"Serious, Constant Desire: Joy in C.S. Lewis’ The Great Divorce" - A Webinar with Joy Marie Clarkson

[@flashlitestriker4028]

This was lovely! I got so much out of this !

[@SnuffalupagusRising]

I completely forgot that there was a boy mom in Great Divorce. 🤣 I absolutely loved this discussion. It hit all my favs from Miyazaki to Augustine and was just what I needed going into 2024. Brilliantly and beautifully articulated! Thinking about the concept of nature as both a state of peace for ourselves and it's dark twin as a state of complacency, it makes me think of Princess Mononoke and Ashitaka's decision to leave the forest. He had everything he personally wanted at the end of the movie; peace, beauty, love, etc. He'd seen the worst of humanity, but unlike San he didn't reject his humanness and chose to continue to have a role in the world, advocating for goodness. It's a bit like the idea of becoming a solitary monk on a hilltop vs the conviction to be an active participant in the world around us. A few of the folks in Great Divorce are so afterlife focused that they become similarly complacent. I think the concept of every beautiful thing having a dark side when it removes us from our connection with the rest of creation and becomes self serving is a really interesting concept to consider. "We long not for what we remember, but what we've never experienced at all, only sensed beneath reality's surface." - Miyazaki on rejecting the concept of nostalgia. It's so interesting how this quote is near identical to Lewis' ideas about the island and prim rose field in Pilgrim's Regress.

[@margaretmiros1672]

You referred to nostalgia as it refers to fascism and communism, you didn't mention the twin grip of patriotism and nationalism, especially in the present monent in America.

[@flashlitestriker4028]

What a keen thought! Thanks for sharing!

[@SnuffalupagusRising]

The idea that I got out of Great Divorce is that every concept has a dark twin - a heavenly and a worldly counterpart. So nostalgia or patriotism can be a positive, but nationalism can quickly become a false idol and a negative when manipulated by the wrong people. Miyazaki has a complicated outlook on Japanese nationalism for example. Joy Gresham had a complicated outlook with her own American identity as a Jewish woman. One way to think of it is fascism being nostalgia inverted to its darkest degree, which starts with a positive concept that feels temporarily joyful and neutral like patriotism, then becomes twisted, using this emotional grounding to entrance followers. Sort of like how love is a universally good concept, but can become toxic and manipulative.