The devil

Although I have read The Screwtape Letters many years ago several people lately have told me that I should read it. I am not sure if their advice was more of a result of their recent enthusiasm for a good book (which is now apparently a play) or a concern for my capacity for deception.

Aside from a needed reminder of the presence of intentional, targeted deceit in the world, (aka the devil) I particularly enjoyed Lewis amendment to the book which contains interesting commentary on various political themes such as the following:

Describing the way the the word democracy can be manipulated Wormwood says to Screwtape:

"The first ans most obvious advantage is that you thus induce him to enthrone at the centre of his life a good solid resounding lie. I do not mean merely that his statement is false in face, and 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 duce, nor the employable to the bum, not 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, lah-di-dah affection. 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 must be one of those highbrows and is doing it to show off. If they were the right sort of chaps 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 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 if 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."

Unfortunately I must admit that I can identify with the strange insistence on equality and am not yet prepared to call it envy without qualification. This certainly deserves some additional thought. I just wonder how many other stages there are in my life in which my self- praised noble character may actually cast dark shadows in the wings.