After WWI, it was as if humanity gave up on itself.
Materialism, scientism, collectivism, eugenics, and totalitarianism were promoted as the new foundations of civilization, and they flourished.
Then this alleged new enlightenment collapsed into a war far worse than the one that started it.
During the interwar years, and WWII, two veterans of WWI pushed back on the “widespread assault” against the classical “ideals that had nourished Western civilization for centuries.” They also opposed the “ideological hijacking” of the stories and history of the ancient world by the Third Reich.
These two men were Oxford scholars, J.R.R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis.
It was in the shadow of these conflicts that they wrote The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, The Screwtape Letters, Mere Christianity, The Space Trilogy, and The Chronicles of Narnia.
Through their writings, both fact and fiction, we see why our ancestors should be listened to, because they had spent centuries proving what worked, and what did not. Most importantly, how the true spirit of men could overcome Darkness, and that humans, in spite of their flaws, are exceptional creations.
As many try to return us to the failed movements of the mid-20th Century, driven by the equally failed belief humans are nothing more than unexceptional, random life, Joseph Loconte’s latest book, The War for Middle Earth, reminds us of that distant era.
And what happens if we let dragons roam the Earth.
Darrick Dean 