I Want a Divorce, and a Great One!

Reflections on The Great Divorce by C. S. Lewis. 

This book has the ability to simultaneously terrify one of the dangers of this world while inspiring hope for supreme happiness.  Each Ghost's version of Hell is relatable, whether I experience it myself or through another. And the author makes the pitfalls so obvious that one can't but expect to better avoid them on the next encounter.

Below are some of the quotes that stood out to me throughout the book, with a few thoughts following each.

Capitalism as slavery

"Capitalism did not merely enslave the workers, it also vitiated taste and vulgarised intellect." (pg. 7, the Tousle-Headed Poet)

I have been a slave to Capitalism for 23 years on this planet.  I give in to impulse buys, eat high-priced frozen yogurt, desire video games I see in advertisements.  In the last year, I've been struggling hard against the desire to consume.  To avoid impulse buys, I won't go into stores.  I mute commercials, avoid looking at billboards, whatever I can to block it out.  In a way, it hijacks your brain.  But I am slowly building up the antibodies to capitalism.

My brother is buying a new car.  He wants a BMW, but is afraid of appearing ostentatious.  He wants to appear successful but retain likability   He tells me "I've never met anyone under 30 that drives a BMW and isn't a prick."  It is probably not the BMW that makes someone a prick.

He wouldn't drive my parents' Nissan Quest (minivan) because he was afraid of being judged by his new coworkers.  He spends hours viewing cars online, reading reviews, asking friends.  He paces the floor of our living room, talking to me (sometimes more to himself) about why the Infiniti q50 is right for him.  He calls my Dad, explains how easy it will be to finance the purchase.  Later he wakes up screaming in the middle of the night, dreaming of over-sized spiders biting him and he is bleeding out in the sheets.

Is this slavery?

The Fountain of Egolessness

"When you have drunk of it you forget forever all proprietorship in your own works.  You enjoy them just as if they were someone else's: without pride and without modesty." (pg. 85, the Spirit)

A beautifully Buddhist concept, egolessness.  The self is an illusion.  We are all composed of the same pieces, all striving for the same goal.  When we release the illusion of self (when we drink of the Fountain), happiness and joy and peace become much more commonplace.

I am consistently wrong

"We've all been wrong!  That's the great joke.  There's no need to go on pretending one was right!  After that we begin living." (pg. 102, the Spirit)

I used to always be right.  Even when I was wrong, in my mind I was right.  Somehow, I justified it.  Actually believed I was.  How could I have not been right all the time?  I had straight A's, I was labeled the "smart" kid, described as "witty".

Looking at my past actions through a more objective lens, I was maybe right, maybe, about 20% of the time.  Yes, I was (and still am) wrong about 80% of the time.  Maybe not all of it escapes my mouth - I am frequently wrong in my mental judgement.  But I can tell you that with this realization, life is more peaceful.  I am no longer inclined to argue, to blindly defend a point.  And I am more open to new ideas.

What is love?

"But what we call love down there [on earth] was mostly the craving to be loved." (pg. 125, Sarah Smith)

I have come closer to bliss by freely giving love without reservations or expectations.  When I hold expectations in return for my love, they are usually not met, and thus giving love results in suffering.  When I expect nothing in return, the joy of giving love is bliss in itself.

How to Win Friends and Influence Ghosts

If I haven't mentioned it yet, Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People is currently my favorite work of nonfiction.  If you haven't read it yet, it will change your life.  Every human interaction after reading it will be smoother.  I promise.

But these Spirits in The Great Divorce, they are not skilled in the ability to influence.  At times they openly laugh at their Ghost colleague for being ridiculous rather than showing sympathy and understanding for their feelings of despair.  If the Spirits had read Carnegie's amazing classic, there would have been many fewer failed conversions throughout the narrators journey through Heaven.  It seems like the Spirits could sell infinite happiness a bit better, be slightly more convincing that eternal bliss is really a good thing.  It is, isn't it?

Questions for all!
Wade (and anyone who will answer), here are some questions I wanted to ask you while reading:

1. On page 1, when the narrator is still in Hell, he finds "bookshops of the sort that sell The Works of Aristotle."  Why Aristotle?  Why do you suppose C.S. Lewis chose this example?
   
2. On page 43, when the narrator is listening to the "fat ghost with the cultured voice" speak with a Spirit, the ghost poses a wonderful hypothetical situation.
   
   "I'm going to point out how people always forget that Jesus (here the Ghost bowed) was a comparatively young man when he died.  He would have outgrown some of his earlier views, you know, if he'd lived.  As he might have done, with a little more tact and patience.  I am going to ask my audience to consider what his mature views would have been."
   
   Having studied the man and his teachings for 4 years, what do you think his mature views would have been had he lived to be, say, 80 years old (instead of 33)?
   
3. On page 75, George MacDonald (the narrator's Spirit match) justifies why the Spirits do not descend to Hell to save others.
   
   "And it would be no use to come further even if it were possible.  The sane would do no good if they made themselves mad to help madmen."
   
   Would it not be easier to help a madman if one could become temporarily mad in order to better understand his ailment?  Or put another way, would it not be easier to help one escape the pitfalls of Hell with firsthand experience escaping the same temptations and delusions?
   
4. On page 136, George MacDonald sums up the battle between good and evil and ends it with:
   
   "I know it has a grand sound to say ye'll accept no salvation which leaves even one creature in the dark outside.  But watch that sophistry or ye'll make a Dog in a Manger the tyrant of the universe."
   
   What does he mean by his "Dog in a Manger" warning?