Grant, Lewis, and morning sickness

I do read a lot, an assertion which I've made many times over the last few years and with no shame. In fact I've reached the point where it occurs to me that I may use this thing called the Internet, formerly known as the World Wide Web, to seek out books which I've long thought about reading yet am not thinking about buying when I'm in the old brick and mortar bookstores. Yes, they still exist.

Thus yesterday morning found me scouring Amazon looking for titles which I've long known and meant to hunt up for my perusal. One for example is U. S. Grant's Personal Memoirs. They're supposed to be a very good and of course first hand account of his actions in the Army and through his Presidency. Needless to say I found them available, and into the cart they went.

Next I sought out Screwtape Proposes a Toast by C. S. Lewis. Apparently if authors want my attention it pays to use initials, a personal compulsion of which J. R. R. Tolkien certainly took note. Then I brought up William Bennett's America The Last Best Hope, volumes Two and Three, as I have just finished Volume One and enjoyed it so much I want to finish the series. I'll stop with those examples of my search as they demonstrate, basically, what I sought: books of a staid, serious nature. 

Now unless you live under a rock you know that Amazon uses some type of algorithm to aid people in seeking what they desire, suggesting this or that similar product, and I have given you solid examples of what I was after. So imagine my surprise when, immediately after being offered several different styles and versions of the aforementioned books up popped a suggested product called Pink Stork Nausea Sweets. They claim to offer relief from morning sickness for pregnant women.

I am not making this up. Right after a listing for the Bennett books came the idea that I might want lozenges to alleviate morning sickness. After displaying interest in the writings of a historian, an American political and military leader, and an English theologian I apparently must be concerned with relief from pregnancy ailments.

By what inference could Amazon's bots possibly draw that conclusion? I'm at a loss. But if you can successfully enlighten me about it maybe I'll name the baby after you. 

Lewis and Mitchell

It's amazing how thoughts may randomly pop into one's mind. We are further impressed when two or more of them may have a certain connection which gives us pause.

C. S. Lewis speaks of being a democrat (a small 'd' democrat, it should be noted) he says that it is because he distrusts his fellow men rather than believes in them. No one, himself included, he says, can be fully trusted to run other people's business, so it's better to diffuse power than allow its accumulation in one man or group.

Richard Mitchell, an outstanding yet little known writer on education issues famous, so far as he is, for his works under the heading The Underground Grammarian, teaches that education is a preparation against the world more than for it. The world, so to speak, will mislead you, it will lie to you, so that the only decent education leads you to think for yourself as a check on the world's attempted ill effect upon you.

These are two quite interesting takes on things. They lead us to wonder whether there might be such things as negative virtues, ideas positive in themselves though emanating from negative perspectives. They are difficult to disagree with, yet display an understanding of the world and peoples around us in an unexpected fashion from unexpected sources. As such, they quite naturally lead us to think and wonder.

How about you?

Clive Staples Lewis

If it isn't obvious enough by now, I am a huge fan of Mr. C. S. Lewis. My wife found a copy of The Screwtape Letters at a garage sale almost 30 years ago, and I read and was hooked. As is my usual habit when I discover an author I like, I proceeded to seek out and read all of his books.

I haven't quite made it. Not being interested I have never read any of his books in his academic specialty, Medieval and Renaissance literature. And two of his books, Dymer and Spirits in Bondage, being published early on in his career and before his reconversion to Christianity, well, I haven't honestly looked very hard for them. I have read a passage from Dymer and it sounds interesting, though.

I cannot begin to tell you enough about a later edition of Screwtape which includes the addendum Screwtape Proposes a Toast. As it happens he was addressing American education, and was dead on in his assessment. I have used his arguments there quite often in my dealings with, ahem, modern educators.

The Abolition of Man may be the best work of nonfiction outside of the Bible. Mr. Lewis' defense of the doctrine of objective knowledge is far more fantastic and profound than the small book in which he delivers it. In short, I adore the man, and must credit him to a great degree in cementing my belief in God.

Yet there is a skeleton in the closet which most of his admirers, Catholic and Protestant alike, tend to downplay or ignore. And that is his refusal to make pronouncements about certain particulars of Christian doctrine. He asserts that he is not enough of a theologian to do so.

I am not aware that one must be a theologian in order to understand most theology. I understand, as a Catholic, that the consecrated host is really the Body of Christ. Lewis famously says in regards to this that Christ's directive is, take, eat, not take, understand. I say with all due respect that he rather begs the question. Why would God not want us to understand? Wouldn't we want that closer relationship with Him?

Much of it can be linked to the psychology of Mr. Lewis I'm sure. Dr. Joseph Pearce wrote a very good book called C. S. Lewis and the Church of Rome which deals with the issue of why Lewis never became Catholic as he certainly was very close to it. Dr. Pearce's answer was, essentially, because of Lewis' background and his Ulster stubbornness (he was Northern Ireland).

I would have to agree. And I don't mean that without sympathy: sometimes, and I say this with absolutely no disrespect intended, invincible ignorance gets in our way. Lewis may not have had the capacity to take that next step; it's the same as I think of my dear paternal grandfather who, though he came to accept and respect my father's Catholicism, could not be expected to easily let go of his Southern Baptist background. Thankfully, God will accept us on those terms, if the situation is real and sincere, and not an intentional blindness.

That question used to plague me yet now I can accept it. But even in that light, we still must address our skeletons as honestly and openly as we can. C. S. Lewis did what he could with what he given, and had accomplished with it a far sight more than anything most of us have managed. So he perhaps could not take that last step towards full Christianity. How many of us can? It is an area in which we must be supremely grateful for God's mercy.

The Underground Grammarian

Richard Mitchell, the Underground Grammarian, was a brilliant man. His essay What To Do Till the Undertaker Comes is about the best and most concise vision of why our schools teach so poorly. The only better short writing I can think of is C.S. Lewis' wonderful Screwtape Proposes A Toast, interestingly also aimed at the follies of modern education.

Our best writings and most brilliant minds should be concerned with education. For the teachers, so many of them filled with ideas of facilitation and nonjudgmentalism rather than on actually teaching people, are right about one thing: it is education which molds the man. Which is why it should be propagation: Humanity transmitting humanity to the future, to very roughly paraphrase Mr. Lewis. What we have today is, again to borrow from Lewis, merely propaganda.

Respecting all other cultures and people and histories without judgment of their actions is merely that. I'm not saying we have the right to condemn others, but we can and must judge their actions. It's how we can really get to know them and their ways, which includes of course incorporating their good and positive values into our own. But it must also mean an obligation to charitably instruct them, so far as charity will allow, in where their errors may lie.

So if you want to read Lewis, well, he's all over the place. The Abolition of Man, The Screwtape Letters, and his Chronicles of Narnia are among his great works. We can learn from them. As to Richard Mitchell, go here: http://www.sourcetext.com/grammarian/ . Look for the Undertaker essay, but I also suggest The Teacher of the Year, Sayings Brief and Dark, and whichever essay it is (I think that it's right after Sayings) which lambastes scrambled sentences lesson plans for writing classes. That one's hilarious!

Mitchell wrote: "Seek out the best, wondering minds, and go and sit with them." My advice is to go and sit with him.