we can agree upon. >> leader mcconnell and i will figure out the best way to get this done quickly. neither mcconnell or i want to shut down.

it is a great privilege for me to be with you at acton university this summer. eight years ago a family had to makee a decision about a move d we endedin up deciding to come o grand rapids and in our physical presence of the acton institute in grand rapids was a major plus on the good side. so i'm glad to be here. i'm also glad that we are here in person. wasn't long ago we had to leave then rather gnostic fashion so we were able to meet incarnational he is a very good thing. i'm also delighted to join you because we are discussing the intersection of c.s. lewis liberty and law for jack lewis as he was known by friends and

family. if your name was clyde staples you might go as jack as well. you're attending the session i probably got to sell you on why louis liberty and lots of fun combination but i hope you find our conversation illuminating whether you are new to lewis or a long time admirer. speaking of newcomers to lewis we have one nice account of meetingt lewis for the first te from george sayre who was a student of his at oxford and one of his first biographers. he writes as i walked away from newox buildings and a suicide oxford's new buildings were completed in 1458, i found the man that lewis called toles sitting on one of the stone steps in frontnt of the arcade. how did you get on he asked. oh i think rather well. i think he will be a most

interesting tutor to help. interesting? yes, he certainly is at the demand play later learned was j.r.r. tolkien. we are going to get to the bottom of them either right here now but we will try to make some headway into lewis' views. i want to hit on four areas about lewis law and liberty in my opening remarks and food for thought for our discussion afterwards. first that contrary to the conventional wisdom that luis disdained and ignored politics, his personal life was very much intertwined with politics and law and sometimes even policy. one of those in particular spurred him to ride a short essay in which he endorses a version of limited government very almost explicit terms.

the first about lewis' personal and biographical interest in things political. the second we'll will talk about a particular justice issue that luis was quite invested in. he was no want to be sure but he podid get a bit into the public policy weeds when it came to the criminal justice system. lewis cared deeply about law on the human level and human and freedom. third, will move from that specific policy issue to the big political picture. lewis wrestled with the purpose of government on a macroscale particularly with this very conflicted attitude about the welfare state. lewis was the instinct and temperament very sympathetic to a more libertarian approach in a get off my lawn conservatism but

he also later in life became more aware of the plight of the less fortunate and in his view open to government solutions to poverty. fourth, he moved from human made law and human politics to lost with a capitol l. lewis was famous for his defensr of natural law for what he referred to as the love human behavior in christianity or the dow ended abolition of man. this is the enduring law one elwhich any merely human law is its legitimacy. as you will see lewis is not so much in natural law theorist but he is it is safe to say and natural law of politics. i will conclude by suggesting that all the lewis' musings about politics, love the simple and natural and liberty are framed in a theological context

that is his understanding of liberty properly understood is directional. it's heading somewhere. we as human beings are headed somewhere in to miss this aspect of his teaching is to misunderstand everything else we might get from him. so claim number one, the personal and the political. the conventional wisdom on lewis would studys didn't care much r politics or for law and he thus would not have much time on those things are liberty either. had there some truth to that in one respect but the truth is also that he was surrounded by law and politics from his early childhood all the way through his death on november 27, 1963 the same cave at jfk goes down to dallas. we don't have time for the full

case about lewis's politics today. he did remain interested in politics throughout his entire life. his father albert lewis was a lawyer and apparently took his work home with him. lewis is older brother warnick described her childhood as dominated by one-sided torrance of vituperation about irish politics. it's admittedly hard to avoid talk of law and politics if you grew up in northern ireland as lewis did. lewis's life as a young man was also dominated by political matters and after 1914 all young british man knew that sooner or later they would be drafted to serve in the first world war. lewis did serve in the infantry in world war i fighting in the trenches and getting wounded. his father tried to get him into the artillery. lewis waswi so bad that wasn't going to be an option so he --

if you struggle with math you are in good company with lewis. his life is a young man after the war became much more scholarly and an obvious return to oxford he wrote to his father about reconvening with his fellow students most of them veterans in the jr. common room atat the university college in oxford in 1919. they read the minutes from their last meeting and given five years before with nothing to record in the meantime. i don't know if any little thing that has made me realize the absolute suspension and of these years more thoroughly lewis reflected. all the enlistments and training them, of the fighting men ines e trenches resulting in physical and spiritual brokenness that came from political decisions and counter decisions made by european politicians, civil

servants and military leaders. the staggering and incomprehensible loss caused by eathe great war tenements shadow over the turn-of-the-century generation of britons. it's no wonder lewis would harbor a lifelong distrust of government. as with mostf of us lewis' vies were intimately connected to his biography and his autobiographical focuses on that detail. i want to focus on one particular event t from his personal life that gives us insight to his view on law ander liberty. lewis married joy david gresham in 19,561st in a civil ceremony and then in a service in december that year after joyce death with cancer was imminent. the account depicted in the play ershadowlands.

