Slaying the Zeitgeist Giant
by Robert P. Coutinho

The modern writer who has most influenced my religious and intellectual philosophy happens to be C. S. Lewis, and by a wide margin. One of his less-know novels was a take-off on the book, Pilgrim’s Progress. Lewis’ novel is titled The Pilgrim’s Regress. Lewis, true to the novel he was basing his work on, allegorically maps his road to Christianity in the work. His pilgrim (never named in the novel) is the narrator and comes upon a variety of challenges, hardships, characters and, of course, philosophies. The reason that I am giving this background is so that you can understand the context under which the pilgrim learned one of his greatest lessons.

During the pilgrim’s travels, he begins to meet people who do not believe in the Landlord (allegorical figure of God). The pilgrim is initially thrilled to death that the Landlord does not exist, because he feared being put into the dark cave where he would receive horrible punishments for all of his misbehavior (the pilgrim started off as a child in the book). To the pilgrim’s astonishment, whenever the naysayers are talking about the Landlord (and His non-existence) they keep insisting that those who are believers are engaging in wish fulfillment. One of the reasons that the pilgrim is sort of taken back is because, as mentioned before, he was kind of happy to find out that he did not have to worry about being punished by the Landlord, yet Mr. Mammon and the others include him in the group who are engaging in the intellectually-dishonest practice of wish-fulfillment.

At any rate, at one point the pilgrim enters a land, tries to leave, gets captured and put into a cave that was sort of a prison. This occurs in the land of the Zeitgeist Giant. Whenever the giant looked at anyone directly, one could see through that person almost as if using x-ray vision.

Disturbingly, the giant always looked at the prisoners whenever they were eating. This was rather disgusting as that meant that as one ate he had to see the processes that the body was using to digest all the stuff. One day the jailor tried to make a very bad joke about the food that was being offered. That day, the only item on the menu was milk. The jailor then compared that to other things that came out of women. That is when the pilgrim realized that the jailor was speaking nonsense, and told him so.

Immediately, a heroine, named Reason, arrived on a horse to challenge the Zeitgeist. The giant instructs his minions to allow her immediate passage—something that the pilgrim had been arrested for. Reason refuses passage and challenges the Zeitgeist to answer one of three questions. When the giant fails to answer any of the questions, Reason rides her steed up onto him and slays him. She then frees the pilgrim.

Afterward, the pilgrim asks Reason to explain about the questions she had asked the Zeitgeist. The one that I would like to address today is as follows:

On your way home, your wife sends you word that your enemy is heading to your home. She wants to know, should she burn the bridge now, or should she wait until you arrive, thus allowing your enemy to likely also cross it.

This is a question that Paul Ryan and many of the Republicans would fail to answer (and one hopes that Reason will at least thwart them, if not slay them entirely).

The answer lies in the nature of the bridge.

The various entities that the pilgrim had met had been insisting that he was engaging in wish fulfillment whenever he spoke about the Landlord. In addition, whenever he tried to use logic to challenge their beliefs, they dismissed his efforts, once again claiming that he was simply engaging in wish fulfillment and believing that the Landlord existed. In addition, whenever the pilgrim tried to use logic and facts, the ‘bad guys’ dismissed his arguments, citing the wish-fulfillment argument. But whenever they made claims, they used logic and facts to try support their arguments.

Then Reason turned to the pilgrim and asked, “Do you really think that all those people who denied the existence of the Landlord really wish that there was a Landlord?” The pilgrim cracks up laughing, realizing just how utterly screwed those people would be if the Landlord did exist and came calling for a reckoning.

Thus, the lesson of the bridge: if you intend to use a method in order to support your cause, it is always and everywhere allowed that your opponent should be permitted to use the same method. If Mr. Mammon (one of the characters in the book) was allowed to use facts, personal experience and logic to argue his point of view, then our pilgrim should be allowed to do so also. If it was possible that our pilgrim had been engaging in wish-fulfillment, then it was possible Mr. Mammon was too—albeit in the opposite direction.

Now getting to the current Zeitgeist.

If the Republican Party and its spokespeople are permitted to use lies, distortions, misdirections, and hypocritical arguments against Obama and the Democrats (and vice versa), then there is no reason that the Democrats should not be permitted the same tactics. However, as Reason from our novel would remind us, there IS a reason that they should not be permitted to use them.

If one side need not use facts and objective reality when speaking about how one should vote, based on events and actions, then there is no point in even discussing anything. [In the allegory, it would be burning the bridge before you got home.] If you are allowed to pull something out of your rectum and call that a legitimate argument, then I am permitted to do that same. We both end up covered in it, and our discussion can never get anywhere.

If we use falsehoods during our discussion, then we are incapable of teaching each other. If the most creative imagination is the one that is to be trusted, then there is no point in going on. The world is flat, the sky is blue because it holds back a bunch of water that will get pierced if we send anything to high in the sky, lightning is the wrath of Zeus—and, oh yeah, the gods told me that I am to be the next president of the United States, so you are all supposed to cast a write-in ballot for me. After I have taken office, I will make the land flow with milk and honey—and lots of prosperity too—and you need not ask me how, because that is only for us intellectual giants to know. You only need to know that I told you so.

I beg all of you readers, please do not vote for anyone (or any party) that has stated or implied that objective reality is not important. One clear example of that recently was when Neil Newhouse stated, “We’re not going to let our campaign be dictated by fact-checkers.” That should dictate that whichever campaign he is working on should be disregarded completely by all people who believe in Reason. (hint, he ain’t workin’ fer Obama). If facts (and those who check them) are in such disregard at that campaign, then the media should stop reporting anything that comes from the campaign. Why report on something that is simply made up? I can give those reporters all sorts of make-believe news items—and being an author of a fictional novel, I happen to believe that I could do it with more appeal.

At this point in this [searches for some sort of euphemism that does not use cuss words] fascinating election cycle, it no longer matters to me if both sides engage in distortions of the truth. Only one side has come out and stated that they are doing it deliberately, and I can not support that side. My Christian heritage will not allow me to follow such a party, as that would be the party of Satan, the Prince of Lies.

Robert Coutinho is a disabled pharmaceutical chemist living in Massachusetts. He has been learning about life, the universe, and everything since he was born in 1963. He has had little else to do since his disability began in 1997. He has written a fictional novel, Their Last Best Hope, which is currently available at Tate Publishing and will be available commercially on September 6, 2012.

UPDATE: Journalists are struggling with a form of this issue.