Podcast Summary: The Hillsdale College Online Courses Podcast

Episode: Totalitarian Novels: Science and Bureaucracy in That Hideous Strength
Date: April 23, 2025
Hosts: Jeremiah Regan, Juan Davalos
Featured Lecturer: Dr. Larry Arnn
Main Text Discussed: C.S. Lewis, That Hideous Strength

Episode Overview

This episode explores Lecture 8 on C.S. Lewis's That Hideous Strength as part of a series on totalitarian novels. The conversation centers on the novel’s treatment of science, bureaucracy, and the susceptibility of “educated” society to propaganda and ideological manipulation. The hosts, with Dr. Larry Arnn and students, examine how Lewis’s satirical depiction of the National Institute for Coordinated Experiments (N.I.C.E.) warns about scientism, the loss of common sense, and the importance of ordinary life and resilient human goods—like marriage, community, and reason—in resistance to totalitarianism.

Key Themes & Discussion Points

1. Education, Propaganda, and the “Educated” Class

• Lewis’s Satire of Journalism and Propaganda

  • Mark Studdock and Fairy Hardcastle pre-write op-eds about a staged riot: one in plain language for the popular press, another verbose and abstract for the elite.
  • Mark believes it’s harder to deceive the educated; Hardcastle disagrees, insisting, “These educated folks will believe anything we put in front of them as long as we make them feel smarter.” (00:22, Jeremiah Regan paraphrasing)

• Modern Parallels

  • Concerns raised about modern universities as “centers of propaganda.” (01:39, Juan Davalos)
  • Discussion on how education devoid of nature and common sense leads to “ideologies that are separate from reality.” (01:53, Juan Davalos)

• Science as a New Idolatry

  • Jeremiah Regan points out the misuse of “believe the science” as dogma:

    “It's a new type of religious idolatry. And this book goes a long way in proving that it's a bad source of truth.” (03:02, Jeremiah Regan)

2. The Importance of Ordinary Life and True Liberal Education

• Grounding in Nature and Reality

  • Classical liberal education, as championed at Hillsdale, keeps students rooted in nature and reality, preventing detachment into ideology. (03:19, Juan Davalos)

• Virtue in the Mundane

  • The “resisters” in That Hideous Strength—those who oppose the N.I.C.E.—spend their time in ordinary things: “eating together, praying, singing, gardening, cultivating their marriages.” (03:49, Jeremiah Regan)
  • Intellectual excellence is pursued, but preparation for resisting evil is shown to come from fulfillment of ordinary responsibilities.

3. Marriage, Duty, and Self-Sacrifice

• Debate on the Portrayal of Marriage

  • Excerpt discussed: Mother Dimble to Jane on the director’s (Ransom's) views of marriage—critiqued as “fuss about something so simple and natural.” (05:59, Guest Speaker)
  • The concern: Mark seems unworthy of Jane’s eventual self-sacrificing love.

    “I would like your position on marriage within this book because I don't find the resolution at the end to be a compelling view of what marriage should look like.” (06:12, Guest Speaker)

• Arnn’s Response: Christian Mutual Obedience

  • Marriage as mutual obedience and a unity where one’s own happiness is not the main concern.
  • Mark is transformed: “He had decided to give her her freedom on the ground that he was unworthy of her. That's not not caring about her. He'd made a promise when he married her...”
    (09:40, Dr. Arnn)
  • Both parties in marriage “will be stronger now that they have learned to obey each other.” (14:26, Dr. Arnn)

4. Science, Bureaucracy, and the Inner Ring

• Satire of Bureaucratic Science

  • At N.I.C.E., "everything is reduced to the scientific method... [as if] the only real knowledge is that demonstrated by the scientific method"—a view critiqued as self-refuting and inhuman. (07:26, Dr. Arnn)
  • The “pragmatometer” is mocked as a device to display “the state of the truth” in real time, demonstrating the folly of bureaucratic control over knowledge.