joy did recover from her cancer and they had four short. happy years together before the cancer returned and took her life at the age of 43 in july of 1960. what you may not know about joy lewis lets that she was a divorcee, for me -- a former communist and a rather salty critic and an american of eastern and jewish background. as af good american she was knon to be rather prolific with a shotgun in the backyard in oxford. during this time the lewis' had some trouble with local young men really who would trespass on their property and vandalized, steel cut down trees all sorts of mischief and crimes and one occasion when lewis was wailing

joy it aroundhe for a walk in their backyard they cut the young man in the act. lewis sharon worsley jumped inr, front of joy's wheelchair to protect her. and i can't repeat in this company exactly what joy said so i will paraphrase but it was something to the effect of gosh darn it jack get out of my way you are blocking my aim. [laughter] one result of this encounter was lewis' curmudgeonly piece to linkline in the snow published in humor magazine in 1957 where he sees some of the were caught by the police and tried in court. lewis complains about how the legal process had failed miserably to do presiding judge had let them off with a fine and encourage them to stop such as if planned robbery and vandalism

are -- lewis worried about what such leniency might mean for anyone's political future and he took this opportunity to describe of the social compact wis working very well warning f the consequences if the system broke down in practice. according to the classical political. this country lewis summarized, we surrendered our rights of protection to the state on the condition that the state would protect us. so a dilemma arises when the state does not live up to its end of the bargain. the states promise of protection more early grounds or obligation to civil obedience according to lewis. if this sounds to you a little bit like john locke i think you are onto something. the protection of natural rights including the right to property is why it is right for us to pay taxes and wrong for us to

exercise vigilance to justice. lewis argues the state protects us less because it is unwilling to protect us against criminals at home and manifestly grows less and less able to protect us against foreign enemies. at the same time that demand promise more and more. we seldom had fewer rights and liberties and more burdens and to get less security in return. while our obligations increase their moral ground is taken away. lewis drew the same conclusion from this state of affairs that locke did. the state cannot or will not protect it. nature is coming in and the rights of self-protection revert to the individual. i share this reflection on lewis not only as an excuse to tell the story about joy lewis and

are shot down. because it illustrates well the libertarian leaning leave me alone literally get off my lawn side of lewis' personality. in most of his public writingss meant he was very careful not to appear too partisan politically one way or another. going so far as to turn down winston churchill's proposal to honor lewis by making him a commander of the british empire. lewis feared that would be used by some of his critics to paint him as a political conservative. we do see in this episode in a piece that resulted from it a little bit of lewis' view as he had a deep distrust of government power. whether it was misused or not used properlyst enough to keep peace. this deep distrust was not merely theoretical. personal, felt by lewis.

claim number two lewis on law and public policy. lewis is interesting criminal justice extended beyond this particular case with the. in may of 1962 lewis wrote to the poet t.s. eliot the following. we must have a talk. i wish you would ride an essay on it about punishment. the modern view by excluding the development and concentrating solely on deterrence and cure is hideously. it is vile tyrannyty to submit a mantu compulsory cure for sacrifice and to the deterrence of others unless he deserves it. one might wonder why a lewis didn't ride the essay himself, except that he did. 15 years earlier. lewis wrote the humanitarian

theory of punishment which appeared first in australian law journal in 1949. he sent it to an australian journal because he could get no hearing for it in england. nevertheless the piece did elicit responses from three law professors in australia to which lewis responded as resulting back-and-forth was in the agenda can't take. you can now find lewis a site of this spirited. well mannered debate in the collection. in his acts say about the lewis was concerned about offenders being let off too easily and what that meanst. for the fundamental social compact. here he's concerned with hcriminals being treated as les than human. he was worried about developments in european

ajurisprudence such that deterrence and rehabilitation becomes the chief goals of the criminal justice system rather than punishing simply because he or she deserves it. it may sound paradoxical that lewis believed that when we punish the human being we acknowledge the dignity of the human being and the possible restoration because the human being should have and could have known better had he known enough to know better. there's nothing wrong wrong with deterring crime or rehabilitating a criminal as a side effect of a prison term lewis argued that those are the chief priorities than there are serious problems. first, deterrence treats the criminal who is still a human being made in image of intrinsic work as a mere means rather than

an ant in itself. in that case the more effective the punishment show that the state might put on for the public the better from the point of deterrence. what lewis worried about was the truth of whether the accused are actually guilty or not. doesn't matter. rehabilitation as the chief priorities lewis worried meant that instead of criminals being sentenced by their peers to a designated amount of time as punishment for what they have done criminals will instead be treated as patients who were sick and it will be experts in psychology and technology that w will determine when or if they are cured and only then will they be released. and unlike a prison sentence there's no time limit on when that will happen and get the

individual freedom will still be restricted. it will still feel like a sentence. thereio is no limit to that restriction in principle except what the expert doctors had to say and who are we ordinary citizens to question the considerable expertise of the experts. lewis insisted that only the concept of moral desert can limit the state's abuse of power. we see in this essay how seriously lewis took human freedom and dignity and he applied even to those people, criminals whose interest in dignity and society is most likely to ignore or over look. we see also in the responses from thepo australian law that they took lewis seriously on this point which is rather remarkable given his day job was as a tutor of english and a scholar of medieval.

