I just finished reading a small collection of C. S. Lewis addresses, The Weight of Glory, I enjoyed the entire collection, but one of the addresses struck me more than the others: "The Inner Ring".
In that address he uses a passage from War and Peace to examine hierarchies, and more specifically, "inner rings". The inner rings include the people who are "they," "that gang," "the caucus"; they are the elite, the ones who are in the know and who have been accepted. Many of us strive to be a part of the inner rings in various parts of our lives. But even if we achieve acceptance, it can be easily lost as the requirements shift, or we change and grow
And sometimes, gaining entry into the inner circle requires us to compromise, to cut off others who are not part of the inner ring even if they were once important in our lives, and sometimes to engage in questionable even immoral acts. If we are aware, we might come to realize the error of this effort. If we are not aware, we might be lost.
I was reminded of the movie The Last Picture Show. One of the characters, Jacy, wants to be part of a group that is somewhat libertine and socially more elite in nature than the set to which her current boyfriend, Duane, belongs. One of the wealthy young men in the elite group, makes advances, but then refuses to have sex with her because she is a virgin. She then gets Duane to take her to a motel to have sex - even though she does not love him and is simply using him. Now no longer a virgin, she hopes for the wealthy young man to accept her, but he has already moved on.
She loses her virginity in a manipulative way bereft of love on her part, sins, uses a boy who likes her, all to gain acceptance to an inner circle. She spirals downward after this.
Lewis points on that "the quest of the Inner Ring will break your hearts unless you break it." You do things for the pleasure of ding it, not because it will gain you entry. You will find people you actually like to be with, as opposed to people you are with because just because they are the "right" people whom you may not actually like. You do things that you like with the people whom you like. "This is friendship. Aristotle placed it among the virtues. It causes perhaps half of all the happiness in the world, and no Inner Ringer can ever have it."
Good advice. I wish I had received it when I was younger and, sadly, got caught up in trying to be part of some unhealthy inner rings. Fortunately, though, being a natural outsider, I escaped those inner rings before it got too late!
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Last post I talked about C. S. Lewis and Catholicism. I mentioned that I had not read Pearce's book C. S. Lewis and the Catholic Church. After finishing The Weight of Glory, I began reading it.
