Social Morality by C.S. Lewis Doodle (BBC Talk 12, Mere Christianity, Bk 3, Chapter 3)

C.S. Lewis here addresses all the subjects you shouldn’t discuss in polite conversation, if you want to remain friends - Christianity, politics & money! Study notes in the video description below...

(4:52) Lewis talks about "the production of objects [or services] which are rotten in quality and which, even if they were good in quality, would not be worth producing” in his essay 'Good Work and Good Works'.

(5:03) “side” (informal British) - a boastful/proud attitude, or display intended to impress others.

(7:14) Martin Luther interpreted Bible passages about usury, especially those that condemned charging interest to the poor, as calls to act generously. Usurers commit a sin, Luther wrote, only when their actions violate the do-unto-others principle – that is, only if ‘they do not want to be treated this way in return by others’. This reciprocity meant merchants & wealthy families were allowed to charge each other interest. Luther asked Christians to offer the needy charity rather than loans – but he still accepted interest rates under 5%.

One interesting little story out of history is John Calvin, the reformer. The Catholic Church had said on the basis of biblical teachings, that you can't lend money to someone charging interest - that was called “usury”, because the poor would borrow money & be charged high interest & would end up as slaves as happens today throughout Africa & Asia still. So the Catholic Church said no interest should be charged on money to anyone Christian rich or poor. John Calvin the Reformer, reasoned that if I owned a piece of land worth this many dollars, I can rent it out - so why can't I take this same amount of money & rent the money out? Perhaps, if it's to a poor person for food, money should be lent at no interest, but if it's to someone who wants to start a business, why can't I rent money out like I can rent out land?

The problem was how do you define how much interest you would charge? And this is the point that Plato was making, the system’s not going to work because of human selfishness. Like Luther, Calvin, said, "I've got an answer". He said that you define the amount of interest charged by the Golden Rule that we all know at heart - 'Do to others as you would have them do to you' - & this idea released the lending of money & actually enabled a whole lot of capitalistic investment, which has produced wealth for individuals and a better standard of living for the poor throughout society.

(10:17) See the movie 'Shadowlands' by the BBC available on YouTube.

The original broadcast had the following words italicised which add to understanding (shown in CAPS): “The real job of every teacher is to keep on bringing us BACK...to the same old principles.

[DaBigArmyDude]

Never stop making these, man! They breathe life into well worn texts.

[jasonverulo]

As a Christian, I can honestly say that I think you are doing God's work with these videos, which is just about the highest praise a Christian can give.

[CSLewisDoodle]

More from C.S. Lewis on Collectivism vs Individualism:

“The secular community, since it exists for our natural good and not for our supernatural, has no higher end than to *facilitate and safeguard the family, and friendship, and solitude* . To be happy at home, said Johnson, is the end of all human endeavour. As long as we are thinking only of natural values we must say that the sun looks down on nothing half so good as a household laughing together over a meal, or two friends talking over a pint of beer, or a man alone reading a book that interests him; and that all economics, politics, laws, armies, and institutions, save in so far as they prolong and multiply such scenes, are a mere ploughing the sand and sowing the ocean, a meaningless vanity and vexation of spirit. Collective activities are, of course, necessary; but this is the end to which they are necessary.

"Great sacrifices of this private happiness by those who have it may be necessary in order that it may be more widely distributed. [As in WWII] All may have to be a little hungry in order that none may starve. But do not let us mistake necessary evils for good. The mistake is easily made. Fruit has to be tinned if it is to be transported, and has to lose thereby some of its good qualities. But one meets people who have learned actually to prefer the tinned fruit to the fresh. A sick society must think much about politics, as a sick man must think much about his digestion: to ignore the subject may be fatal cowardice for the one as for the other. But if either comes to regard it as the natural food of the mind - if either forgets that we think of such things only in order to be able to think of something else - then what was undertaken for the sake of health has become itself a new and deadly disease. There is, in fact, a fatal tendency in all human activities for the means to encroach upon the very ends which they were intended to serve...It does not, unfortunately, always follow that the encroaching means can be dispensed with. I think it probable that the collectivism of our life is necessary and will increase; and I think that our only safeguard against its deathly properties is in a Christian life; for we were promised that we could handle serpents and drink deadly things and yet live" ('Membership').

"To the Materialist [atheist] things like nations, classes, civilisations must be more important than individuals, because the individuals live only seventy odd years each and the group may last for centuries. But to the Christian, individuals are more important, for they live eternally; and races, civilizations and the like, are in comparison the creatures of a day. The Christian and the Materialist hold different beliefs about the universe. They can't both be right. The one who is wrong will act in a way which simply doesn't fit the real universe. Consequently, with the best will in the world, he will be helping his fellow creatures to their destruction" ('Man or Rabbit').

“Christianity thinks of human individuals not as mere members of a group or items in a list, but as organs in a body—different from one another and each contributing what no other could. When you find yourself wanting to turn your children, or pupils, or even your neighbours, into people exactly like yourself, remember that God probably never meant them to be that. You and they are different organs, intended to do different things. On the other hand, when you are tempted not to bother about someone else's troubles because they are "no business of yours, " remember that though he is different from you he is part of the same organism as you. If you forget that he belongs to the same organism as yourself, you will become an Individualist. If you forget that he is a different organ from you, if you want to suppress differences and make people all alike, you will become a Totalitarian. But a Christian must not be either a Totalitarian or an Individualist." ('Mere Christianity', Two notes).

