Humility and Inferiority

I finally read The Screwtape Letters a few months ago. I really did enjoy it – overall I really like C.S. Lewis. I trust him as a theologian, because he came to Christianity as a skeptic. He doesn’t come from the perspective of “I’m right because I’m right and now here are things that back me up.” He comes from the perspective of “I’m right because I found these things that convinced me that I had been wrong.”

Screwtape is interesting because it’s written from the point of view of a devil, a tempter. Mostly Screwtape points out all the ways that modern society and modern ways of thinking are ungodly. Like with the other Lewis books I’ve read, I understand his point on pretty much all of it, and I agree with let’s say 90% of it.

The one bit of Screwtape that got me thinking, more than any other, was the part about the illusion of equality. He says that when someone says “I’m as good as you,” that person is coming from a sense of inferiority. You never tell someone whom you feel is inferior that you are as good as they are, unless you are being patronizing and condescending.

My problem with this comes not from the statement itself – I do agree that when someone says “I am as good as you are” they are usually speaking from a sense of inferiority – but from the implication that trying to overcome a sense of inferiority is an ungodly thing.

I think that Lewis is probably trying to make a point about the lack of humility in today’s society, which is probably a valid point. But I think that there is a difference between feeling humble and feeling inferior.

Humility is internal. If it is imposed by anyone/anything, it is imposed by God. Humility says “I am not the best at this” but humility also allows you to say “I will try.” Inferiority, on the other hand, is imposed externally – by individuals or by society. Inferiority says “You can’t do this” and inferiority says “Why should you even try?” Humility is not a bad thing. False humility is, but that’s a different discussion. Inferiority, especially inferiority based on unchangeable factors like gender/race or subjective factors like beauty, is a bad thing and should be fought against wherever it is found.