we also see how important this policy issue was to lewis. 13 years later and at the end of his life while convalescing from serious health issues if he tries to get c.s. elliot to take up the case. claim number three, thus far we have discussed lewis' personal connections to his politics and the policy area he cared a great deal about criminal justice and that we move about government had a more theoretical level in particular the welfare state and the legitimate purpose of government and the temptations that come with the abuse of power. lewis was deeply concerned about the abuses of an overly ambitious government. after all human depravity gives the rationale for governance as well is reason to fear it's and

a short essay essay called equality lewis said ima demo because i believe in the fall of man. s lewis endorses a pretty sad my others endorse democracy for the wrong reasons and he mentions rousseau because he think human things are so good that everyone at deserves a shared government. lewis goes on to say i know myself i don't deserve a share let alone government. lewis wrestled with the tension between his desire for limited government which protects and respects a robust private sphere and massive social needs a seemingly only government can address.ex government must exist lewis acknowledged but he also insisted that government exists for the good of individualbe groups and individuals and their

liberty. consider lewis wrote about the ultimate purpose of government. as long as we are thinking of natural values we must say the sun looks down on nothing half so good as a house full laughing together over a meal or two friends talking over a pint of or a man a long reading a book that interests him and all economies politics laws and institutions fade insofar as they prolong and multiply such things are in mirror -- in the sand and selling the ocean indexation of the spirit spirit. collective activities are of course necessary. but this is the end to which they are necessary. lewis insisted that the state insists for individuals and households and not for -- we see

a break from some of hisan favorite teachers plato and aristotle. both those thinkers favored the collective over the individual, the public over the private and aristotle in particular defined political activity is intrinsically natural part of human flourishing.ng lewis on the other hand sought political activity is only a means and often a one at that too genuine aspects of human forcing not the intrinsic part itself. yet even as only a means collective activities are necessary and lewis recognized the appeal of technocratic government a solutions to addres our collective social problems. the temptation to invest

government with more power he noted always works on a real need that has been. lewis feared legitimate human problems that require social coordination and collective activity will give arise to solutions that are far worse than the original crisis, something we may have witnessed in the last few years. in his book in the conclusion to a his science-fiction trilogy there's a conspiratorial government organization the nicd the national institute for coordinated experiments. this illustrates exactly his fear and if you google it there is such a government organization. it's about something else. lewis writes we have on the onee hand a desperate need hunger, sickness and the threat of war. we have on the other cut the conception of something that might meet it on the competent global technocracy.

scary words. the temptationn to use a real need as a pretext to accumulate and concentrate power is not a new temptation but the difference in the mid-20th century lewis warned us that success looked more and more like a legitimate possibility. in theem ancient world individus have sold themselves as in order to deke so and society. here is a witchdoctor who can save us from the sorceress, a warlord who can save us from the barbarians.. a church that can save us from. give them what they ask. give ourselves to them bound and blindfolded if only they will. perhaps the terrible bargain will be made. we cannot blame men and we can hardly wish for them not to get

we could hardly bear that they should. the question about progress has become the question whether we can discover any way of submitting to the worldwide paternalism of the technocracy without losing all personal privacy and independence and he closes with this question, is there any possibility of getting the super welfare state in avoiding this? while we can't get the welfare state honey without the sting was the most pressing practical political question for lewis and the stakes were and i think remain enormous. while acknowledging the great needs for which technology and big government provides answers lewis endorses a full values that he feared were endangered by a no it all stayed. to live ones live in his own way, to call his house his castle to enjoy the of his own

labor, to educate his children as the conscience directs to save for their prosperity after his death. this is what liberty met for lewis. this was the good life. he was skeptical that the modern state can deliver and care the cost. lewis predicted soberly that is always some men will take charge of the destiny of others. they will be simply men, none perfect, some cruel and dishonest. with an illusion to the namesake of our institutional hosts this week. he asked rhetorically about the welfare state whether we haveet discovered some new reason why this time power should not corrupt as it has done before. claim number. lewis is natural law apologist.

we move from lower case law and liberty in politics to law and liberty with upper case l. for every human legal system and political regime rests on underlying view it human nature and morality. we can't talk about lewis and law without discussing natural law. as i said i believe lewis was a natural law of apologist rather than a theorist. we don't go to lewis for the nooks and crannies of how a natural system delivers specific moral conclusions on this or that particular issue. what lewis does articulate is the inescapable reality of the natural law. he defends natural law and positive terms arguing for the reality of the moral law but also in negative termsat showcasing how stark the

alternatives are if we abandon natural law. he also delivers these defenses and straightforward logical works like christianity. this year being the 80th anniversary of the abolition of man. he also illustrates these ideas imaginatively and fiction most prominently in the sci-fi trilogy but also in the chronicles of narnia and other writings. on august 61940 when lewis delivered the first of the celebrated bbc broadcast talks which later would be compiled and published as mere christianity. the bbc had invited lewis to give a series of talks explaining the foundational beliefs of christianity tool where weary nation and in his first 15 minute segment lewis introduced or reintroduced to

