S5E3 – TFL 2 – “Likings and loves of the sub-human” (Part I)

The team begins Chapter 2 of The Four Loves, which is entitled “Likings and loves of the sub-human”. This chapter will be read over the course of three episodes and in this episode Lewis examines the subject of pleasure and distinguishes Need-pleasures and Pleasures of Appreciation.

S5E4: “Likings and loves for the sub-human” – Part I (Download)

Show Notes

Introduction

Quote-of-the-week

“Need-love cries to God from our poverty; Gift-love longs to serve, or even to suffer for, God; Appreciative love says: “We give thanks to thee for thy great glory.”

C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves (Chapter 2)

Chit-Chat

• Andrew’s Updates
  • Preached about the Widow’s Mite this morning
  • C. S. Lewis Retreat talks have been titled! 3-4 Dec.
  • Annie’s Dad (Nardon)
  • Most Reluctant Convert extended through Nov 18th

• Matt
  • The Great Divorce FPA / Max Mclean
  • Shoutout to Michelle

• David
  • Well, firstly I wanted to give a shout-out to Anna, our first Patreon support in Denmark…
  • I also wanted to let people know that we’re putting together a video and that we would like their help! 
  • The video will be in honour of William O’Flaherty, whose website, EssentialCSLewis.com, and podcast, All About Jack, are celebrating their ten year anniversary. 
    • William appeared on our show in Episode 4 of last season to talk about his Screwtape book…
    • …but he also wrote The Misquotable C.S. Lewis, where he debunks many of the common C.S. Lewis misquotations you’ll find on the Internet. 
  • I thought it would be fun if we recorded ourselves reading some of the popular misquotations and, after each one, have a clip of a different listener shaking his or her head and saying something like “That’s not Lewis!”
    • So, if anyone listening would like to be part of this project, all you need to do is send us a video clip of yourself expressing your disapproval at hearing a misquotation. 
    • …all of the details can be found by going to PintsWithJack.com/misquote.

Beverage and Toast

• Andrew
  • PG Tips and Speckled Hen
• Matt
  • Blended Whisky from Lossit Distillery – opened in 1816 and closed in 1867
• David
  • St. Francis Claret

Recap & Summary

Recap

We’ve covered the first chapter of The Four Loves, which was the Introduction…

There, Lewis dissected love in a few different ways, focussing on  Need-love and Gift-love, and he spent some time defending the claim that Need-love really is a love.

He also identified two different kinds of closeness to God, nearness-by-likeness (which is immutable and baked-in) and nearness-by-approach (which is changeable and involves the will).

Towards the end of the chapter, Lewis told us that when the loves are at their best, they have a nearness-by-likeness, making it very easy to mistake them for something divine. He warns us that when our loves become gods, they become demons and even cease to be loves at all!

Summary

In the first part of Chapter 2, Lewis considers “pleasures”… He divides pleasures into those which must be preceded by desire (Need-pleasures) and those which don’t requires it (Pleasures of Appreciation) He says Need-pleasures “die on us” quickly, whereas “Pleasures of Appreciation” are longer-lasting, and they make us feel like somehow we owe the object in question our attention and reverence.

Jack then connects Need-pleasures to the Need-loves of Chapter 1, and says that Pleasures of Appreciation both foreshadow beauty, and also fosters a kind of disinterested love which Lewis adds to our list of categories and calls “Appreciative Love”.

S5E4 Episode Summary

Discussion

1. “Need-pleasures” and “Pleasures of Appreciation”

Lewis begins Chapter 2 by pointing out the distinction between “Like” and “Love”, noting that some languages don’t even have separate words for the two concepts. And while the pedants and the pious might demand a strict demarcation between the two words, Jack notes that we still nevertheless talk about “loving” things such as foods and hobbies. He says that this is because:

…there is a continuity between our elementary likings for things and our loves for people. 

C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves (Chapter 2)

Quoting the maxim from The Imitation of Christ about the highest not standing without the lowest, Jack says he wants to talk about “mere likings”, and since liking something means to take pleasure in it, he begins to look at pleasures. Much like in Plato’s Republic, Lewis gives us a taxonomy…

He notes that pleasures can be bifurcated, firstly into those which are automatically pleasures in their own right, and secondly into pleasures which must first be preceded by desire. He calls these “Pleasures of Appreciation” and “Need-pleasures”.

Need-pleasures e.g. A glass of tap water after mowing the grass on a hot day

Pleasure of Appreciation e.g. The unexpected scent of a bean field or sweet-peas when taking a walk.

You were in want of nothing, completely contented, before it; the pleasure, which may be very great, is an unsolicited, super-added gift.

