海角大神

If there is one thing the 2012 presidential campaign has already taught us, it is that past complainers that politics was negative and underhanded didn鈥檛 know how good they had it. Abetted by technologies that increase the reach and power of smear campaigns and mechanisms to allow far more money to be spent on them, electoral politics has turned into an even more intense mud-pit of attacks and fingerpointing about every conceivable issue (including ones made up of whole cloth), along with 鈥淥 yeah?鈥� responses and counterattacks and bare-knuckle brawling among partisan spinners. And that is just the Republican primary. We haven鈥檛 even gotten near the general elections yet.

Given the incredibly bitter invective and the amazingly negative campaigning we have observed, I have concluded that perhaps the most accurate, though accidental, commentator on the current state of politics was C.S. Lewis, just over half a century ago.

In The Screwtape Letters, Lewis used the device of letters of instruction from an experienced Devil on how to successfully tempt humans. In one of them, he turned to how to inflame domestic hatred between two people. But with only a few minor alterations[1] to accommodate the fact that 鈥渢he names have been changed to protect the guilty,鈥� he seems to equally well describe our current political competition:

Lewis seems to have hit the current state of politics on the head. Screwtape politics has intensified. Unfortunately, it may not reveal which initiatives truly advance the general welfare or who the most worthy candidates are. But at least it gives us insight into James Madison鈥檚 famous statement in Federalist 51: 鈥淚f men were angels, no government would be necessary.鈥�

Note

[1] Alterations from the original are indicated in italics. The original version is given below: