Lewis on Good Government

I was struck when I finished reading C. S. Lewis' novel, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (Ed. note: The lack of a serial, or so-called Oxford, comma in that title bothers me.) to my son last night. There's a beautiful passage towards the end that illustrates what Lewis thought good government looks like:

These two Kings and two Queens governed Narnia well, and long and happy was their reign. At first much of their time was spent in seeking out the remnants of the White Witch’s army and destroying them, and indeed for a long time there would be news of evil things lurking in the wilder parts of the forest—a haunting here and a killing there, a glimpse of a werewolf one month and a rumor of a hag the next. But in the end all that foul brood was stamped out. 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.

This kind of vision is why I'm really at heart a monarchist (even if only of a divine sort).

Comments

[Maggie]

My Facebook profile page puts me down as a "Monarchist," too. In the last Presendential election, I wrote-in my favorite Logic/Philosophy prof. for "Philosopher King" (I live in CA - I knew my vote was basically thrown away anyway...for that particular race, at least)

Sigh. The world is so unkind to us frivolous idealists ;-):-P

[Jordan]

Just give me a good king!

[Christopher Hathaway]

The lack of a serial, or so-called Oxford, comma in that title bothers me

So, you're one of those, are you? :-)

Used as I am to the English style I tend not to use it unless I want to empasize a distinct break between the penultimate and ultimate item in sequence. And if we had an enlightened king he'd agree with me and tell you to mind your own business. ;-)

[Jordan]

Ha! Maybe he'd pass a "good law," or at least a resolution, encouraging such usage!

Funny how power so often ends up absolutizing personal preferences...

[Margaret]

Interesting that Americans are actually more punctilious punctuators than the Brits. Eats, Shoots and Leaves, for example, was a sloppily edited book and an especial disservice here--there was no American edition, so it sowed confusion and false bravado.

Crazy, outrageous though the suggestion be, some American ways are more sophisticated and refined than those of the Euros Sod. See Miss Manners on American vs. Continental table manners, for example.

[Robert]

"generally stopped busybodies and interferers and encouraged ordinary people who wanted to live and let live"

"I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all men, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life, godly and respectful in every way."
1 Tim 2:1-3

[James Kabala]

"they saved good trees from being unnecessarily cut down"

"they generally stopped busybodies and interferers and encouraged ordinary people who wanted to live and let live"

Isn't there a bit of a contradiction here?

[Robert Espe]

I've always said that English feudalism was the most honest form of government in history.

[Deacon Michael D. Harmon]

A contradiction? Not if you see the necessity of untrammeled trees to the happiness of the ordinary bloke. Here is "The Condemned," by C.S. Lewis:

There is a wildness still in England that will not feed
In cages; it shrinks away from the touch of the trainer's hand,
Easy to kill, not easy to tame. It will never breed
In a zoo for the public pleasure. It will not be planned.

Do not blame us too much if we that are hedgerow folk
Cannot swell the rejoicings at this new world you make
-- We, hedge-hogged as Johnson or Borrow, strange to the yoke
as Landor, surly as Cobbett (that badger), birdlike as Blake.

A new scent troubles the air -- to you, friendly perhaps --
But we with animal wisdom have understood that smell.
To all our kind its message is Guns, Ferrets, and Traps,
And a Ministry gassing the little holes in which we dwell.

[Peter Leavitt]

"This kind of vision is why I'm really at heart a monarchist (even if only of a divine sort)"

Lewis himself well understood the virtue of democracy, rule of the people, having been a Brit who well understood that Churchill, an elected leader, saved the West from the disaster of essentially monarchical Germany. Lewis himself was hardly a monarchical romantic. On balance rule of the people for all its faults has proven best, notwithstanding romantic yearning , even of the divine sort.

[Jordan]

Peter:

Fair enough. But a kind of romantic yearning can be helpful at least to show that democracy isn't perfect, and perhaps not even necessary, certainly not in all times and all places.

[Peter]

The idea that CS Lewis was anything other than a fervent Monarchist is laughable, please enjoy the following quote by Lewis on the matter,"Monarchy can easily be debunked, but watch the faces, mark well the debunkers. These are the men whose taproot 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."

[Peter]

Furthermore, Churchhill in no way believed that he was saving the world from Monarchism during WWI. Rather, he saw the war as a simple struggle over resources and influence between a benevolent British EMPIRE and a bellicose German one. He opposed the overthrow of the monarchies of Central Europe and lamented the fact that they fell publicly, saying in 1945 "This war would never have come unless, under American and modernising pressure, we had driven the Habsburgs out of Austria and the Hohenzollerns out of Germany. By making these vacuums we gave the opening for the Hitlerite monster to crawl out of its sewer on to the vacant thrones. No doubt these views are very unfashionable...."

[V-Dawg]

Lewis' position is a bit more complicated than that one quote suggests. He also said, in his essay "Membership," that while monarchy would be the appropriate form of government if man had not fallen, the Fall makes necessary democracy and the "legal fiction of equality." So I don't think he can be called a "fervent monarchist."

[Peter]

V-Dawg

I think you are certainly correct to point out that Lewis was not an Absolutist. It's easy for people to forget that Monarchism (like any other political philosophy) has many varieties. However, he was a fervent defender of the British Monarchy and of tradition in general.