C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves (Chapter 2)

He does concede that there can be complicating factors in this taxonomy. He gives two examples:

1. Firstly, if I expect water and get a nice coffee or beer, then I have both a Need-pleasure and a Pleasure of Appreciation.
2. Secondly, there’s the issue of addiction, which can turn a Pleasure of Appreciation into a Need-pleasure. Considering a nice glass of wine, he says:

…the alcoholic, whose palate and digestion have long since been destroyed, no liquor gives any pleasure except that of relief from an unbearable craving… he rather dislikes it; but it is better than the misery of remaining sober.

C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves (Chapter 2)

(It’s hard to not read this section without thinking of Lewis’ brother, Warnie, who struggled with alcoholism for much of his life)

Despite this, Lewis thinks that this classification system of pleasures still works well enough.

2. Connecting Pleasures and Loves

Now, even just by calling one time of pleasures Need-pleasures, Lewis says that the reader is going to connect them to the Need-loves we’ve read about in previous weeks. However, he notes a rather curious tendency…

In Chapter 1 we heard that people are tempted to praise Gift-loves and dispraise Need-loves, even going so far as to deny that Need-loves are loves at all! By contrast, in this chapter, Jack says that people have a tendency to praise Need-pleasures and dispraise Pleasures of Appreciation. Why is this? Well, he says that… 

[Need-pleasures are] so natural (a word to conjure with), so necessary, so shielded from excess by their very naturalness, [Pleasures of Appreciation] …unnecessary and opening the door to every kind of luxury and vice. 

C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves (Chapter 2)

Lewis discusses the word “natural” in Studies in Words, which is his next published book after The Four Loves.

Regarding luxury and vice he goes on to say that…

If we were short of matter on this theme we could turn on the tap by opening the works of the Stoics and it would run till we had a bathful.

C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves (Chapter 2)

The Stoics were a philosophical school in ancient Greece, founded by Zeno of Citium (3rd/4th Century BC). Its main idea was that virtue and happiness can be attained only by submitting to destiny and the natural law. The stoics would attempt to foster indifference to both pleasure and pain. The “works” which Lewis has in mind here would probably be the works of Seneca (4-65 CE), Epictetus (c. 50-138) and Marcus Aurelius (121-180).

Jack offers some words of caution and listeners to this show will have heard us quotation many times. Andrew, it only seems appropriate that you do the honours…

…throughout this inquiry we must be careful never to adopt prematurely a moral or evaluating attitude. The human mind is generally far more eager to praise and dispraise than to describe and define. It wants to make every distinction a distinction of value; hence those fatal critics who can never point out the differing quality of two poets without putting them in an order of preference as if they were candidates for a prize

C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves (Chapter 2)

Lewis goes on to say that we shouldn’t do this kind of ranking with regards to the pleasures because “The reality is too complicated”. He also says that the very fact that we’ve already seen in this chapter that addictions can turn Appreciative-pleasures into Need-pleasures should be warning for us enough. 

3. Need-pleasure Analysis

The point Lewis has wanted us to get out of the chapter so far is that pleasures, and hence their “likings”, foreshadow characteristics of our “loves”. So, Lewis begins to do some analysis…

He notes that when we talk about Need-pleasure, we typically make statements about ourselves in the past tense (“By Jove, I wanted that”). However, when talking about Appreciative-pleasures, we usually make statements about the object in the present tense (“How lovely the smell is”, “This is a great wine”).

Lewis then quotes from a Shakespearean Sonnet (#129) on the evils of Lust. Lewis comments that even the most innocent of Need-pleasure have something of a similar quality:

…they certainly “die on us” with extraordinary abruptness, and completely.

C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves (Chapter 2)

He gives a few examples to prove his point:

• Once we’ve slaked a ravenous thirst, we don’t care about the tap water.
• We respond to the smell of frying food very differently depending upon whether we’ve just eaten.
• …and even the relief of finding a toilet when you’re desperate!

…if you will forgive me for citing the most extreme instance of all, have there not for most of us been moments (in a strange town) when the sight of the word GENTLEMEN over a door has roused a joy almost worthy of celebration in verse?

C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves (Chapter 2)

4. Appreciative-pleasure Analysis

So, Jack has concluded that our Need-pleasures “die on us” very quickly, but he says that Pleasures of Appreciation are not like this at all. He says that they don’t just gratify the senses, but claim by right our appreciation! He gives the example of a wine connoisseur drinking claret…

He feels that here is a wine that deserves his full attention; that justifies all the tradition and skill that have gone to its making and all the years of training that have made his own palate fit to judge it. There is even a glimmering of unselfishness in his attitude. He wants the wine to be preserved and kept in good condition, not entirely for his own sake. Even if he were on his death-bed and was never going to drink wine again, he would be horrified at the thought of this vintage being spilled or spoiled or even drunk by clods (like myself) who can’t tell a good claret from a bad.

