3 ms·

1. How is that quote at all relevant to what's being discussed? 2. What does any of that have to do with Nazis? Your comment seems to be a complete non-sequitu

1. How is that quote at all relevant to what's being discussed? 2. What does any of that have to do with Nazis? Your comment seems to be a complete non-sequitur.

tptacek 4y ago
The C.S. Lewis quote above (the one I replied to) is from Mere Christianity. As to whether the original quote is relevant to this Quillette story, your guess is as good as mine. Later I'm being coy, because I don't believe most people who deploy this quote have read Mere Christianity, which is ungracious of me (and technically a violation of our guidelines). So: to put it more directly: Lewis isn't asking people to be skeptical of wrongdoing. The quote is from an essay on forgiveness. That chapter explicitly references the harm Germans inflicted on Poles and Jewish people. Lewis isn't skeptical of that harm (to say the least), and he's not exhorting people towards skepticism of wrongdoing in general. What he's saying is that you should be careful not to attribute to random people, by dint of their belonging to some specific group, the worst possible harms you can come up with. And he's saying that you shouldn't because it's an impediment to the Christian virtue of forgiveness; to love your neighbor as yourself, you need to love your imputed enemies as yourself, and to do that you have to find a way to forgive them their transgressions against you, and, more immediately, the transgressions of their groups. I quoted the paragraph immediately following the quote offered (in implicit support of skepticism, as that quote is almost always used). I could just as easily have quoted the paragraph that immediately precedes it: Consequently, Christianity does not want us to reduce by one atom the hatred we feel for cruelty and treachery. We ought to hate them. Not one word of what we have said about them needs to be unsaid. But it does want us to hate them in the same way in which we hate things in ourselves: being sorry that the man should have done such things, and hoping, if it is anyway possible, that somehow, sometime, somewhere, he can be cured and made human again.
- prvc 4y ago
  Even after all that exegesis, your presumptive point remains obscure. The top-level comment is relevant because it happens to describe the malicious credulity of the journalism consumers who chose to believe the mass graves narrative.
  - tptacek 4y ago
    I don't think my point is obscure at all. It is, simply, that C.S. Lewis didn't write that quote to exhort people to skepticism of all wrongdoing; he was instead reminding people not to invent wrongdoing to impute to strangers by dint of them being "enemies". The quote, here, was ill used, as it so often is. Again: when Lewis wrote this, he was talking about the Nazis, the authors of many of the worst crimes in history. Lewis was no Holocaust denier: he was acutely aware of --- and reminds his reader throughout Christian Behavior of --- the wrongdoings he's alluding to. It might be hard to find a more inapposite quote for this story. I have no idea what happened in the residential schools in Canada, and no opinion about this particular article. But I do have an opinion about the abuse of C.S. Lewis on message boards.
    - hprotagonist 4y ago
      > The quote, here, was ill used, as it so often is. You’ve misread me/my intent, i’m afraid.
      - tptacek 4y ago
        Certainly more than just possible. Could you say how?
        cstrahan 4y ago
        FWIW, I read their quoting of C.S. Lewis as supporting precisely the viewpoint C.S. Lewis was intending — and the very same as you make a case for throughout this thread. Though I’ll admit I could be wrong. However, applying Occam’s razor: GP merely quoted C.S. Lewis, so it would seem to me that the simplest (and most charitable) interpretation is that they understood the quote and we’re not using it in any ironic/sarcastic way. I find your reaction/response to GP a little confusing, but as best as I can tell: are you thinking they were using the quote in an intentionally ironic way as a means of making a jab at C.S. Lewis’ character/beliefs? This whole thread has been really confusing, so I’d love to understand where the (apparent) disconnect is between both parties :).

1. How is that quote at all relevant to what's being discussed? 2. What does any of that have to do with Nazis? Your comment seems to be a complete non-sequitur.

tptacek 4y ago

The C.S. Lewis quote above (the one I replied to) is from Mere Christianity. As to whether the original quote is relevant to this Quillette story, your guess is as good as mine. Later I'm being coy, because I don't believe most people who deploy this quote have read Mere Christianity, which is ungracious of me (and technically a violation of our guidelines). So: to put it more directly: Lewis isn't asking people to be skeptical of wrongdoing. The quote is from an essay on forgiveness. That chapter explicitly references the harm Germans inflicted on Poles and Jewish people. Lewis isn't skeptical of that harm (to say the least), and he's not exhorting people towards skepticism of wrongdoing in general. What he's saying is that you should be careful not to attribute to random people, by dint of their belonging to some specific group, the worst possible harms you can come up with. And he's saying that you shouldn't because it's an impediment to the Christian virtue of forgiveness; to love your neighbor as yourself, you need to love your imputed enemies as yourself, and to do that you have to find a way to forgive them their transgressions against you, and, more immediately, the transgressions of their groups. I quoted the paragraph immediately following the quote offered (in implicit support of skepticism, as that quote is almost always used). I could just as easily have quoted the paragraph that immediately precedes it: Consequently, Christianity does not want us to reduce by one atom the hatred we feel for cruelty and treachery. We ought to hate them. Not one word of what we have said about them needs to be unsaid. But it does want us to hate them in the same way in which we hate things in ourselves: being sorry that the man should have done such things, and hoping, if it is anyway possible, that somehow, sometime, somewhere, he can be cured and made human again.

prvc 4y ago
Even after all that exegesis, your presumptive point remains obscure. The top-level comment is relevant because it happens to describe the malicious credulity of the journalism consumers who chose to believe the mass graves narrative.
- tptacek 4y ago
  I don't think my point is obscure at all. It is, simply, that C.S. Lewis didn't write that quote to exhort people to skepticism of all wrongdoing; he was instead reminding people not to invent wrongdoing to impute to strangers by dint of them being "enemies". The quote, here, was ill used, as it so often is. Again: when Lewis wrote this, he was talking about the Nazis, the authors of many of the worst crimes in history. Lewis was no Holocaust denier: he was acutely aware of --- and reminds his reader throughout Christian Behavior of --- the wrongdoings he's alluding to. It might be hard to find a more inapposite quote for this story. I have no idea what happened in the residential schools in Canada, and no opinion about this particular article. But I do have an opinion about the abuse of C.S. Lewis on message boards.
  - hprotagonist 4y ago
    > The quote, here, was ill used, as it so often is. You’ve misread me/my intent, i’m afraid.
    - tptacek 4y ago
      Certainly more than just possible. Could you say how?
      - cstrahan 4y ago
        FWIW, I read their quoting of C.S. Lewis as supporting precisely the viewpoint C.S. Lewis was intending — and the very same as you make a case for throughout this thread. Though I’ll admit I could be wrong. However, applying Occam’s razor: GP merely quoted C.S. Lewis, so it would seem to me that the simplest (and most charitable) interpretation is that they understood the quote and we’re not using it in any ironic/sarcastic way. I find your reaction/response to GP a little confusing, but as best as I can tell: are you thinking they were using the quote in an intentionally ironic way as a means of making a jab at C.S. Lewis’ character/beliefs? This whole thread has been really confusing, so I’d love to understand where the (apparent) disconnect is between both parties :).