The Inner Ring (1944)

This is one of my all time favorite essays. Great to see it linked here. Best part: 'To nine out of ten of you the choice which could lead to scoundrelism will come, when it does come, in no very dramatic colours. Obviously bad men, obviously threatening or bribing, will almost certainly not appear. Over a drink, or a cup of coffee, disguised as triviality and sandwiched between two jokes, from the lips of a man, or woman, whom you have recently been getting to know rather better and whom you hope to know better still—just at the moment when you are most anxious not to appear crude, or naïf or a prig—the hint will come. It will be the hint of something which the public, the ignorant, romantic public, would never understand: something which even the outsiders in your own profession are apt to make a fuss about: but something, says your new friend, which “we”—and at the word “we” you try not to blush for mere pleasure—something “we always do.”'

This is a point which Lewis explored in fiction, through the trials of Mark Studdock in That Hideous Strength. Studdock has tried all his life to become part of that "Inner Ring," whether as a schoolboy, as part of the "Progressive Element" at Bracton, or in the (very ironically acronymmed) N.I.C.E., but, in the process, he has compromised a large part of himself, including his relationship with his wife.

(This is the third book in the "Space Trilogy," but it's the one that has the least to do with "space." Instead, it's chock full of Lewis' philosophies; the central theme of the story is straight out of The Abolition of Man. )

I read an excellent biography/history on Kim Philby (http://www.amazon.com/Spy-Among-Friends-Philby-Betrayal-eboo...) where the author drew on this essay in an attempt to explain Philby's motives for treason.

Born as a shoe-in into the establishment, the UK's inner ring if ever there was one, Philby wasn't satisfied with that, he had to be on the inner ring of the Intelligence community, and even that wasn't enough. He wanted to be (the author argues) on the inside, a club of one, by turning traitor and giving secrets to the Soviets. The great paradox about him as the author explained was while he was betraying he erstwhile stood for, he was still a great fan of all these institutions he joined. Even in exile in Moscow he wore his school tie, he followed 'his' cricket club, and he still seemed to think of his colleagues as friends. The bitter irony being for him there of course, he wasn't even trusted there by his Moscow masters, they always suspicious that he was a grand triple-agent in a British masterstroke.

A very good essay! What's interesting is that I have this vision of Richard Stallman as one of those people who has lived that conscious life and avoided inner rings, by standing by his principles.