Sam Bitzer

9/26/22

Tolkien and Lewis

 The bare, desolate state of the moon would seem an incomprehensible place to live and inferior to Earth’s astounding natural beauty. The image of an Earth stripped of its majestic landscapes and color, however, is the exact world that Filostrato, a physiologist at N.I.C.E, defines as the perfect landscape for the future of man. In That Hideous Strength, by C.S Lewis, the aspirations of the evil organization N.I.C.E to eradicate everything but intelligence epitomizes man’s need to overcome nature, an action that would bolster mankind into a reality without emotion, therefore ruining the relationship between man and nature, allowing humans to become susceptible to being controlled. N.I.C.E’s attempt to change man requires a plethora of scientific advancements that lead to a version of man who is free from organic attachments; all in an attempt to try and abolish the cycle of life and death and maintain intellect throughout generations. The goals of N.I.C.E are the exact fears that Lewis had for the future, fearing man would lose his relationship with nature, leading to a world where men thought only with their brains, eliminating self-thought and creating either a “tyranny or an obedience”(Abolition of Man 69) to a higher power, leading to the rise of a totalitarian regime. Although this seems almost impossible in the modern era, the rise of surveillance and technocracy reignites the opportunity for a totalitarian regime to form again.

The picturesque landscapes and colorful scenery coupled with unique organisms are often the first images that come to mind when thinking of nature. Filostrato, however, first thinks of the rotten trees and slaughtered animals, creating a fear of death that leads him to want to overcome it, therefore replicating the sentiment of survival from Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s book Gulag Archipelago. Solzhenitsyn describes how the gulag system under Stalin warped his mind to have one purpose: “Survive at any cost”(602). Solzhenitsyn redefined himself to forget about any material goods or morals which guided him through his life, rather his one goal was to stay alive even at the cost of others. Solzhenitsyn writes that this philosophy was a product of “the permanent lie”(646) that was created within the gulag, forcing people to go against the tao as they lost their relationship with nature. This is the same as Filostrato’s fear of death, which has created an irrational fear that has falsely convinced him to create a “man who will not die” and who will be “free from nature”(174). Both of these philosophies are a result of a false pretense that has convinced Solzhenitsyn and Filostrato to turn against nature. When this happens, the permanent lie can spiral and lead to a version of man that can be easily manipulated and fall under the power of a totalitarian regime.

The world is in a tumultuous and unclean form surrounded by disease according to N.I.C.E and must be removed to keep the world hygienic. In a desolate state such as this, propaganda becomes a powerful tool for those seeking a solution, and because of this forces man to follow a path that makes their situation worse. In Filostrato’s attempt to reinvent man, he makes an “offering to make” others “one of us” in their conquest to make “man of the throne of the universe”(175). Filostrato offers a promise of a brighter future, stipulated on the idea that it would be at the cost of separating man from nature. This offering is a clear sign of propaganda, promising a better future in return for blindly trusting others to do good. Although this may seem fictitious, this is not far from reality in the modern world. During the early reign of Stalin, he made a promise to the citizens of the soviet union to revolutionize the USSR and make it the dominant world power. As Sean McMeekin writes in Stalin’s War, a book about Stalin’s rise to power and his actions during World War II, Mckeekin describes how “Stalin’s Industrialization drive was conceived, sold and executed”(26) to the public by rallying the Soviet citizens behind his message. This was only possible due to the poor economic conditions surrounding the great depression as people tried to reattach themselves with nature. This is reinforced by author Roger Scruton in How To Think Seriously About the Planet, where he writes about those who promise salvation by “standing on a soap-box shouting ‘what is to be done’ ”, gathering the “trembling masses of the… ill-formed”(84) for support, just as Stalin and other propagandists do. Scruton then connects his image to the modern world regarding technology, cautioning humans to avoid the trap of entrusting others to take care of the growing dangers of the environment and technology. By doing this, Scruton argues that there could be an opportunity for totalitarianism to rise behind the message of fixing these problems.

Fairytales of Arthur and Merlin leading the charge in the name of the betterment of society are a common image in folklore. Modern technology has limited privacy and reestablished ways to control others, and because of this reignited the ability for rulers similar to Arthur and Merlin to become real under the name of a totalitarian regime. In Shoshana’s Zuboff’s book The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, Zuboff illustrates the dangers that the modern web has brought forth when dealing with privacy. The “realities of being tracked, parsed, mined, and modified” have led to a world where groups “know everything about us”(11). This era of technology is exactly like that of a totalitarian state, where privacy has been revoked and is no longer a right. By doing this, there is now a group that has seized control over the population. Just as the head in That Hideous Strength has “multiple sources of information”(173) in their attempt to create a totalitarian state, modern countries have the same access to information. Although it seems far-fetched that this would exist in the modern world, In Hannah Arendt’s book The Origins of Totalitarianism, she states that humans slowly come to think that “everything is permitted” and “underestimate the substantial power” of large businesses. By normalizing the overwhelming amount of control large corporations have on individuals, groups seeking control can gain power by disguising themselves as the solution to the modern era’s problems. If this happens, some groups may have the ability to take dominant control over the world and form the latest totalitarian regime. This process would prove Lewis’s fear correct that men who lost their relationship with nature would seek an opportunity to regain it, falling victim to evil powers and eventually creating a governing group that would preside over most of the human race.