o the british public the idea of natural law. he began by directing an attention to every day conversation, listening to others talk about how we are constantly appealing to moral standards and interacting with each other. i gave you a bit of my orange and you give me a bit of yours. hey don't cut in line.is he promised he would do this while we are constantly appealing to some kind of standard. this doesn't make sense unless we believe there's a standard out there that we can appeal to, a law source. this law of lewis explained was called the lock nature because people thought everyone knew it by nature and did not need to be taught it and he added i believe in a right. if they were not then all the things we said about the war were nonsense. what was the sense in saying the

enemy were in the wrong and less right is a real thing which the knew as well as we did and onto a practice. if they had had no notion of what we mean by a right then and though we might still have had we could no more have blamed them t for that than bore the color of their hair. lewis used the confrontation with the evils of and godwin's law use the evil and to highlight the reality of the moral law and dramatic ways. if your moral ideas can be each rouhi argued and those of less true there must be something, some real morality for them to be true. the reality of basic moral principals known on some levels

by everyone was foundational to lewis's understanding of the iachristian message. the first basic point of this talk therefore was it human beings all over the earth have this curious idea that they ought to behave in a certain way and cannot really get rid of it. an essential second claim from lewis was they did not in fact behave in that way. he maintained that these two claims that there is a natural moral law and we failed to keep it are the foundation of all clear thinking about ourselves and the universe we live in. moreover lewis did not think a post christian society could recover moral truth by directly becoming christian and to be clear he believed the. of this day was post christian

in the same comparison a divorcee is to someone who is married. lewis about the truth of the matter was the reverse. instead of returning directly to christian ethics the world must first simply return to a belief in real objective morality. only then would it be open to returning crude to christianity for he writes christianity is not the promulgation of a moral discovery. it is addressed only to penton's, only to those who admit their disobedience to the known moral law. he offers forgiveness for having broken and supernatural help towards keeping that law and by so doing reaffirming this. in other parts you have two admit you're sick before you will see the doctor and did not come for the healthy. in his essay lewis posits the t

main difference between the ancients and the moderns is the ancients jewish and pagans believe there was something wrong with them and they were on trial. was the judge. we moderns lewis said put in the dark. lihe has to make his case as to why we should believe in him. we may agree with this case that the roles are reversed. one challenge faced by the modern world for the christian according to lewis for moral or earlyt serious people to deny that morality has any objective basis at all. but that doesn't mean that they are relativists are mild-mannered about their own moral claims as we see in our civil or uncivil discourse today morality on various modern accounts is merely a social construct that exists to serve the interests of its creators.

bad idea lewis argued was the disease that will certainly and our species and in my view dam our souls if it is not crushed. lewis did not so much argue to the conclusion that the natural law exists, that a tricky proposition or reason we will get to shortly but is trying to persuade his audience and us that we already believe in objective morality. lewis also didn't just defend natural law he played offense. he attacked the alternatives and nowhere more powerfully than his lectures that became his book the abolition of man. this was originally delivered in lectures at the university of durham 80 years ago this year. one of the most intriguing features of abolition is how lewis frames the debate. many works of natural law theory take something of a defensive

position where the author seems that natural law is on trial or is lewis might say in the dock and must be proved valid or reasonable. lewis did not take that tact. instead he turns the tables. instead of assuming the dow must be established or defended he proposes to interrogate the alternatives. critics aimed to undermine the old values by teaching students to see through her check the privilege of old-fashioned sentiment and moral judgments. but why should we only defend our position? why not ask what motivates them and what grounds their positions in what do they propose as a replacement to objective morality? when important clue to i understanding what lewis is up to inf the abolition of man is found near the conclusion to the last battle lewis' apocalyptic conclusion to the chronicles of narnia.

the forces of evil have been defeated. goodness has prevailed and this may be a spoiler but it did when sending narnia chronicles. all that remains is to -- as attorney but one troubling thought remains unresolved the treacherous dwarfs are determined to defeat from the jaws of victory. they sit huddled in miserable in the dark confines of what they take to be a black hole. lewis is moral exemplar tries to convince the door to see things as they really are prepared not in a black hole but in the midst of the open sky, the green grass and fragrant flowers the weights them if only to have eyes to see and ears to hear. she begs as one to help the doors and provides help but to no avail. not even he will force those

who'd choose blindness. they will not let us help them as lynn says. their prison is only in their own mind yet they are in the prison and so afraid of being taken and that they cannot be taken out. the last chapter of the abolition of an is about that prison. it's about predicament that those people who did not merely misunderstand or misapplied this haor that moral teaching but to reject root and branch the very possibility of moral reality. it's a predicament. from lewis' perspective riding at book of natural law theory questions the very foundations around it would be somewhat of a errand. you don't ride chess manuals for those that think the game is a complete waste of time and you can't get someone to take their medicine if they rejected it helpful to get needed don't view

an opera for someone who despises music but one has the first right about the intrinsic good a play that could have help of art and music. only if those basic premise is our good can one have a conversation or an argument about the gains of medicine and music. how does one argue about first principals? lewis believes we cannot argue to them. we argue from them. he says the primary moral principals on which all others depend or rationally perceived we see there is no reason of why my neighbors have been a should be sacrificed to my own and as we see things which are equal to the same thing are equal to another. if we cannot prove either axiom this is not because they are. because they arere self-evident and all proof depends on them.ei they are in transit reasonableness shines by its own light. to not see that reasonableness is toik be like the narnia