• Corruption of Institutions and the Ideology of Experts

  • Dr. Arnn: “Expert knowledge is narrow knowledge, and no one can be an expert on the range of things that have to inform every practical decision. Common sense... is a better guide.” (08:36, Dr. Arnn, referencing Churchill)

• Manipulation of the Educated vs. Common People

  • Fairy Hardcastle’s quote is highlighted:

    “Why, you fool. It's the educated readers who can be gulled. All our difficulty comes with the others... the educated public... don't need reconditioning. They'll believe anything.” (15:12, Student quoting Fairy Hardcastle)

5. Objectivity, Dehumanization, and the Loss of Reason

• “Objectivity” as Anti-Nature

  • Frost’s reeducation of Mark seeks to kill human reactions, pushing for an “asceticism of anti-nature.” (21:14, Student)
  • Comparison to 1984:

    “In 1984... the abnegation of human reason and the law of contradiction is a theme... In this book the theme is a form of that, a version of it, less stark.” (22:07, Dr. Arnn)

• The Bureaucracy as Hell

  • The institution is described in terms echoing The Screwtape Letters—everyone jockeys for power, trust evaporates, and ultimately, the regime collapses into infighting and self-destruction.
    “This is not that kind of regime. It's hell. And that's a form of human rule. And it's a bad form. It's the worst form.” (27:13, Dr. Arnn)

• The Inner Ring and Corruption

  • Lewis’s “Inner Ring” is discussed: the desire to belong corrupts; Mark’s spaniel-like attitude is a warning.

6. Redemption and the Role of Choice

• Contrast Between Mark and Rubachev (Darkness at Noon)

  • Mark’s conversion seen as possible because he’s young; Rubachev, old and irredeemable.

    “If Mark had stayed at Balberry, he would have become Rubachev.” (31:44, Dr. Arnn)

  • Arnn invokes Aristotle: “You are the most substantial force in the making of yourself... your wants have to be disciplined and guided by something that's good objectively.” (31:41, Dr. Arnn)

• The “Straight” vs. the “Crooked”

  • Crookedness of the N.I.C.E. and its environment becomes the negative contrast by which Mark—and the reader—recognizes what is “straight and the normal... not the crooked and the strange.” (28:48, Dr. Arnn)
  • The power of the novel genre to teach by negative example emphasized.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Science as Dogma
  “It's a new type of religious idolatry. And this book goes a long way in proving that it's a bad source of truth.”
  — Jeremiah Regan (03:02)

• On Educated Susceptibility
  “These educated folks will believe anything we put in front of them as long as we make them feel smarter.”
  — Fairy Hardcastle (paraphrased by Jeremiah Regan, 00:22–01:10)

• On Ordinary Life
  "Lewis shows us those who are resisting the nice spend most of their time doing ordinary and natural things... eating together with their friends, talking, praying, singing hymns and songs, gardening, cultivating their marriages... Lewis is pretty subtle in showing us that a lot of that preparation comes from doing the regular, normal, ordinary responsibilities of human life."
  — Jeremiah Regan (03:49)

• On Marriage & Self-Sacrifice
  "Marriage is a mutual obedience. Right. The Bible says you become one person. You do. And it isn't about what you get from the marriage. You don't think of it that way."
  — Dr. Arnn (07:51)

• On Bureaucratic Science
  "We're going to reduce everything to the scientific method... we're going to have some big board up and they call it a pragmatometer... and the results are going to be assembled in real time. So we can, I guess, look at the board and see the state of the truth. It's kind of dumb, isn't it?"
  — Dr. Arnn (08:14)

• On the Loss of Reason
  “This is not that kind of regime. It's hell. And that's a form of human rule. And it's a bad form. It's the worst form... it’s related to arbitrary rule. Cause that's what Wither has... In the end that means that they're all waiting to turn on each other.”
  — Dr. Arnn (27:13)

Key Timestamps for Important Segments

• 00:22 – Op-ed satire and educated gullibility at N.I.C.E.
• 01:39 – Modern parallels: universities and propaganda
• 03:19–03:49 – The grounding influence of liberal education and ordinary life
• 05:59–14:54 – Marriage, mutual obedience, and Lewis’s “resolution”
• 15:12–16:37 – Fairy Hardcastle on deceiving the educated, common sense as defense
• 21:14–28:48 – Objectivity, anti-nature, and bureaucratic hell
• 31:31–39:16 – Redemption, comparison to Rubachev, inner ring, closing reflections

Final Thoughts

This episode situates That Hideous Strength not just as a dystopian novel but as a vital parable for our times—a warning against the seductions of ideology, scientism, and bureaucratic rationality. Dr. Arnn and the Hillsdale team underscore the necessity of ordinary affections, classical education, and the conscious choice to pursue the good to resist the encroachments of totalitarian thought. The episode is peppered with memorable dialogue, lively anecdotes, and deep engagement with both C.S. Lewis’s vision and its contemporary resonances.