ELASTICITY

Overview Question

In Parts 1 and 2 of Chapter 5, Mark is drawn yet further into the manipulations of the lifeworld of Belbury. Deputy Director Wither continues to flatter Mark’s vanity while refusing to give him a clear job description or to make a solid job offer. Fairy Hardcastle warns Mark not to expect a clear job description from Wither; and then explains how, if only Mark will do as he is told, he can begin to rise as a kind of activist journalist swaying public opinion for the NICE. And then Mark learns that his position at Bracton College is in jeopardy because Lord Feverstone has informed them that Mark is joining the NICE. When confronted, Feverstone simply shrugs Mark off with a dismissive comment. All of these passages portray in some detail how the modern worldview operates at the level of personal and interpersonal relationships. And this leads to our Overview Question for the week:

How do the different actions of Wither, Fairy Hardcastle, and Lord Feverstone in relation to Mark’s own servile mentality illustrate the basic principles and practices of the modern worldview and lifeworld at Belbury?

For additional help in answering this question, remember the brief outline that I provided with the Chapter 3 Overview Question: Yoram Hazony’s analysis of the “practices” that characterize both the modern and the traditional worldviews. In particular, keep in mind how the modern worldview valorizes above all individual freedom and reason, and rejects the need for religious, moral, or even familial traditions of loyalty, honor, and acknowledged hierarchy to guide and shape the freedom or the reason of the individual.    

DEEPER-DIVE QUESTIONS

1. In Part 3 of Chapter 5, Arthur and Camilla Denniston take Jane on a picnic, and treat her in a manner that is quite opposite of how Mark is treated at Belbury. They propose a specific role for Jane: namely, to consider her dreams as a special gift that can be of great help to the community at St. Anne’s. When Camilla begins to put pressure on Jane to decide right away, however, Arthur reminds her that the Director of their community would not want Jane to join them under that kind of pressure or coercion. In contrast to Mark’s interview, what interpersonal conditions are given priority in Jane’s interview, and how do these reflect the principles and practices of the traditional worldview? (see again Yoram Hazony)   

2. How do the conditions of the two interviews reflect the customs and values of the two groups of people and the two worldviews that inform Lewis’s story, the modern worldview and the traditional worldview? In particular, what role do the values related to the family and religion at St. Anne’s play, in contrast to the emphasis at Belbury on the individual and his or her “freedom.”

3. Where, in our current cultural and political turmoil in 2022, do you see signs of the kind of individualism, disunity, coercion, cancellation, and manipulation of power that characterize Mark’s job interview at Belbury? Where are there signs of the open discussion, debate, transparency, and the freedom to deliberate and practice informed consent that are given to Jane?