dwarves, morally blind. lewis does not attempt to prove validity of natural law. rather her appeals to our capacity to reason, to illustrate the alternatives to a belief in the fundamental moral principals. lewis hopes to weaken a realization and his readers that they do after all believe in natural law. he does this differently in each of the three chapters laying oua in men without -- a picture of the human person as well as the high stakes for moral education and global community and in the second chapter he says any attempt totr extract one isolatd component of natural law can build around that while getting rid of all the others. in the last chapter of the abolition of man not so much present the positive case for natural law as it does reveal

the stark and two minimally decent person make terrific alternative. webe have been through a brief survey of some of his thoughts about lawn liberty. his thinking about criminal justice and we touched briefly on his work defending natural law and putting its alternatives to the test. i said earlier that i would conclude with a brief word on lewis' ultimate understanding of liberty. in mere christianity lewis uses a shift to illustrate. morality consists of two parts he writes. when we might think of as external relations making sure each ship interacts well with all the other ships and not cutting them off and not running into them. the other part of relative is internal keeping ones own ship

sea worthy by proper savoring and ship maintenance andan discipline. lewis notes the two parts are interconnected. if you let your own ship got a pot you were likely to avoid mishaps with the other ships and if you are constantly running into other ships your own won't remain sea worthy for long. but there's a third element and that is where the ships are sailing too. lewis took seriously law politics and culture justice literature all sorts of earthly goods. ultimately true liberty is not the absence of restraint in the ambitious pursuit of whatever ones desires happen to be proved it is not salient to to whatever one mic stage and when liberty is the freedom to become what we ought to be to go where we are called and lewis was nothing if not consistent that we are met for more in this world.,

all of those goods as imaging culture justice literature music family are second things. they are very important wonderful creation of goods that they are not the first thing. ultimately one must understand lewis with the context. the practical problems of religion and long political liberty are important and lewis offers some resources for which to grapple with these problems. understanding natural law and objective morality is crucial. lewis is thought on the matter could be instructive. our resistance individually and collectively to the moral law and rationality itself is discouraging. it is logical arguments and fictional apologetics should inspire us to better. lewis them your christian would have us remember the success of our witness depends not even not only or even primarily upon these things it depends on the people of god living out their

faith with integrity humility and earth. we will not achieve the perfect answer or the perfect people on this side of eternity and though this earthly life is important that does take place in the shadowlands. it does not compare with the coming reality where we will go further up. the answers lewis didn't leave behind positive and negative for the moral love the rational apologetic imaginative fiction inspired those who shared his vision to continue in that tradition. as lewis observed the great heroes of the faith all left their mark on earth precisely because their minds were occupied with heaven. it is since have ceased to think of the other world as it become so ineffective in this one. a met heaven and you have earth thrown in. in the earth and you'll be near. would do well to -- thank

you. [applause] at this point we have time for q&a. we have a mic here and a mic here so if you have any questions challengesnu diatribes annunciation's, come on up. >> i'm fascinated with lewis' understanding of social order and i appreciate the way in which this lecture is illustrated its concerns with not allowing the state from other kinds of borders friendships and whatnot. i do remember that one of lewis' essays that might have been membership he talked about democracy being a necessary fiction. it was something that i did that

was the fundamental equality illusion but a necessary illusion. i'd love to hearyo your commentn this concept of lewis which is democracy is a necessary fiction. >> there's the sa membership and the equality. i think he says democracy rests on the fiction of our equality. he takes aim at equality as a good in itself. he likens equality to medicine and clothing. actually created us to delight in on equal relationships. we might help our children to live up to our mentors or saints and we don't claim to be equal to aso saint. he's not against equality, abraham called the mechanical

goods so lewis in that essay thinks that legal a quality iseg very good and he says we need more economic quality so he's not against equality and those fears. what is worried about i think tocqueville was concerned with this as well to achieve viability of the democratic government could be a democratic culture in which everyone thinks i'm as good as you to the next person and that leadsd. to greed which is a spiritual poison. he does say in that essay that we should work for equality and the legal sphere but in our relationships we should not be so troubled by equality. so int have another talk on thi. in the great divorce if any of you for have read the great divorce is lewis imagining himself visiting and riding a

bus up to heaven. in that book he has a vision and heaven of a woman coming in who is in front of the great procession. lewis almost wonders if it might be our's mother. george mcgough says no, no it's someone you have never heard of. when she arrived from england she taken the poor kids in animals. lewis vision of what greatness is it's not mask or bill gates or churchill someone who lives a sanctified life. >> thank you. >> thanks for much for your talk. i was wondering if you could talk more about lewis' concept of freedom. my understanding this that he believes it's not freedom fromac

law. laws provide the basis of human flourishing. set correct? i think human laws directed so when i think about the guardrails on a road it limits us to get where we should go for there's a sense that he's quite right in saying that he endorses the view that law restricts us for our good buddy he is a believer in the fall he knows the government is officials and he's worried about the intrusion soso in terms of what he is worried about he's more worried about injuries and then the need for it. on the higher understanding of law either natural are law it's much more what it means for us to flurries. so if i'm talking to my students we talk about the prospective athlete who wants to be excellent. she will restrict the aspects of

her life. she will not sleep in and she will restrict your diet. she will turn down other opportunities to have the freedom to be a great athlete. i do think lewis' deeper perception is there are things he would say no to but for the purpose of this is the deeper purpose ofof being who calls uso be. >> you put it excellently. >> thank you first of all. we are all heading into eternal death either heaven or and help each other to one or another. he says that in the great divorce to my question is in light of this eternal destiny howme does punishment and justie recognized including capitol punishment recognize the dignity of both the and the victim?

