A Hobbit, a Wardrobe, and a Great War: How J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis Rediscovered Faith, Friendship, and Heroism in the Cataclysm of 1914-18

by Joseph Loconte

The perverse relationship between technology, science, and power became a defining reality of the postwar years. Eugenics, communism, fascism, Nazism: these were the revolutions and ideologies that arose in the exhaustion of the democracies of Europe, all in the name of advancing the human race. All began by promising liberation from oppression; all became instruments of totalitarian control. “Dreams of the far future destiny of man,” wrote Lewis, “were dragging up from its shallow and unquiet grave the old dream of Man as God.”46 As Tolkien biographer Tom Shippey explains: “The major disillusionment of the twentieth century has been over political good intentions, which have led only to gulags and killings fields. That is why what Gandalf says has rung true to virtually everyone who reads it.”47

The idea of personal moral guilt, however, was widely rejected in the postwar years. Psychology, philosophy, literature, even theology—all these disciplines were helping to erode individual responsibility. Vices and addictions were explained medically or scientifically, not in moral or religious terms. “Collective” or “biological” forces replaced old-fashioned notions of “sin.”