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From: hutch@shark.UUCP (Stephen Hutchison)
Newsgroups: net.books
Subject: Re: crossover authors
Message-ID: <981@shark.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 14-Aug-84 04:22:45 EDT
Article-I.D.: shark.981
Posted: Tue Aug 14 04:22:45 1984
Date-Received: Thu, 16-Aug-84 02:34:22 EDT
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Organization: Tektronix, Wilsonville OR
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< I get cross over some authors, too! >

| C.S. Lewis wrote a strange trilogy of books "Out of the Silent Planet",
| "Perelandra", and "That Hideous Strength".  My impression is that these
| books are not popular among Science Fiction fans.  Lewis was an Oxford
| theologian, I believe.  He equated technology with satanism.

From Encyclopedia Brittanica:

	Clive Staples Lewis b. Nov 29, 1898, Belfast N.Ireland
			    d. Nov 22, 1963, Oxford, Eng.

	Scholar, Novelist, and author of about 40 books, most of
	them on Christian apologetics, the most widely known being
	"The Screwtape Letters".  He also achieved considerable
	fame with his stories for children, the "Chronicles of Narnia",
	which have become classics of fantasy.

	Lewis was educated privately and for a year at Malvern College.
	During WW1 he served in France in the Somerset Light Infantry
	and in 1918 went to University College, Oxford, where his
	record as a classical scholar was outstanding.  From 1925 to 1954
	he was a fellow and tutor of Magdalen College, Oxford, and from
	1954 to 1963 he was professor of medieval and Rennaisance English
	at Cambridge University.

Lewis always claimed to be an apologist and never a theologian.
He was too honest a scholar to allow anyone to address him as a
theologian;  Theology was his hobby not his profession.

Regarding assertions that Lewis equated satanism and technology,
the following from a posthumous collection of his essays and lectures,
published under the title "of other worlds":

	My chief criticism of [Professor Haldane's] article is
	that, wishing to criticize my philosophy (if I may give
	it so big a name) he almost ignores the books in which
	I have attempted to set it out and concentrates on my
	romances.  He was told in the preface to "That Hideous
	Strength" that the doctrines behind that romance could
	be found, stripped of their fictional masquerade, in
	"The Abolition of Man".  Why did he not go there to find
	them?  The result of his method is unfortunate.  As a
	philosophical critic the Professor would have been
	formidable and therefore useful.  As a literary critic-
	though even there he cannot be dull- he keeps on missing
	the point.  A good deal of my reply must therefore be
	concerned with removal of mere misunderstandings.

	His attack resolves itself into three charges.
	(1) That my science is usually wrong; (2) That I traduce
	scientists; (3) That on my view scientific planning 'can
	only lead to Hell' (and that therefore I am 'a most useful
	prop to the existing social order', dear to those who
	'stand to lose by social changes' and reluctant, for bad
	motives, to speak out about usury).

	(1) My science is usually wrong.  Why, yes.  So is the
	Professor's history.  He tells us in "Possible Worlds"
	(1927) that 'five hundred years ago ... it was not clear
	that celestial distances were so much greater than terrestrial'.
	But the astronimy textbook that the Middle Ages used,
	Ptolemy's "Almagest", had clearly stated (I.v) that in
	relation to the distance to the fixed stars the whole Earth
	must be treated as a mathematical point ... [more examples]
	... In other words, the Professor is about as good a historian
	as I am a scientist.  The difference is that his false history
	is produced in works intended to be true, whereas my false
	science is produced in romances.  ... [more analysis]

	(2) I think Professor Haldane himself probably regarded
	his critique of my science as mere skirmishing; with his
	second charge (that I traduce scientists) we reach something
	more serious.  And here, most unhappily, he concentrates
	on the wrong book - "That Hideous Strength" - missing the
	strong point of his own case.  If any of my romances could
	be possibly accused of being a libel on scientists it would
	be "Out of the Silent Planet".  It certainly is an attack,
	if not on scientists, yet on something which might be called
	'scientism'- a certain outlook on the world which is causally
	connected with the popularization of the sciences, though it
	is much less common among real scientists than among their readers.
	It is, in a word, the belief that the supreme moral end is
	the perpetuation of our own species, and that this is to be
	pursued even if, in the process of being fitted for survival,
	our species has to be stripped of all those things for which
	we value it- of pity, of happiness, and of freedom.
	... [ more exposition ]

	(3)  Thirdly, was I attacking scientific planning?  According
	to Professor Haldane 'Mr Lewis's idea is clear enough.  The
	application of science to human affairs can only lead to Hell.'
	There is certainly no warrant for 'can only'; but he is
	justified in assuming that unless I had thought I saw a serious
	and widespread danger I would not have given planning so central
	a place even in what I called 'a fairy tale' and a 'tall story'.
	But if you must reduce the romance to a proposition, the
	proposition would be almost the converse of that which the
	Professor supposes: not 'scientific planning will certainly lead
	to Hell', but 'Under modern conditions any effective invitation
	to Hell will certainly appear in the guise of scientific planning'
	- as Hitler's regime in fact did.  Every tyrant must begin by
	claiming to have what his victims respect and to give what they
	want.  The majority in most modern countries respect science and
	want to be planned.  And, therefore, almost by definition, if
	any man or group wishes to enslave us it will of course describe
	itself as 'scientific planned democracy'.  It may be true that
	any real salvation must equally, though by hypothesis truthfully,
	describe itself as 'scientific planned democracy'.  All the
	more reason to look very carefully at anything which bears that
	label.  ... [ conclusion ]


Presented for your edification.

Hutch