“Where the tide flows towards increasing State control, Christianity, with its claims in one way personal and in the other way ecumenical [non-denominational] and both ways antithetical [opposite] to omnicompetent government, must always in fact (though not for a long time yet in words) be treated as an enemy. Like learning, like the family, like any ancient and liberal profession, like the common law, it gives the individual a standing ground against the State. Hence Rousseau, the father of the totalitarians [collectivists], said wisely enough, from his own point of view, of Christianity, ‘Je ne connais rien de plus contraire à l'esprit social’ ( I know nothing more opposed to the social[ist] spirit).” ('On the Transmission of Christianity', 1946).

A political “party must either confine itself to stating what ends are desirable and what means are lawful, or else it must go further and select from among the lawful means those which it deems possible and efficacious and give to these its practical support. If it chooses the first alternative, it will not be a political party. Nearly all parties agree in professing ends which we admit to be desirable - security, a living wage, and the best adjustment between the claims of order and freedom. What distinguishes one party from another is the championship of means. We do not dispute whether the citizens are to be made happy, but whether an egalitarian or a hierarchical State, whether capitalism or socialism, whether despotism or democracy, is most likely to make them so...” ('Meditation On The Third Commandment – You shall not take the Lord your God’s name in vain')

“A great many popular blue-prints for a Christian society are merely what the Elizabethans called "eggs in moonshine" because they assume that the whole society is Christian or that the Christians are in control. This is not so in most contemporary States. Even if it were, our rulers would still be fallen men, and, therefore, neither very wise nor very good. As it is, they usually are unbelievers. And since wisdom and virtue are not the only or the commonest qualifications for a place in the government, they will not often be even the best unbelievers. The practical problem of Christian politics is not that of drawing up schemes for a Christian society, but that of living as innocently as we can with unbelieving fellow-subjects under unbelieving rulers who will never be perfectly wise and good and who will sometimes be very wicked and very foolish” ('The Humanitarian Theory of Punishment').

More notes in the video description above.

[chessversarius]

The charity part is really challenging... To give so much, that you sometimes have to abstain from things you wanted for yourself, that is very unfamiliar to say the least... But... most likely not wrong.

[masterarcher]

Glad to see you are doing more of these again. C.S.L. had a very unique way of both making you uncomfortable and encouraging you at the same time.

[EcstaticTemporality]

“The longest way around is the shortest way home.”

[Dartagnan]

"only quacks"
*Looks over at Nietzsche*

[gavinkennedy]

Simply perfect. This has arrived right on time to answer a prayer request. What a blessing!

[BladeOfLight]

To suggest the beginning of an answer to the question Lewis didn't try to, I think the key point in terms of lending for interest is to lend only to people and at amounts such that being able to pay it back is feasible. It is difficult for me to see anything wrong with a bank providing a loan to someone with a steady and sizable income so that they may purchase a home, even at some reasonable level of interest. One might argue that one of the key differences between our modern world and the ancient cultures who reviled loans is the fact that the Western world is so pervasively wealthy that we barely understand what real poverty is like. It is, however, wrong to deny the borrower leniency if they fall upon difficult times through no fault of their own, and that is an area at which our economic system (with its gargantuan, impersonal businesses) fails.

As a real world example of the principle in our modern world, we can blame the 2008 financial crisis directly on violating the principle of usury: loans were given for amounts and at rates that the banks _knew_ the borrowers could not afford. However, we can and should note that they did not do so alone: activists pressured them to do so with threats of lawsuits accusing them of racism, and government enabled them by buying up many of the loans through its programs. That does not mean we should ignore the contribution of personal greed to the problem, but neither should we ignore the external forces that drove them toward it as well.

[rickparker]

My son has started sending me these...
I love them!
Thank you for your labor of love in producing these.
Im a new subscriber.

[justgopherit]

These are simply amazing! I absolutely can not get enough of C.S. Lewis, and the way these videos are put together makes them not only insightful but yet very entertaining as well. I hope you continue to make many more!

[allanlindsay]

Thank you for yet another wonderful, inspiring exposé of CS Lewis work..

[fraimework]

brilliant stuff honestly and yet so simple to comprehend

[opensourceguy]

I love that C.S. Lewis quoted the great Samuel Johnson, another great moral intellectual.

[mdonahue]

Wow. Thank you for this animation of articulation. 💕

[daviddad]

Your work is a real blessing. Thank you so much 🥰

[RoninofRamen]

The reference to his marriage to Joy Gresham (nee Davidman) around 10:20 was a nice touch.

[Eunice.Aceto]

Thank you for uploading. Always a pleasure and good food for thought!

[reuben.l.murray]

What an exceptional work!! THANK YOU!!! May.God bless you 🙏🏻

[Hugebull]

Beautiful, simply and absolutely beautiful.
I hope you draw these until you are black in the face :)