C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves (Chapter 2)

He says it’s the same thing with the unexpected smell of sweet-peas while out walking. It seems a crime to not delight in it! Lewis even says that someone might remember that moment many years later and be sad if that garden is ever replaced.

So, here we have a contrast… 

• Need-pleasures make it clear to us that they are relative, not only to our human frame, but also to our temporary states. Outside of those moments, they’re basically irrelevant.
• Pleasures of Appreciation make us feel like we owe the objects our praise.

Lewis now turns to the subject of how these pleasures foreshadow their related loves…

5. Need-pleasure Foreshadowing

He says that the foreshadowing of Need-loves by Need-pleasures is pretty obvious. In both cases, the object of love is seen in relation to my own needs. Both Need-pleasure and Need-love are fairly short lived.

However, the need can be recurrent and Jack also introduces the idea that another kind of love can be “grafted” onto the Need-love to preserve it for a lifetime. He gives the examples of fidelity, piety and gratitude. It’s worth noting here that Lewis’ love taxonomy just got a bit more intricate as he introduced these other kinds of love. However, he concedes that, left to its own devices, Need-loves will die on us…

That is why the world rings with the complaints of mothers whose grown-up children neglect them and of forsaken mistresses whose lovers’ love was pure need–which they have satisfied.

C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves (Chapter 2)

Because we always need God, our Need-love for Him cannot ever really go away, now or in eternity. However, our awareness of it can grow dull. This reminded me of a scene in the movie Dogma which I mentioned last in an episode last season, where a fallen angel laments his state, saying that the absence of the divine presence pains him, whereas humans can just ignore it.

Jack then quotes a proverb, versions of which go back to the Medieval era: 

“Aegrotavit daemon, monachus tunc esse volebat;
daemon convaluit, daemon ut ante fuit” 

“When the Devil was ill, he wished to be a monk;
when the Devil recovered, he was a Devil just as before.”

Medieval Proverb

Lewis doesn’t call such short-lived piety hypocritical, those whose religious fever dies away when “danger, necessity, or tribulation” is over (a reference to the Book of Common Prayer). He asks:

Why should they not have been sincere? They were desperate and they howled for help. Who wouldn’t?

C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves (Chapter 2)

6. Appreciative-pleasure Foreshadowing

Lewis now turns to the Appreciative pleasure and what it foreshadows… and this is where we’ll end today.

Jack says that Appreciative pleasures are the starting point of beauty, and he doesn’t draw a sharp distinction between “sensual” and “aesthetic”.

There is no frontier – there is seamless continuity – between the sensuous pleasure of garden smells and an enjoyment of the countryside (or “beauty”) as a whole, or even our enjoyment of the painters and poets who treat it.

C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves (Chapter 2)

He also notes that in Appreciative pleasures there’s the beginnings of a disinterestedness. He clarifies what he means. He doesn’t mean disinterestedness in the action whereby a wounded soldier would forego a cup of water in order to give it to a dying soldier, like Sir Philip Sidney (16th Century Soldier). He is referring to…

…the feeling which would make a man unwilling to deface a great picture even if he were the last man left alive and himself about to die; which makes us glad of unspoiled forests that we shall never see; which makes us anxious that the garden or bean-field should continue to exist. We do not merely like the things; we pronounce them, in a momentarily God-like sense, “very good.”

C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves (Chapter 2)

…and discovering this makes Lewis say that his approach, starting at the “lowest”, is vindicated! He asks us to update our taxonomy from the previous chapter. We not only have Need-love and Gift-love, but the kind of love which Appreciative pleasures foreshadow, namely Appreciative-love.

… this attention (almost homage) offered to it as a kind of debt, this wish that it should be and should continue being what it is even if we were never to enjoy it, can go out not only to things but to persons. When it is offered to a woman we call it admiration; when to a man, hero-worship; when to God, worship simply.

C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves (Chapter 2)

He then distinguishes our key three loves by describing them in relation to a woman:

Need-love says of a woman “I cannot live without her”;

Gift-love longs to give her happiness, comfort, protection – if possible, wealth;

Appreciative love gazes and holds its breath and is silent, rejoices that such a wonder should exist even if not for him, will not be wholly dejected by losing her, would rather have it so than never to have seen her at all.

C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves (Chapter 2)

Lewis concludes that even this picture he’s painted of three loves isn’t as simple as he makes it out to be. He begins by quoting “The Tables Turned” by William Wordsworth::

We murder to dissect. In actual life, thank God, the three elements of love mix and succeed on another, moment by moment.

C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves (Chapter 2)

…and says that the only love which may ever exist alone is Need-love because, as we saw in Chapter 1, our human neediness (of God and each other) is permanent.

Next week we’re going to look at the first of two impersonal loves, beginning with love of Nature.

Wrap-Up

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