Editorials

Much of the damage done in this world is done by people who don’t exactly mean to rebel against God–they just figure they have a better idea. And even in the peripheral zones of human creativity, it can happen that people make “improvements”–which AREN’T…. The existing Narnia movie, while I would have done a few things differently, does NOT feature any alterations or expansions which I would consider damaging…I am, for the record, confident that the future films WILL be done right, and that I will have no serious complaints. But perhaps it wouldn’t hurt to imagine (and so be forewarned against) some “anti-improvements” which could occur if scripts for the follow-on movies were to be written by writers who DON’T appreciate the vision of Mr. Lewis. “Prince Caspian” being already scripted, I’ll start with “Dawn Treader.”

The idea of a “left wing” and “right wing” in politics and society is a fluid one, subject to a lot of confusion. You can’t understand liberals unless you know what they want to liberate, and you can’t understand conservatives unless you know what they want to conserve….It may help us toward clarity if I attempt, presupposing what I think to be reasonable modern definitions of the left and right, to identify some places in The Chronicles Of Narnia where C.S. Lewis expressed sometimes liberal ideas, and sometimes conservative ones.