Hard Hearts And Soft Heads

For every one pupil who needs to be guarded from a weak excess of sensibility there are three who need to be awakened from the slumber of cold vulgarity. The task of the modern educator is not to cut down jungles but to irrigate deserts. The right defense against false sentiments is to inculcate just sentiments. By starving the sensibility of our pupils we only make them easier prey to the propagandist when he comes. For famished nature will be avenged and a hard heart is no infallible protection against a soft head (The Abolition of Man by C.S. Lewis, 2001, p13-14, originally published in 1944).

I don’t like stoicism. Teaching someone to be indifferent, with no sensibilities, no sentiments, and no emotion, simply opens them up to wrong kind of sensibilities, sentiments, and emotions.

The best defense to wrong sentiments is to have right sentiments. If you want to stop desiring the wrongs things, ending all desire won’t help at all. You can’t replace bad desires with no desire. You must replace bad desires with good desires.

A hard heart will not protect you against a soft head.

What do you think?
Joseph