While C.S. Lewis is primarily known for his fictional and faith-focused writing, most notably The Chronicles of Narnia series and Mere Christianity, he believed that claims upon the soul are claims upon the whole of life. In other words, everything Lewis said and wrote about his faith had real-world implications — including political and cultural implications. Reading Lewis’s work with this in mind reveals profound insights on politics and culture, many of which are particularly relevant to America now. Below are 19 quotes about politics and culture from Lewis that America needs to hear now more than ever.
The Worst Kind of Tyranny
Lewis argued that the most oppressive tyranny is not enacted by brutal dictators but by well-meaning “moral busybodies” – the do-gooders, the Karens in government — “who torment us for our own good.”
“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth. This very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be ‘cured’ against one’s will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals.” — “The Humanitarian Theory of Punishment,” 1948
This tyranny, says Lewis, is the tyranny of bureaucrats, carried out in “well-lighted offices” by “quiet men with white collars.”
“I live in the Managerial Age, in a world of ‘Admin.’ The greatest evil is not now done in those sordid ‘dens of crime’ that Dickens loved to paint. It is not done even in concentration camps and labour camps. In those we see its final result. But it is conceived and ordered (moved, seconded, carried, and minuted) in clean, carpeted, warmed and well-lighted offices, by quiet men with white collars and cut fingernails and smooth-shaven cheeks who do not need to raise their voices.” — Screwtape Letters, 1942—preface to the paperback edition
(Related: ‘Tyranny For Your Own Good’: C.S. Lewis On The Philosophy Behind COVID Lockdowns)
Materialism vs. Faith
The great ideological error that ultimately leaves men at the mercy of government, says Lewis, is a strictly scientific or materialist view of the world:
“Atheism turns out to be too simple. If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning…” — Mere Christianity, 1952
“My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line. What was I comparing this universe with when I called it unjust?” — Mere Christianity, 1952
“If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. If none of my earthly pleasures satisfy it, that does not prove that the universe is a fraud. Probably earthly pleasures were never meant to satisfy it, but only to arouse it, to suggest the real thing. If that is so, I must take care, on the one hand, never to despise, or to be unthankful for, these earthly blessings, and on the other, never to mistake them for the something else of which they are only a kind of copy, or echo, or mirage.” — Mere Christianity, 1952
“When you argue against Him you are arguing against the very power that makes you able to argue at all: it is like cutting off the branch you are sitting on.” — Mere Christianity, 1952
On Being Truly “Progressive”
Lewis argued that “progressive” intellectuals, educators and politicians had taken a wrong turn in their materialist worldview. In many cases, he argued, true progress requires recognizing first that you are going the wrong direction and turning around — in other words, conservatism.
“Progress means getting nearer to the place you want to be. And if you have taken a wrong turn, then to go forward does not get you any nearer. If you are on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; and in that case the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive man.” — Mere Christianity, 1952
(Related: C.S. Lewis On Social Engineering: The Leftist Effort To Reprogram Your Mind)
The Importance of Justice
Lewis argued that while a society built on Judeo-Christian values attempts to offer grace and forgiveness to everyone, that does not mean doing away with justice. Justice, even harsh justice like the death penalty, must be upheld to create a truly loving society.
“There is all the difference in the world between forgiving and excusing.” — “On Forgiveness,” 1947
“Love is something more stern and splendid than mere kindness.” — The Problem of Pain, 1940
The Importance of the Nuclear Family
The nuclear family is not just important, Lewis argues, it is absolutely central to everything a society is created to protect and promote. For this reason, being a homemaker is the most important career:
“The homemaker has the ultimate career. All other careers exist for one purpose only — and that is to support the ultimate career.” — Collected Letters
The Politics of Education
Education stripped of God is ultimately devoid of good, says Lewis:
“There is but one good; that is God. Everything else is good when it looks to Him and bad when it turns from Him.” — The Great Divorce, 1945
The education system teaching students that morality is relative isn’t just wrong, it’s dangerous:
“We make men without chests and expect from them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honor and are shocked to find traitors in our midst.” — The Abolition of Man, 1943
“Each day we are becoming a creature of splendid glory or one of unthinkable horror.” — Mere Christianity, 1952
“Jesus Christ did not say, ‘Go into all the world and tell the world that it is quite right.’” — Interview with Sherwood Wirt, 1963
Modern educators misunderstand “the pressing educational need of the moment”:
“They see the world around them swayed by emotional propaganda — they have learned from tradition that youth is sentimental — and they conclude that the best thing they can do is to fortify the minds of young people against emotion. My own experience as a teacher tells an opposite tale. For every one pupil who needs to be guarded from a weak excess of sensibility there are three who need to be awakened from the slumber of cold vulgarity. The task of the modern educator is not to cut down jungles but to irrigate deserts.” — The Abolition of Man, 1943
Coddling the younger generation is dangerous, Lewis argues. We should instead be teaching them about courage:
“Those who say that children must not be frightened may mean two things. They may mean (1) that we must not do anything likely to give the child those haunting, disabling, pathological fears against which ordinary courage is helpless: in fact, phobias. His mind must, if possible, be kept clear of things he can’t bear to think of. Or they may mean (2) that we must try to keep out of his mind the knowledge that he is born into a world of death, violence, wounds, adventure, heroism and cowardice, good and evil. If they mean the first I agree with them: but not if they mean the second. The second would indeed be to give children a false impression and feed them on escapism in the bad sense. There is something ludicrous in the idea of so educating a generation which is born to the…atomic bomb. Since it is so likely that they will meet cruel enemies, let them at least have heard of brave knights and heroic courage. Otherwise you are making their destiny not brighter but darker.” — On Three Ways of Writing for Children, 1952
“Courage is not simply one of the virtues but the form of every virtue at the testing point, which means at the point of highest reality.” — The Screwtape Letters, 1942
(Related: C.S. Lewis On Why The Left Is Coming For Your Children)
The Eternal Significance of Society
Lewis ultimately argued that all things, including society and politics, have eternal significance and can only be seen clearly through the lens of eternity.
“It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree helping each other to one or the other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all of our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations — these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit — immortal horrors or everlasting splendors.” — The Weight of Glory, 1942
But while God must be central in a society if it wants to be good, He cannot be used as a tool of politicians.
“[God] will not be used as a convenience. Men or nations who think they can revive the Faith in order to make a good society might just as well think they can use the stairs of heaven as a shortcut to the nearest chemist’s shop.” — The Screwtape Letters, 1942
Read more about Lewis’s political views in the Daily Wire exclusive series “The Politics of C.S. Lewis,” by Spencer Klavan.