C. S. LEWIS: What I want to fix your attention on is the vast overall movement towards the discrediting, and finally the elimination, of every kind of Human Excellence--moral, cultural, social, or intellectual.

Be Like Stalks…… https://t.co/ClL38ztqGt https://t.co/BSSu5a1WJD

— CJ the palmer worm; wife,mother, researcher. (@thepalmerworm) October 22, 2026

What I want to fix your attention on is the vast overall movement towards the discrediting, and finally the elimination, of every kind of Human Excellence--moral, cultural, social, or intellectual.  And is it not pretty to notice how Democracy (in the incantatory sense) is now doing for us the work that was once done by the most ancient dictatorships, and by the same methods?  You remember how one of the Greek dictators (they called them 'tyrants' then) sent an Envoy to another dictator to ask his advice about the principles of government.  The second dictator led the envoy into a field of corn and there he snicked off with his Cane the top of every stock that rose an inch or so above the general level.  The moral was plain.  Allow no preeminence among your subjects.  Let no man live who is wiser, or better, or more famous, or even handsomer than the mass.  Cut them all down to a level; all slaves, all ciphers, all nobodies.  All equals.  Thus, tyrants could practice, in a sense, 'democracy'.  But now 'democracy' can do the same work without any other tyranny than her own.  No one need now go through the field with a cane.  The little stalks will now of themselves bite the tops off the big ones.  The big ones are beginning to bite off their own in their desire to Be Like Stalks.

The Screwtape Letters, 1942, C.S. Lewis; also includes Screwtape Proposes a Toast, C.S. Lewis, 1959.  

The Screwtape Letters, 1942: A series of fictional letters from a senior demon, Screwtape, to his nephew Wormwood, advising him on tempting a human being away from Christianity.

Screwtape Proposes a Toast, 1959: A separate satirical essay in which Screwtape addresses newly graduated tempters at a dinner. Lewis uses the speech to criticize modern education, democratic culture, and the manipulation of public opinion.

Why the distinction matters: Screwtape Proposes a Toast is often published alongside The Screwtape Letters in combined editions, which can make it appear to be another chapter. It was originally published separately in 1959.

POPE PIUS XII: Equality degenerates to a mechanical leveling, a colorless uniformity; the sense of true honor, of personal activity, of respect for tradition and dignity-in a word all that gives life its worth-gradually fades away and disappears.

Pope Pius XII on how mass democracy turns liberty into licentiousness and tyranny:

"Against this picture of the democratic ideal of liberty and equality in a people's government by honest and far-seeing men, what a spectacle is that of a democratic state left to the whims of the… pic.twitter.com/jIfe2qXQYa

— The Old World Show (@theoldworldshow) September 20, 2026

Pope Pius XII, 1876-1958, [WWII Pope, 1939-1958] on how mass democracy turns liberty into licentiousness and tyranny:

Against this picture of the democratic ideal of liberty and equality in a people's government by honest and far-seeing men, what a spectacle is that of a democratic state left to the whims of the masses! Liberty, from being a moral duty of the individual, becomes a tyrannous claim to give free rein to a man's impulses and appetites to the detriment of others. Equality degenerates to a mechanical leveling, a colorless uniformity; the sense of true honor, of personal activity, of respect for tradition and dignity-in a word all that gives life its worth-gradually fades away and disappears. And the only survivors are, on one hand, the victims deluded by the specious mirage of democracy, naively taken for the genuine spirit of democracy, with its liberty and equality; and on the other, the more or less numerous exploiters, who have known how to use the power of money and of organization in order to secure a privileged position above the others, and have gained power.

This quote is recorded in the fantastic book Nobility and Analogous Traditional Elites, which covers social hierarchy in the Christian tradition, including the American tradition. [A website.]

The Amazon blurb reads, 

Since the eighteenth century, generations have been schooled in utopian principles proclaiming total equality as the guarantor of liberty and justice for all. The egalitarian myth of a classless society was proffered as the unquestionable path down which mankind must travel to reach perfect social harmony. This book does much to shatter these myths and provide a Catholic approach to the way society should be structured as seen by the Popes.

JOHANNES M. KOENRAADT: "equality" with the rest of the world has meant the loss of . . . status.

What makes White women so desperately masculine and nasty is that their "equality" with the rest of the world has meant the loss of their status.

This was totally obvious to anyone who spent a moment thinking about "equality". But White women in general don't want to give up… pic.twitter.com/qp3PHRq0mL

— Johannes M. Koenraadt (@johannesmkx) August 24, 2026

What makes White women so desperately masculine and nasty is that their "equality" with the rest of the world has meant the loss of their status. This was totally obvious to anyone who spent a moment thinking about "equality". But White women in general don't want to give up their status as the world's material beneficiaries. Perhaps they thought equality meant "no more violence" or no "brown class revolution against the White women". Perhaps they thought employing brown people at lower rates was somehow the same thing as "helping poor people to a better life". I guess it really never occurred to most White women that equality means you have to live in poverty at the level of the Third World. But now they can't let go of this equality thing anymore without looking racist--since they voted to pass the laws against racism, and they voted for open borders.

White women set their own downfall in motion, but now there's only one thing they can do: blame men.