C.S. Lewis had a fair bit to say about the perils of equality, especially in education, where he saw it as a sop to resentment and envy. In his view, equality was like medicine ("I do not think that equality is one of those things (like wisdom or happiness) which are good simply in themselves and for their own sakes. I think it is in the same class as medicine, which is good because we are ill").
He also presented a very interesting defence of what he calls "ceremonial Monarchy" (his term for the type practised in the United Kingdom):
"We Britons should rejoice that we have contrived to reach much legal democracy (we still need more of the economic) without losing our ceremonial Monarchy. For there, right in the midst of our lives, is that which satisfies the craving for inequality, and acts as a permanent reminder that medicine is not food. Hence a man's reaction to Monarchy is a kind of test. Monarchy can easily be 'debunked'; but watch the faces, mark well the accents, of the debunkers. These are the men whose tap-root in Eden has been cut: whom no rumour of the polyphony, the dance, can reach - men to whom pebbles laid in a row are more beautiful than an arch. Yet even if they desire mere equality they cannot reach it. Where men are forbidden to honour a king they honour millionaires, athletes, or film-stars instead: even famous prostitutes or gangsters. For spiritual nature, like bodily nature, will be served; deny it food and it will gobble poison."
He also presented a very interesting defence of what he calls "ceremonial Monarchy" (his term for the type practised in the United Kingdom):
"We Britons should rejoice that we have contrived to reach much legal democracy (we still need more of the economic) without losing our ceremonial Monarchy. For there, right in the midst of our lives, is that which satisfies the craving for inequality, and acts as a permanent reminder that medicine is not food. Hence a man's reaction to Monarchy is a kind of test. Monarchy can easily be 'debunked'; but watch the faces, mark well the accents, of the debunkers. These are the men whose tap-root in Eden has been cut: whom no rumour of the polyphony, the dance, can reach - men to whom pebbles laid in a row are more beautiful than an arch. Yet even if they desire mere equality they cannot reach it. Where men are forbidden to honour a king they honour millionaires, athletes, or film-stars instead: even famous prostitutes or gangsters. For spiritual nature, like bodily nature, will be served; deny it food and it will gobble poison."
The whole thing (just 1,200-odd words – originally printed in The Spectator in 1943) is available
6 comments:
best reason for a monarchy is presidents like bush
Sorry to lower the tone, but I wonder which prostitute he was referring to?
Yes yes, but: Thailand? Japan?
hmmm, my daughter has just lovingly cut out the pictures of the dutch prince and princess and their 3 little girls from last Saturday's Dutch newspapers...
I'm the antithesis to a monarchist and don't even believe in inheritance, but there must be something in it for the masses. Snobbishly I equate the masses to my 6 year old who likes gold, princesses, glitter and anything 'beautiful'.
Thanks for this, Ulaca -- I've read much of Lewis's work, but not this essay. You can certainly see Chesterton's influence in that neat reversal at the end of the first paragraph.
Indeed. Apart from his scholarly books, I like the essays the best. The 1986 collection "Present Concerns" (Fount, I think) has this and other "essays on ethics".
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