In a talk called “Learning in War Time,” Lewis explained how war exposes the folly of placing our happiness in utopian schemes to transform society. “If we thought we were building up a heaven on earth, if we looked for something that would turn the present world from a place of pilgrimage into a permanent city satisfying the soul of man, we are disillusioned, and not a moment too soon.”23 As we’ll see, unlike the disillusionment that overwhelmed much of his generation, Lewis would use the experience of war—its horror as well as its nobility—as a guidepost to moral clarity.
