The Weight of Glory and Other Addresses

In this chapter, Lewis presents himself as a “middle-aged moralist” advising young people on their path of life, sharing inside knowledge about the way the world works. His talk has a significant element of warning. Lewis’s conviction that a few of his audience will end up as “scoundrels” reflects his abiding conviction of human fallibility. However, he wants at least to forestall this possibility. Lewis uses his insider’s knowledge of the academic world to speak about the danger of social inner circles. The material in the chapter has significant thematic parallels with That Hideous Strength, the third novel in Lewis’s Space Trilogy, published in 1945 (“The Inner Ring” was delivered at King’s College in December 1944). Dealing with a “secret society” bent on altering human nature, the dystopian novel gives concrete fictional application to the principles explored in the essay.

Lewis’s analysis of inner rings reflects his moral realism and frankness about human nature. Lewis insists that the desire to belong to the inner ring is universal, takes many different forms (it is not limited to the stereotypical Victorian “snob”), and is often subtle and well hidden. This heightens the argument’s rhetorical appeal by reassuring listeners that they are not unique in their fallibility. However, it also means that escaping the influence of inner rings requires active resistance; simple apathy or going along with the crowd will lead one to become an “inner ringer.” When it comes to inner rings, what matters is not so much active belonging as inner moral disposition. In this way, Lewis asks his audience to search their own lives for signs of the desire. Lewis intensifies this personal aspect by asking his audience a “rhetorical question”: whether they can recall any morally good result coming out of their desire to belong to the inner ring. The implied answer is “no,” but Lewis invites listeners to arrive at that conclusion themselves.

Ultimately, Lewis traces the desire to the human need to be needed and respected—to “matter” in the greater scheme of things. Inner rings are thus part of human nature and not intrinsically evil. However, Lewis stakes a claim that the desire to be part of an inner ring should be suppressed, as it can lead to evil for the individual and society. In particular, Lewis declares the desire for inner rings to be elusive and incapable of being satisfied—a recurring argumentative move in The Weight of Glory, in which Lewis often rejects an idea because it is self-defeating or self-contradictory. However, Lewis does not merely condemn this desire. He offers an alternative: constructive contribution to one’s profession that can lead to true friendship. Although the essay is less overtly religious in subject matter and lens than many in the collection, this implicitly touches on the theme of The Challenges of Living Faith in Community: Since humans have an inherent need for community, part of the project of Christian existence is to find a way to fulfill that need in a way that nurtures rather than suppresses one’s true, spiritual life.