CS Lewis essays
Riding my bicycle in Mid April, I listened to a few essays by CS Lewis. I can't touch CS Lewis on many fronts and admire him greatly. While I don’t share his faith, I have always enjoyed the challenge he brings to a discussion of modern life and the assumptions I have about it. Of course, the modern life he reflected on was that of between the World Wars in England which is as different to us here and now as the antebellum South. Yet unlike that Southern world, for me, he makes a connection.
In 1946 he spoke to an audience, “Talking about Bicycles.” The essay uses his experience with bicycles and generalizes it into a metaphor on life: As an infant/toddler, bicycles are just one of many things, yet to be understood in the world—there is no associated meaning. As a child, bikes can be liberating for the freedom they give as well as sensual experiences, both the riding and the places reached while riding. As a person in midlife, they may or be a useful tool in life, but the wonder they had is lost. With aging, re-introduction to bikes or simply remembering, the thrill from childhood comes back and is a source of fond remembrance even if wrongly recalled. He moves on and notes these stages occur as one recalls romantic love or one’s war experiences.
The Truth of this seemed evident as I considered how I have witnessed previously loving couples seen bickering and seemingly and endlessly annoyed with each other and yet, they remain in love, recalling and relying on the memory of the thrills of that love— even if wrongly recalled. How many dead husbands who were reviled in life turned out to be saints as their widows recalled those memories to me? And vice-versa. Too many to think it an aberration.
I am reminded of the riddle of the sphynx asking what creature first starts walking on four legs, then two, and finally three. That refers to the physical evolution of man. I see an analogy in the humorous life— consider farting: to the infant, it is just another uncontrolled process, to the child a source of endless amusement, to the middle age, just another thing in life to manage politely, and in old age, they become a source of amusement once more. I have seen them embellished by the old.
Take homes and home life: the memory is not a video machine; it adjusts and changes consciously as the environment, emotional and physical, has its effects on us. Memories associated with emotions are powerful, whether “correct” or not. Aging and experience changes us: to the Philosophical question of changing out the planks of an old ship over a century and seeing the same design as originally, but not one piece of lumber from the original ship—is it the same ship? Speaking as an elder, with virtually all my “timbers” replaced at the cellular level: No! It is not.
His prose and sense of humor while talking about the human condition and our connection to God (or nature) is wonderful.
A second essay caught my ear (audiobooks!). There is an essay addressing the “humanitarian” theory of criminal punishment. I often think of Lewis as a Christian humanist so this essay was interesting to me. In it, he addresses a debate being played out in England in the 1940’s while keeping his legal points non-specific. He believes humanitarian approaches to crime stem from the Enlightenment and as such, rely on logic and science—ever changing science, to sort out both punishment and rehabilitation as an answer to managing guilty verdicts. The emphasis and point of the next step after a guilty verdict, is rehabilitation. He believes this takes morality out of the question of justice and will depend on experts who can be arbitrary, authoritative when in fact they have nothing of substance, and cruel. The criminal might be sentenced to rehabilitation with no end date and relying on “experts” to gauge the completion of rehabilitation. If one treats criminals like broken machines, their humanity is not acknowledged and they are treated as less than human in this system of justice. It is a vision akin to 1984 justice, and a Godless world. While I see his point and agree with much of it, relativist that I am, tell that to the burned witches! Obvious guilt as judged by the community has had some obvious low points in history, serving “just desserts.” Four hundred years ago, when the general population in Europe was much more focussed on religious norms and beliefs than now, epileptics were assumed guilty of being possessed and subject to punishment. No brainer!
So Morality and judgement of morality or guilt can and does change. Or does it?
He makes a case for Natural Law: the core argument is that across all cultures, there are core criminal behaviors that everyone agrees are wrong and merit punishment in the service of justice. Examples would include murder, unprovoked assault, stealing. He argued for a humane, proportional and deserved punishment in the service of justice. Simply put, he believed in right and wrong and proportionate just sentences.
He believed that justice serves up “just deserts,” that is fundamentally different than revenge. He acknowledges that all people across all cultures knowing this natural law, break it anyway--and there should be consequences.
So the witches and epileptics are accounted for—or not. He, being a humanist of sorts, can readily acknowledge human weakness, abuse of belief, and injustice served up by those charged with the justice system.
Having read other essays, I know he was fully aware of the injustices meted out in the legal systems using both approaches. His faith found him holding to right and wrong. The source of right and wrong are in short, a reflection of God. The southern juries that never convicted violent white lynchers were morally wrong and in his thinking, an aberration as in not true Chirstians. I agree. The complexity of society and ways to cause harm further complicate the arguments today. He is patient, suggesting that when the laws become out of touch, juries won’t convict and slowly, the laws change to conform with the expectations of the society. One can imagine the Dickensonian scenario of the orphan boy stealing bread and the justice system asking the jury to find him guilty and invoke the mandated death penalty. That in fact did change over time though the crime of stealing remains.