>> he thinks that respects their dignity because they are treated as someone who could have known better. when you think about an animal doing something wrong we might school the that we don't blame it in the same way. it's only someone who can choose to knows what's right and from this point of view it comes in the history of the purgatory on the basis of saying if i need to be cleansed or punished i should want that and i deserve it. you are exactly right about this capital of capitol punishment. he nowhere has he considered treatment ofsi that. he did ride a couple of letters to the newspaper. lewis did not like newspapers and he said if something important enough happen someone i'll tell him but he did ride in newspapers and one on capitol punishment he doesn't argue for that capitol punishment is obviously -- the absolute right.

doesn't argue that it's caught consequently wrong. his argument is he's not sure that anyone who needs to spend four years of the live in prison omwould be any more able to come to faith in anyone who has two weeks until the gallows. i don'tef want to say what i thk was said but there's room in their debt when it comes to someone's perception of the chair is such that they might fade it's not clear entirely clear that living the rest of your life imprisoned would be more than capital punishment but i don't want to say that lewis officially or publicly endorsed capitol punishment. he's uneasy about it as anyone should be but he did not argue against it. >> thank you. >> thank you after watson for your talk today. the first question made me think

of lewis' chapter on hierarchy. it's one of those places where he definitely you can see lewis think there's room for quality. deeply loves the sense of hierarchy that he sees from milton. my question for you based off of your reading of lewis and his writings back. you read so much of what he wrote lewis seems to be incredibly prophetic in riding in the late 30s and 40s into the 50s and other particulars but he accurately predicted several of t the moves that modernity would make. some of them do seem obvious at the end ofs evolution of man hs looking at the trans-humanist movement in projects globalism is going to be the trend. he's talking about the big tech privacy invasions that are possible today without the actual technology of his day. he thought the government was

going to continue to grow and that would continue to be ar danger to liberty. with that what in your view what allowed lewis to be so prophetic and why was he able to look at his world and kind of see the trends and he was more right than wrong in thisg broad sweeping thought. >> that's a fun question. i just recently had a pieceut about lewis' strength. if you want to see a bit of lewis thee trans-humanist summit you mentioned who may be the chief engineer of google and has been waitingsi for singularity d has collected every scrap of information about his father who he tragically lost early in hopes that once ai will reach singularity he'll be able to

re-create his father and compete with the cloud. it sounds like outlandish to put it mildly. again google has an effect on onour lives. sometimes people will dismiss lewis is a children's author think he's overdone. we talk about them a lot and i'm guilty of that. my response to that is cambridge university created a chair and renaissance in the name of liturgy to steal him from oxford. in his inaugural address at cambridge he talks about himself. he sees himself as being of the ancient evil age and he feels a touch with modernity. he says get a look at me while you can't or won't be many of me

left. in terms of how he could do it i think ish' remarkable. there are a number of remarkable thinkers in week will have talks on them this week. father neuhaus said their people who can stop reading c.s. lewis and those who can't and the latter are thought to be scholars. in my own mind i'm consistently impressed with his insights here, there and everywhere. there are things that he got wrong. that's a different talk that he is remarkable and i thinks that's because he lived through languages and books in the different scenarios but he was able to read and he said he sometimes said he found himself thinking in reading. he just was inhabited in those things and they also lived a life that oxford that was the

cross version of the monastery. every night's dinner was with other scholars. he was asked by oxford to ride ride -- write the oxford university press entry for the day-to-day volume on each century of literature so the oxford english history in the 1660s, he called it his all project. he read every book in the labor that was published in that century. the guy was gifted and the work. like michael jordan who was gifted and worked his off. i think that's the first time that lewis has ever been compared with michael jordan so i want to get that out there. i don't think he was perfect but he is pretty remarkable. >> personally having come from an arco caplis that believes --

and as you move into reality based on the foundationis it's self-evident and impossible for us to fulfill. there's that tension between guess we have have a government but in the case of the government failsct us. what is the yardstick with which to measure a particular government activities as to whether it's in accordance with natural law. >> good grief, that'' a tough one. one yardstick i think would be we think about the rule of law. the rule of law applies to everybody or should end that is perfectly applied but some systems will get closer to it than others. the only teaching parable i think that's right is the old testament is nathan story about

the rich man who steals the poor man's view to illustrate what david did to bathsheba and when david's ire is fueled against the poor man he said that man must die in david's responses you are the man. the one test than of a government that has some integrity is can those in charge that are rich and powerful get in trouble? we can all think of examples in united states a and other countries that are representative in this room where that has not been the case. but it's also, it's reason to i would say can comfort irrespective of details that take place. we have had a couple of president in my life who've been impeached. even if you don't agree with either impeach i one or both tht strikes me as a good sign about

