It’s taken me too long to read this, Kaitlyn, but thank you for reading AOM in light of digital conditioning. So many good things here. The John Bunyan quote--ouch! Acknowledging our own complacency and, indeed, our weakness and inability to see and stand down the turn away from the Tao, often unintentionally, is extremely important. It also hurts, like ripping off a body-covering bandage (Eustace being cleansed of his dragonness in The Dawn Treader comes to mind--thanks again, Lewis!).
You make an excellent point about how companies mine our attention. I think Lewis and the other 20th Century thinkers who saw this world coming (esp. Huxley) thought that it would be brought about by a sort of sociological 'mining' of society. That Hideous Strength plays on the idea a lot where the N.I.C.E. tries to pit political powers against each other for the sake of gaining the power to accomplish their goals. Need more power to experiment on people? Start a riot and provide a police force. Only now they don't need to orchestrate a physical riot, they just have to get us shouting long enough online that they can rake in the ad revenue. All in the name of funding more research and building more technology. It makes me wonder what a fourth chapter to Abolition of Man might have looked like if we could go back in time and tell Lewis all about the internet and the advertising economy.
I’ve never thought of it that way, but I think you’re definitely on to something. It’s been a while since I’ve read Brave New World or That Hideous Strength, but I know Lewis explored a lot of the same themes in That Hideous Strength and The Abolition of Man, and I definitely felt like the advertising/attention economy was the “missing piece” in how Lewis conceived of the future in the latter. I actually almost included a discussion of that in this piece, but I decided I didn’t have enough room. Thanks for adding your perspective, and reminding me I wanted to tie in That Hideous Strength in a follow-up piece :)
It’s taken me too long to read this, Kaitlyn, but thank you for reading AOM in light of digital conditioning. So many good things here. The John Bunyan quote--ouch! Acknowledging our own complacency and, indeed, our weakness and inability to see and stand down the turn away from the Tao, often unintentionally, is extremely important. It also hurts, like ripping off a body-covering bandage (Eustace being cleansed of his dragonness in The Dawn Treader comes to mind--thanks again, Lewis!).
I’ll be processing this for awhile. Thanks again.
You make an excellent point about how companies mine our attention. I think Lewis and the other 20th Century thinkers who saw this world coming (esp. Huxley) thought that it would be brought about by a sort of sociological 'mining' of society. That Hideous Strength plays on the idea a lot where the N.I.C.E. tries to pit political powers against each other for the sake of gaining the power to accomplish their goals. Need more power to experiment on people? Start a riot and provide a police force. Only now they don't need to orchestrate a physical riot, they just have to get us shouting long enough online that they can rake in the ad revenue. All in the name of funding more research and building more technology. It makes me wonder what a fourth chapter to Abolition of Man might have looked like if we could go back in time and tell Lewis all about the internet and the advertising economy.
I’ve never thought of it that way, but I think you’re definitely on to something. It’s been a while since I’ve read Brave New World or That Hideous Strength, but I know Lewis explored a lot of the same themes in That Hideous Strength and The Abolition of Man, and I definitely felt like the advertising/attention economy was the “missing piece” in how Lewis conceived of the future in the latter. I actually almost included a discussion of that in this piece, but I decided I didn’t have enough room. Thanks for adding your perspective, and reminding me I wanted to tie in That Hideous Strength in a follow-up piece :)
Excited to read your take on it!