PowerLine tipped us off to this essay/review of Lewis' That Hideous Strength. We will only quote a couple of grafs; the entirety is worth the read, as is the whole trilogy.
...The novel is too full of references, notes, and suggestions about modern life to summarize, all I can do in a brief review is to show its four major parts, for readers to see their way through and enjoy Lewis’s erudition. First, there is the dystopia—the sketch of an England taken over by what we call “scientism,” a cruel, mediocre, immodest vision of power that lacks any kind of moderation and would therefore tyrannize people, indeed the world. This is the part Orwell liked. It is realistic, which might mean ruthless; it is strange, however, to think that that is what decent, yet sophisticated people believe in—doom....
...Higher education is a source of the intellectual and moral corruption that leads to tyranny. Lewis, however, isn’t primarily worried about ideology, but about its moral origins. Atheism is one part of it; pride is another; combined in NICE, they create a cruel intelligence that seeks to prove its superiority by inflicting torture. Modern art is involved, as well as desecration. One could say of NICE that lawlessness is its only law. Power to improve life and the belief that life is worthless are the means and end of this vision—rather like the progressive who think humanity is a cancer on the earth, but that we should be kind in affirming people’s identities....
That first graf's reference to "scientism" resonates with "Green/Global/Climate" scams disruptive of life AND the Fauci/Big Pharma demolition of humanity, no?
The second alludes to the imposition of Chaos on art; the infliction of torture; and lawlessness as the only law. The reviewer does not use the word Chaos because he does not have to. Lewis knew, the reviewer knows, and so do all of us....
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