My
Dear Wormwood.
So,
a great number of your patient’s online friends has abandoned him because he
has become intolerable to them have they? Excellent. Encourage him to believe
they have left because he is righteous and they are wicked, rather than because
he often behaves in a way the Enemy disapproves of—this is your chance to make
him upset at the indifference and hard heartedness of his fellow Christians. But
take care not to let him get angry or bitter at himself, for he must be angry
against society on behalf of those who have no voice. He must conceive of
himself as both a noble advocate and a selfless guardian, without which the
helpless will suffer.
This
calls for a deft touch Wormwood. Normally men are not angered by mere
misfortune but by misfortune conceived as injury, or by feeling that a
legitimate claim had been denied to them. The more claims on life, therefore, they
could be induced to make, the more often they would feel injured and, as a
result, ill-tempered. But though our efforts we have now produced a class of
men who are perpetually aggravated on behalf of those who are not outraged in
the least. The poorest member of your patient’s society possess comfort and wealth
unimagined by earlier generations, (as does your patient) and yet he is more
agitated and miserable than ever.
Because
we have made anger fashionable your patient will of his own volition announce
his anger to appear virtuous to his remaining friends, and I cannot overstate what
a useful behavior this is for us. Fashions distract the attention of men from
their real dangers. We direct the fashionable outcry of each generation against
those vices of which it is least in danger and fix its approval on the virtue
nearest to that vice which we are trying to make endemic. The game is to have
them running about with fire extinguishers whenever there is a flood, and all
crowding to that side of the boat which is already nearly gunwale under. Thus
we make it fashionable to expose the dangers of enthusiasm at the very moment
when they are all really becoming worldly and lukewarm; a century later, when
we are really making them all drunk with emotion, the fashionable outcry is
directed against the dangers of the mere "understanding". Cruel ages
are put on their guard against Sentimentality, feckless and idle ones against
Respectability, lecherous ones against Puritansm; and whenever all men are
really hastening to be slaves or tyrants we make freedom the prime bogey. In
your case your patient must fear the apathy of his age. He must blame poverty
for its immorality and regard hard work and tenacity as its chief virtues.
Do
your best to conform your patient’s thinking to the fashionable outrage of the
age Wormwood. It is one of our most useful tools.
Your
affectionate Uncle,
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