Lewis equates the Tao with traditional moral values, with natural law, and with first principles. He calls it “the doctrine of objective value, the belief that certain attitudes are really true, and others really false.”
When Lewis describes the Tao as “a common human law of action which can over-arch rulers and ruled alike,” it sounds like the rule of law, one of Canada’s foundational constitutional principles, along with the supremacy of God.
Canada has rejected this Tao of C.S. Lewis. In fact, Canada increasingly rejects the very existence of truth and reality, replacing it with mere feelings. “If you feel like a woman, then you are a woman” is actually the law of the land now. This is a radical departure from centuries past, when people argued with each other about what was right and wrong while still sharing a common belief that truth, facts, and morality are real and worthy of recognition.
Adam Laboucan, a biological male who was convicted of violently raping a three-month-old infant when he was 15 years old, was transferred to the Fraser Valley Institution for Women in 2018 after changing his name to “Tara Desousa” and self-identifying as a woman. No surgery was required, just “self-identification.” There are many other cases like this.
Lewis pointed out: “When all that says ‘it is good’ has been debunked, what says ‘I want’ remains,” and “those who stand outside of all judgments of value cannot have any ground for preferring one of their own impulses to another, except the emotional strength of that impulse.”
Lewis describes ideologies like communism and fascism as a rebellion against the Tao, as a rebellion of the branches against the tree. Ideologies “all consist of fragments from the Tao itself, arbitrarily wrenched from their context in the whole and then swollen to madness in isolation, yet still owing to the Tao and to it alone such validity as they possess.”
Lenin’s Marxism (power struggles between economic classes) and Hitler’s National Socialism (power struggles between races and nations) are examples of ideologies that fixate fanatically upon one issue, while ignoring facts, truth, and traditional moral values. Like fascism and communism in the 20th century, today’s woke ideology of “equity, diversity, inclusion” sees society as a perpetual war between groups. The warring groups are defined not by economics but by ethnicity, skin colour, sex, gender, and sexual proclivities. The woke “oppression hierarchy” differs from Marxist class struggle. But both ideologies deny that each individual person is precious and created in God’s image. Both reject natural law, first principles, and “a common human law of action which can over-arch rulers and ruled alike.”
Lewis warned in 1944 that, outside of the Tao, advances in technology mean “the rule of a few hundreds of men over billions upon billions of men. … Each new power won by man is a power over man as well.” Think of digital ID and Central Bank Digital Currencies: the promises of convenience and security belie the disappearance of privacy and the real possibility for totalitarian control of every aspect of our lives by a nearly all-powerful and all-knowing government that regulates closely what we see, hear, think, believe, say, and do.
Is there even one example in human history of someone who rejected traditional morality, acquired political power, and then used his power wisely and to benefit mankind?
Mahatma Ghandi’s seven deadly sins include knowledge without character, and science without humanity. This aligns with Lewis’s warning about replacing the wise men of old with magicians and with a certain breed of scientists. He wrote: “For wise men of old, the cardinal problem had been how to conform the soul to reality, and the solution had been knowledge, self-discipline and virtue. For magic and applied science alike, the problem is how to subdue reality to the wishes of men: the solution is a technique.” A scientist unhinged from the Tao “rejects magic because it does not work, but his goal is the same as the magician.”
In a good education system, “both the kind of man the teachers wished to produce and their motives for producing him” are prescribed by the Tao, “a norm to which the teachers themselves were subject and from which they claimed no liberty to depart.” Today’s education system, in denying the existence of truth and in rejecting the traditional moral values that apply to all, creates tyrants and slaves rather than thinking citizens.
C.S. Lewis argues that, apart from the Tao, rule is tyranny and obedience is slavery. He argues that the process of destroying humanity “goes on apace” under multiple banners and political parties, including communists, fascists, and supporters of democracy.
As Edmund Burke said, the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good people to do nothing. The more that Canadians embrace natural law and practice traditional moral values, and the more that they ensure and see to it (and not just hope or wish) that their children receive a good education, the harder it becomes for woke ideologues to seize power and impose tyranny.
John Carpay, B.A., LL.B., is president of the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms (jccf.ca).