our system is problematic is her system is in many ways. one test i'd give it as are those inrg charge worried about the law at all and that continues to be an ongoing story. .. are. you sure he didn't read tocqueville? just and if not, where do you think he got this idea on equality of how and example in school it makes a toast is the emperor that just takes a sword out in the field and chops off all the heads of the of the wheat right where what influences do you think is there where -- what influences isthery it was loose so passionate about video quality? >> it is actually dangerous don't think i couldn't find any information my trip or figure out short hand as there's three

volume set of his letters which if you are a louis of and it's wonderful to read three will see him respond to things like his joy's ex-husband about what to do with the kids after she's died. it's quite poignant and personal. i look in the index and it's not there. roosevelt, he's in there a few times. it could be he would have read tocqueville but i don't know that he did. but you are exactly right. that concern about the d liabily of a democratic culture. as to his different influences, and some ways both of them would have had some the same classical education. i do not know that i can give you five books you would have read that would have led him to those conclusions. he was enchanted by aristocracy. but aristocracy liability is cruelty.

given his belief in the fall he was not an aristocrat for government was pretty sympathetic to culturally. similarly tocqueville was an aristocrat but saw the tide of democracy as aligned with god's will and how much he believed in god doing that with a personal weight is debatable. but inevitable the yearning for appreciation for the glories of past accomplishments. how the systems treated the least of these. so i am punting a little on the exact sources of. it's a part of all of the education is not a big fan of democracy. killed his guy.

something i know about c.s. lewis through divine revelation he describes getting into a cab coming out a completely different person and i am paraphrasing there. under that conversion experience he can share truth through well-crafted metaphor andve sto. however if it's divine revelation. can copy and the 21st century thank you. >> great question. so when the letters publication is what gets them famous in the united states is in the cover of "time" magazine after that.

the junior demon attempting to steer with dry ingredients to put one in the mindset of hell. in the first she said you are relying on the reason to try and get your patient. human beings do not rely on that anymore. they used to believe they relied on reason if they persuaded something is true they would change the lives and now they don't. so lewis will still believing in then legitimacy and writing boos that were on miracles and in christianity and to some extent. he shifts his approach to a more fictional narrative in one essay heow says of you tell someone te right thing to do the immediate response is resistance. if you can illustrate something that through a story he said c they can sneak past the watchful dragons that resist being told what is right.

and so at the same time he would very much oppose thede idea of christians and other people of goodwill and good faith here's the moral and want to get out in society what sister they could do that? we talk about how he broke the line, the witch, the wardrobe he said i saw a font hearing personals through the snow. that is what started the story later this lion came in. while he does think we need stories of fiction, music, culture those have to be good they have to be told as good a literature themselves went lewis' case the moral in the faith came naturally into them because it was coming from him and that's what he was all about italy i believe in christianity as a sun has risen that bite i see every thing else. christians we cannot be c.s. lewis. he was a one off but we can i think follow hisan lead to some

extent doing and providing, working on good things that can win over our neighbors who don't share our faith and get it past the watchful dragons into the water into the culture particularly now and this is politically speaking, the time at which the protestant catholic jew consensus is done. i'm not sure is ever right to take that on the first place we're going to be more bait minority which gives us a freedom to be ourselves and see what happens from within the different spheres of a law and literature and music and art and all the sinks but that's a convoluted answer. that's a good book project for someone to write. >> i have a more broad question about the relationship. i was curious, it seems to me well lewis was conservatives about some things is much more

skeptical about technology, democracy and so on do think there's any record of them interacting about this? >> bradley is here to speak he would have a better answer to that.id they certainly did share a distrust of technology. we see this in lord of the rings with the realm lewis did not learn how to drive a car. it sounds like your front porch person if you are nof the front porch person cars have destroyed the sense of space you can get some are 60 miles away in an hour he ought walking tours of friends. oakland would be more conserved lewis on marriage, lewis has a problem at this say marriage his own marriage was a little

controversial he basically got married to keep her in the country when it fell in love with her they were married in a real sense. tobit wrote a letter to lewis with the treatment of marriage in christianity. red never sent it but we have the letter to see the difference. they were good friends. it's not quite a falling out but a cooling of the relationship but it did center around when that joy come into the picture there is a reconciliation after passing away there's number of good works out there looking at the two of them. crucial in playing a role in lewis coming to faith. in other areas may not as conservative as one would think. in terms of rewriting and reimagining the literature works. it is a fascinating area and two

of those interesting figures ended up being friends. it would've been interesting to be a fly on the wall. thank you so much. >> ratings. a little more concern for the poor and they have factoring into the political thinking. very bright guy we are in a very bright room. i got people in the room are immorally fumbling how it went lewis looked at the world when he sees the bungled and the botched. see broken, struggling, they cannot put their own places together. does he ever talk about that? the element of society that does

not have benefits of education? >> yes he does. there's two ways to answer that. once lewis became as popular as he was he got a lot of letters. he wrote everyone back. he almost felt it was a duty. there is a categorical imperative and so he got to know people and their problems. they would also send himself. americans in particular. you had a relationship with the united states. had to american stepsons had the cultural problematic. world from world war ii with the rationing went on through 1956.

