Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 (Tek) 9/26/83; site shark.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxl!ihnp4!zehntel!hplabs!tektronix!orca!shark!hutch 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 References: <2690@allegra.UUCP> Organization: Tektronix, Wilsonville OR Lines: 116 < 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