The Demonization of Authority is Useful to the Demons

Authority in and of itself is neither good nor bad; it is the way authority is used that matters.

Sandro Botticelli (1445-1510), “Three Temptations of Christ (detail)”
Sandro Botticelli (1445-1510), “Three Temptations of Christ (detail)” (photo: Public Domain)

My dear Wumpick,

So. The patient is questioning her attitude towards authority, and you are not sure what to do with it? I can almost hear your tremulous stutters as you pour out your concern. Never fear, Wumpick. Change is always dangerous for us—we prefer the slow, steady, stable road to the depths of Our Father Below. But changes present opportunities for us as well as for the Enemy, and with a little finesse you can make good use of this one.

The first thing is to get your facts straight. You must remember that authority, like so many other things, is neither here nor there for us demons: it is what the human beings make of it. This great rule, dubbed by its discoverer Screwtape the “Principle of Relativity,” is simply a practical extension of one of the first doctrines promulgated by Our Father Below, that all things are subjective, meaning subject to him (or else they soon will be).

You, it appears, have forgotten this fact, being misled by the human beings’ endless debates on the topic of authority, and how much of it is good for them, especially in the political arena. Monarchy, democracy, republic, anarchy—can you not see, Wumpick, it is none of our business? The point is to get the patient to make it her business. See if you cannot drive her into some extreme on the matter. Extremes are always to be desired.

Past ages had a tendency to valorize authority. The current age by and large decries it. Only in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries would anyone dare, as the anarcho-libertarians have done, to commend the absence of all authority! (Of course, even while the Left and the Right are in various ways demonizing “authority,” there is plenty of good old authoritarianism going around, in the Church and in government and the universities. But don’t allow them to notice that.)

One of the most useful things about this demonization of authority is that we can get people to blame all sorts of sins on it. Where past ages might have recognized lust or greed or pride at work, this age looks rather at the station of the lusty, greedy, and proud man and concludes that everything would be solved if only there were enough oversight to prevent “that kind of person” from doing any harm. Of course, the real answer would be to make sure that no child grows up to be “that kind of person” in the first place. But by having Authority to blame rather than the vices really at fault, we evade ever having to face such a surplus of virtuous people.

So now the human beings, who once overrated authority until they made men almost gods (a useful kind of idolatry from our perspective), have pretty nearly conceded that all authority is ultimately demonic, despite their lack of faith in demons! The irony is not lost on Our Father Below. And of course, it gives the lie to that boast of the Enemy’s, that He was the Original and the true ultimate authority.

The happy upshot of all this is that human beings, even when they acknowledge the Enemy’s existence and power, are a little uncomfortable with it. One of the patient’s erstwhile mentors is on file as saying that he doesn’t believe in the Christian God, but that if he did, he would hate anything so almighty and self-absorbed. That is the attitude to inculcate!

But of course, there still remain a few worshippers of authority in the old style; and the patient is close to some of them. Thus you have the question of which way the patient ought to be swayed: in favor of authority, or against it? The answer, of course, is that it depends. In the present day and age, to be conservative about anything, certainly about authority, is to be a rebel of sorts. Has the patient a rebellious temperament? Then perhaps she should be encouraged to join the authoritarians. On the other hand, if the patient is a more conforming sort, it might be easier to breed in her the distrust of authority which is part of the true, libertarian spirit of the age.

Either way, the patient must be prevented from noticing her own inconsistency. If she distrusts authority, she ought not to be allowed to realize how many authorities she owns in practice; and if she worships authority, she ought not to notice how flawed some of the authorities she trusts are. Keep her to the extremes—or, if that is not possible, ensure that she is in a thorough muddle about it, and spends hours racking her conscience over what position she ought to take. Never let her notice that this is a purely intellectual question, one in which she may err without sin. Let her think it is a spiritual question, and torment herself about it. Then she will be distracted from things on which the Enemy would really prefer her to exert herself; and, if she ever does come to a conclusion one way or the other about authority, we can reap the benefits of her erroneous impression that it is a spiritual conclusion, by using her new position to insinuate to her that anyone who disagrees with her newfound wisdom is not merely mistaken but morally reprehensible. (And of course, she should not be permitted to remember that her wisdom about authority is newfound, for that would imply her prior moral ineptitude. No, let her tell herself that “She always thought this way, though to be sure she understands it better now that she is older,” or some such rot.)

Letting her wallow in the muddle sounds rather profitable, does it not? However, I must give you one word of caution on the matter. If your patient is an old-fashioned thinker—I do not say an intellectual; you know what they are; I mean rather, if she is one of those people who really believes in the unity of truth—then be careful that she does not escape the muddle by coming up with a distinction. You know the sort of thing: “Authority, when it comes from the Enemy and is wielded according to his designs, is good; otherwise, authority is bad.” At all costs she must be kept from acquiring such a complex tool as would slice surgically through the Gordian knot of the Facebook and Twitter tangles. If, however, she does happen upon such a distinction despite your best efforts, you can always invoke the demon Superbus, and show her how proud she ought to be of her newly-acquired ability to see through her friends’ quarrels and confusions. If she is of a certain temperament she can also be made to become angry at them for not seeing what she so clearly sees; and anger on social media is our bread and butter.

On the whole, however, the patient is to be kept from truth as much as possible, as all little truths lead back to the big Truth eventually. Better not let her discern distinctions in the first place. And if she seems about to stumble on one in spite of your best efforts, just remind her that distinctions are odious. That, by the way, has been one of our great anti-intellectual victories of the last five hundred years. We first began in the days of Bacon to associate distinctions with the despised schoolmen, and to insinuate that their divisive spirit ran contrary to the unifying impulses of the Renaissance. (Of course, distinctions are necessary to proper unity, for unless one distinguishes a hand from a leg one does not have a unified body but only a jumble of limbs, a mere accidental collection. The opposition was false, as Bacon surely knew. But I digress …)

Now that most people have forgotten that the schoolmen even existed, we have made great strides by associating distinctions with the lawyers. That has sufficiently tainted the word as to make even really bright people hear or read a distinction and call it a lie. Hopefully the patient has absorbed this prejudice of her peers; if not, see that she does. That ought to protect her from a good many dangerous discoveries.

Your affectionate uncle,

Slangrine