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I note what you say about guiding your patient's reading and taking
care that he sees a good deal of his materialist friend. But are you not
being a trifle naive? It sounds as if you supposed that argument was the
way to keep him out of the Enemy's clutches.
That might have been so if he had lived a few centuries earlier. At that time the humans still knew pretty well
when a thing was proved and when it was not; and if it was proved they
really believed it. They still connected thinking with doing and were
prepared to alter their way of life as the result of a chain of
reasoning.
But what with the weekly press and other such weapons, we have largely
altered that. Your man has been accustomed, ever since he was a boy, to
having a dozen incompatible philosophies dancing about together inside
his head. He doesn't think of doctrines as primarily "true" or "false,"
but as "academic" or "practical," "outworn" or "contemporary,"
"conventional" or "ruthless." Jargon, not argument, is your best ally in
keeping him from the Church.
Don't waste time trying to make him think that materialism is true! Make
him think it is strong or stark or courageous—that it is the
philosophy of the future. That's the sort of thing he cares about...
Uncle Screwtape
