We bought a glorious tree of the sort I once called a Filostrato Tree. The purchase and the wonder that followed buying an artificial tree meant I was wrong and my brother was right. That’s bad enough, but after some thought it made me realize I had missed an important point in my favorite novel: That Hideous Strength by over focusing on the example at the expense of the message. The message is vital if we are to find happiness in this life and the life to come Here is the scientist Filostrato discussing his plans for our planet:
I’m rather fond of trees myself.” “Oh, yes, yes,” replied Filostrato. “The pretty trees, the garden trees. But not the savages. I put the rose in my garden, but not the brier. The forest tree is a weed. But I tell you I have seen the civilized tree in Persia. It was a French attaché who had it because he was in a place where trees do not grow. It was made of metal. A poor, crude thing. But how if it were perfected? Light, made of aluminum. So natural, it would even deceive.” “It would hardly be the same as a real tree,” said Winter. “But consider the advantages! You get tired of him in one place: two workmen carry him somewhere else: wherever you please. It never dies. No leaves to fall, no twigs, no birds building nests, no muck and mess.” “I suppose one or two, as curiosities, might be rather amusing.” “Why one or two? At present, I allow, we must have forests, for the atmosphere. Presently we find a chemical substitute. And then, why any natural trees? I foresee nothing but the art tree all over the earth. In fact, we clean the planet.”
Lewis, C. S.. That Hideous Strength: (Space Trilogy, Book Three) (The Space Trilogy 3) (Kindle Locations 3387-3398). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.
I thought the big problem in this passage was the desire to replace the real trees with “artificial trees” and that is not good in this context, but the true evil is the desire of this particular man to “clean up” the world and order it on “scientific” grounds. CS Lewis is not opposing science, but a bad man using a good tool (science) to do evil things. Just as religion (even one that tells us to “love our enemies”) can be messed up, so science (based on reason) can become an excuse for doing harm. Filostrato wants powers over people. As Lewis argues in many of his other works, power over nature just amounts to power over people.
We are part of nature!
Filostrato and his co-conspirators created a political organization that wishes to replace trees with objects they made. They want to remake the world in their own image, leaving the rest of us no choices. They also are thoughtless about the nature of things as they are. This haste to “fix” things ignores all the roles a natural object may play in God’s ecosystem. We kill polar bears and do not worry what polar bears might be doing . . . or if polar bears have a right to exist on their own terms. We cease to be stewards of creation and become tyrants.
In fact, the real Christmas tree can be a Filostrato tree if we go to the forest and take a tree that is beautiful in its natural setting, doing God’s good work that trees are given to do, and put it in our house. Of course, we have tree farms so that need not be a problem if we are careful, but note that no matter what we do, decorating our house is a creative act. We forget that a creative act is also a destructive act: taking what was and transforming it. The real tree can be well used, stewarded, or misused. We can use the wood to shape a manger or a cross.
Our “real” tree is a creative act. It is made something new: a Christmas tree. Our “artificial” tree is a creative act where scientists (one hopes good ones!) shaped other parts of nature to make a work of art that we decorated as we wished. This company may have done badly, polluting by creation, just as the wood chopper may have done poorly by cutting down a tree that should not have been removed. Most important, society has allowed my family choice and we chose to have a real tree (properly harvested) and an artificial tree as the base for our creation of Christmas trees. It was jolly fun.
We create, study, and use power as people, but this must always done with care. We need not reject change and the artificial need not be fakery. Still we need not do a thing, because we can. Perhaps the tree should be left where it is in the forest or the factory not built just there spoiling the view. Yet the world can also be decorated and made beautiful by our use of science, freedom, and art.
I reject a Filostrato tree, symbol of tyranny and power, and embrace the Christmas tree, a symbol of power given up voluntarily by God Himself.
Read That Hideous Strength.
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