the rationing in britain wasth significant even pass the war. you hear about the problems and write back. that is one element the other is his marriage. her ex-husband was abusive it was outlandish and mistreated her and her boys.ng he saw through her experience how hard it would be to try to raise two kids just doing on your own. a man calling us home a castle bright in her position mistreated under abuse by husband. he writes a letter to white americans that i've had many hard things about our british health system has been critical of it. it's not thel, ideal but it's pt of the main no safety at all. the joy of experiencing joy when withlike to struggle for a while that help them appreciate a

little bit more there's going to be something out there for those folks. ideally it would be the church and family andnd charity but that's not there then is to be something else. >> good morning. so lewis' views on equality you might say provocative gender quality, gender relations could you contrast his view of hierarchy i would talks about the end of the hideous strength with today's climate. >> yes i think lewis is an earlier question from joe speirs saying he was prophetic. i think he saw the direction things were going he had another essay called democratic education proposes a toast of american education was published in the saturday evening post he basically predicts to everybody,

everybody wins a trophy culture. he would be in c danger of being canceled by obedience to husbands married paradoxically less educated case should be aimed at the students who do best i anticipates the objectio. what about tommy tommy since in the back of the classroom no offense to anyone in the back and he is whittling. what you're going to do is come to him and say that whittling is really great are going to give you a first-class grade for t that. thank leave him alone he doesn't want them. was out on the playfield is

beating up the eggheads. he will have a happy life doing something else. he argues one does not have to go to college or get a doctorate in order to be successful. you can have a fulfilling generously good flourish and wipe in the trades. hates elitists in one respect to be aimed at the kids who do well in calculus and greek and all of that. but he does not t think that's e only way to have a good life he goes on to state democracy need to folks like tom achieve the eggheads infa line. default is not just apply to one class more than another. it's the eggheads or get us in the most trouble. it's one thing about what someone would be like in a different era. he would be allergic to some of the egalitarian we had today. if you make it into an ideal you

effectively you will be fostering envy. all the political discourse is fueled by envy. gratitude is the opposite of that and we are in short supply of that. we have time for one more question. >> like eat meat. >> a little discourse on the tyranny of the moral busybody. at the scene through a lot of hiss fiction comes from the projected position of the moral high ground. that's really the case comes from empathy, tolerance, these virtues. how can we learn from lewis the moral good in our society.

>> first we will affirm you are right sue. he at one point says it's the most detested form of government because those who are in charge of enforcing it will be motivated about their duty to god to make sure we are all doing what we are supposed to be doing forly this other folks mit rest or sleep the holy motivation to keep people in line for the moral busybody he doesn't care for that and there's a personal aspect to his wife as well which we don't have time to geto. into. how do we combat the over leaning crucible like atmosphere there is particularly on social media that can be exaggerated. i think it will be standing up to the bullies.

i think it is going to take some people who are elites to do that. whatever you make of jk rowling as an author or that harry potter stuff or some other views she has refused to shut up about her views. that has had an enormous impact and will continue. is not given to the little requests we are asked to do but how that might manifest to me as a professor in some circles, i do not have opponent if you have to look at me and wonder what my pronouns are,. [laughter] i think it's pretty obvious. there will be little things like that we stand up is going to take people in their pressured even o families. you can live how you like but i

am not going to support that are buy into that. at some point we have to pay penalties on that horse has this line i won't go sit at a latin t something to the effect like you dried out nature she will come back with a pitchfork a lot of these debates in the two-minute hates that we have online in different places we are driving out nature. until in the long-term and the medium term might be losing on the short term. we'll have a standard and that's going to help people. people do not like resistance they are empowered by goingg. along. but tell lewis would put it but that is what i would say it. >> okay, thank you for coming. >> if you are enjoying american history tv senate for our newsletter using qr code on the screen to receive the weekly schedule of upcoming programs like lectures in history, the

presidency and more. set up for the american history tv newsletter today be sure to watch american history tv every saturday or anytime online at c-span.org/history. ♪ all this week after words is in prime time a program or nonfiction authors are interviewed by journalists, legislatures and others on this biggest book. science journalist angela with her book the patriarch explores the origins of patriarchy and how it has spread to societies around the world she's interviewed by author women's immediate center director. watch after words all this week in prime time at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span. also go to c-span.org to seat seekget the complete schedule. ♪ nonfiction books lovers c-span

has a number podcast for you it was into best-selling nonfiction authors and influential interviewers on the after words podcast. on q&a here wide-ranging conversations with the nonfiction authors and others who are making things happen very book notes plus episodes are weekly hour-long conversation regularly feature fast-moving authors of nonfiction books on a wide variety of topics. and the about books podcast takes you behind the scene of the nonfiction book publishing industry with insider interviews, industry updates bestseller list. find all of our podcast by downloading the free c-span now cap. or wherever you get your podcast. buck's a healthy democracy doesn't just look like this. it looks like this. where americans conceived democracy at work were citizens are truly informed. a republic thrives.