C.S. Lewis: Propagationor Propaganda

The difference between the old and the new education will be an important one. Where the old initiated, the new merely ‘conditions’. The old dealt with its pupils as grown birds deal with young birds when they teach them to fly: the new deals with them more as the poultry-keeper deals with young birds—making them thus or thus for purposes of which the birds know nothing. In a word, the old was a kind of propagation—men transmitting manhood to men: the new is merely propaganda.”

C.S. Lewis (1898-1963) in The Abolition of Man (London: Oxford University Press, 1943) 13, 17, and 21.

Click here to download this classic work compiled after C.S. Lewis delivered a series of three lectures on 24-26 February 1943 at the University of Durham.

Today’s marks the first of seven reflections from The Abolition of Man. This one comes from the first lecture entitled, “Men Without Chests.”

Lewis gives names to modern educators - he calls them Gaius and Titius - and spells out the implications of their abandonment of objective value, meaning, for example, that something is good or not good.

We can imagine Lewis writing in response to the horror of his times. If we turn the clock back to 1943, we think of the holocaust and World War II when bad activities were described as good and vice versa. Propaganda!

In this first lecture, Lewis speaks of the dangers of this new education. Instead of propagating truths to make young people to live generous, fruitful, and humane lives, the system cut these things out of their souls and gave them only propaganda instead.

So why study this? I want to call all readers to be like children to receive the Kingdom of God. And I pray you pursue generous, fruitful, and humane lives.

But don’t stop there! Think of the youth around you. They might be younger people, or your children, grandchildren, or even great grandchildren.

The world tells them to keep money for themselves. The Bible tells them to enjoy and share all God supplies. The world tells them to give only to deserving people. The Bible tells them to give even to the undeserving to show that God’s love and grace is for everyone. See the pattern developing?

This week I pray you learn the impact of worldly thinking on society and also on you! You will notice how the world tries to ‘condition’ your thinking to abandon generous, fruitful, and humane living.

Father in heaven, show me by your Holy Spirit how the world tries to condition me with propaganda and help me unlearn it and have childlike faith instead. Empower me to propagate biblical truths to others so we all live generous, fruitful, and humane lives. Do this I ask in the name of Jesus. Amen.