If you have been on a jury in the modern USA, arguments using both logical approaches have likely been experienced: was the crime made likely by an environment, stress, mental illness, circumstances, and so on*? Does it matter? If someone was harmed should we not look at that damage and find some form of compensation? Should the violent get “just deserts” and an attempt made at rehabilitation? Do we agree that crazy people who are violent need to be isolated from society—and how do you judge the evolution of their craziness, thinking of the expense of housing them for life?
For Lewis, the fact that core morality or sense of right and wrong crosses all cultures confirms the existence of God—not unlike the argument that the universe we observe appears to run like a clock, with laws governing it that had to have a founding cause: God.
My reading of behaviorists, with a wealth of experimental psychological knowledge might well agree with his foundation: there is indeed a uniformity of morality around behaviors across cultures and religions—-and they extend into the animal kingdom as well. This could confirm the existence and power of God or simply reflects hundreds of millions of years of evolution. Or both………
Getting back to the law, he was addressing a clear problem evolving in the British legal system. My sense is that the humanists mostly got their way and yet, the reverse process occurs: Jurors with a strong sense of right and wrong can butt heads with the law and its processes.
For me, we have so many laws regarding so many things, this discussion seems to cover only a specific set of categories amendable to a black and white solution but in this legal universe, much of the law, behaviors, and the crimes, all take on shades of grey. This overwhelms me sometimes as it does so many of us who don’t have a clue about the law as it is actually practiced. The micro society of judges has evolved and changed in my lifetime, making a founding principal of Critical Race Theory seem quite valid: the law is not set, is not stable, and will not protect you…….
I would love to have seen CS Lewis reflect on West Side Story and especially, his argument playing out in “Officer Krupke”—Looking on at obviously guilty juvenile delinquents, he would say that they were acknowledging that they were being treated as less than human by a large “humanist” legal system in the USA circa 1960:
[ACTION & JETS]
[ACTION]
There is good!
[JETS]
There is good, there is good
There is untapped good!
Like inside, the worst of us is good
[SNOWBOY, spoken]
That's a touchin' good story.
[ACTION, spoken]
Lemme tell it to the world!
[SNOWBOY, spoken]
Just tell it to the judge.
[ACTION]
Dear kindly Judge, your Honor
They didn't wanna have me
But somehow I was had
Leapin' lizards, that's why I'm so bad!
[DIESEL (As Judge)]
Right!
Officer Krupke, you're really a square
This boy don't need a judge, he needs a analyst's care!
It's just his neurosis that oughta be curbed
He's psychologically disturbed!
[ACTION]
I'm disturbed!
[JETS]
We're disturbed, we're disturbed
We're the most disturbed
Like we're psychologically disturbed
[DIESEL (as Judge), spoken]
Hear ye, hear ye! In the opinion of this court, this child is depraved on account he ain't had a normal home.
[ACTION, spoken]
Hey, I'm depraved on account I'm deprived.
[DIESEL, spoken]
So take him to a headshrinker.
[ACTION]
My father is a bastard
My ma's an S.O.B.
My grandpa's always plastered
My grandma pushes tea
My sister wears a mustache
My brother wears a dress
Goodness gracious, that's why I'm a mess!
[A-RAB (as Psychiatrist)]
Yes!
Officer Krupke, you're really a slob
This boy don't need a doctor, just a good honest job
Society's played him a terrible trick
And sociologically he's sick!
[ACTION]
I am sick!
[JETS]
We are sick, we are sick
We are sick, sick, sick
Like we're sociologically sick!
[A-RAB, spoken]
In my opinion, this child don't need to have his head shrunk at all. Juvenile delinquency is purely a social disease.
[ACTION, spoken]
Hey, I got a social disease!
[A-RAB, spoken]
So take him to a social worker!
[ACTION]
Dear kindly social worker
They say go earn some dough
Like be a soda jerker—
It's not I'm anti-social
I'm only anti-work
, that's why I'm a jerk!
[BABY JOHN (as Female Social Worker)]
Eek!
Officer Krupke, you've done it again
This boy don't need a job, he needs a year in the Pen
It ain't just a question of misunderstood—
Deep down inside him, he's no good!
[ACTION]
I'm no good!
[JETS]
We're no good, we're no good!
We're no earthly good
Like the best of us is no damn good!
[DIESEL (as Judge)]
The trouble is he's lazy
[A-RAB (as Psychiatrist)]
The trouble is he drinks
[BABY JOHN (as Female Social Worker)]
The trouble is he's crazy
[DIESEL]
The trouble is he stinks
[A-RAB]
The trouble is he's growing
[BABY JOHN]
The trouble is he's grown
[JETS]
Krupke, we got troubles of our own!
Gee, Officer Krupke, we're down on our knees
'Cause no one wants a fella with a social disease
Gee, Officer Krupke
What are we to do?
Gee, Officer Krupke—
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