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January 03, 2006
Quote of the Day
...(the state) no longer exists to "protect our rights but to do us good or make us good — anyway, to do something to us or to make us something. Hence the new name 'leaders' for those who were once 'rulers.' We are less their subjects than their wards, pupils, or domestic animals. There is nothing left of which we can say to them, 'Mind your own business.' Our whole lives are their business."C.S. Lewis, in his essay "Is Progress Possible? Willing Slaves of the Welfare State". A Swill salute to R. Andrew Newman for his NRO piece today. You can see why I was instantly hooked...
"And they made good laws and kept the peace and saved good trees from being unnecessarily cut down, and liberated young dwarfs and young satyrs from being sent to school, and generally stopped busybodies and interferers and encouraged ordinary people who wanted to live and let live."
Posted by tree hugging sister at January 3, 2006 02:19 PM
Comments
Lewis ruled. (Pun intended.) He goes into a lot of this explicitly in the sci-fi trilogy, and especially "That Hideous Strength." The NICE has its own police force and sponsors movements to have criminals "cured" instead of punished, with the result that sentences are indeterminate and cruel - because the jailers are the best judges of who is, in fact, cured. They are also enemies of nature, with one scientist in particular foreseeing the day when we won't need plants or other grubby, messy organics - the "art tree" will be the only one allowed (think hideous fake Christmas pines everywhere). There's also a lot of digs of a more personal nature that apply to good vs. bad politics, such as knowing about people rather than knowing people.
In fact, the NICE is quite the aspiration for many budding nanny states; Lewis was clever enough to make it a "National Institute" rather than any actual nation.
Posted by: Nightfly at January 4, 2006 11:22 AM