the book, it takes the form of a series of letters to a “guardian devil” from his uncle, an undersecretary in hell. The human objects of his tempting are known as patients. With the book’s morality all in reverse, where good = bad, Lewis weaves in witty and incisive observations about human nature on nearly every page.) But, back to the essay, which is easily found online. “Being like stalks,” “democracy in the diabolical sense,” and the result of a hijacked educational system —-there is so much that is prescient. (“The enemy“ refers to God, of course, and he uses the term Pharisee for basically any self-righteous and showily religious person— you could substitute “televangelist” for similar effect.) I’ve thought of Screwtape’s biting words too often of late, and both the essay and the book are worth a read. Thank you so much for what you are doing. I hope you go far in helping to establish those new and wiser institutions you have spoken about.