Having found truth in myths, Lewis decided to produce his own -- not as pleasing distractions but as reminders that we actually inhabit a world of fantastical, eternal creatures, with noble quests to perform and stories that do not end. And when we discover our true citizenship, he says, it comes with a "happiness ... so great that it even weakens me like a wound."
Quests
Everyone probably has heard by now that C.S. Lewis died 50 years ago today. Here is Michael Gerson on C.S. Lewis and myth:
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It's interesting that review mentions Plato's allegory of the cave, because Plato was interested in a very similar problem. Especially in the early dialogues, he has Socrates asking again and again for people to define ordinary terms they are using: piety, justice, goodness. What are these things?
We readily say that something is more or less pious, just, or good. We seem to be able to know that something is more or less just without having ever seen justice itself, or being able to express in words exactly what it is. How do we know? How can we be so sure?
At one point in the Meno Socrates proposes that we know because we knew in an earlier life, and are just remembering. That's almost there: but that earlier like would have had to have been somewhere else, somewhere where justice existed. That is our original home.
I don't know. I don't recall my kids being born with ideas of justice preinstalled. They seemed to not really care about it till made to. Same with piety. Goodness is a barterable commodity (in some sense) so they've always seen the value in that.
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