Language as a Tool of Temptation

The Screwtape Letters

This flow follows how fashionable labels and misleading definitions obscure moral choices across the letters.

increasing

Bearing strength in each event

decreasing

Jargon Replaces Argument Jargon Replaces Argument from "The Screwtape Letters". Words Without Judgment Fashionable Terms Screwtape recommends making materialism seem strong, modern, or courageous rather than proving it true.

Jargon Replaces Argument from "The Screwtape Letters". Words Without Judgment Fashionable Terms Screwtape recommends making materialism seem strong, modern, or courageous rather than proving it true.

Words Without Judgment Fashionable Terms Screwtape recommends making materialism seem strong, modern, or courageous rather than proving it true. Labels can decide the patient’s allegiance before he considers an argument. Effect Language changes what questions seem important. A doctrine can be accepted as socially current without being examined for truth.

Phase and Progress Phase and Progress from "The Screwtape Letters". A Belief Dismissed by Label Reclassification Wormwood is encouraged to call Christianity a phase.

Phase and Progress from "The Screwtape Letters". A Belief Dismissed by Label Reclassification Wormwood is encouraged to call Christianity a phase.

A Belief Dismissed by Label Reclassification Wormwood is encouraged to call Christianity a phase. The label turns a present conviction into a supposedly immature stage without answering whether it is true. Historical Habit Ideas of progress and development make the patient feel superior to beliefs he has supposedly outgrown. Language replaces judgment with an untested story about personal advancement.

Humility Misdefined Humility Misdefined from "The Screwtape Letters". A Virtue Recast False Definition Screwtape wants the patient to define humility as believing that his talents are worthless.

Humility Misdefined from "The Screwtape Letters". A Virtue Recast False Definition Screwtape wants the patient to define humility as believing that his talents are worthless.

A Virtue Recast False Definition Screwtape wants the patient to define humility as believing that his talents are worthless. This confuses truthfulness with self-denial and keeps attention fixed on personal evaluation. Consequence The patient can become trapped in an endless attempt to believe what he knows to be false. A misleading definition corrupts a virtue from within.

Unselfishness Replaced Unselfishness Replaced from "The Screwtape Letters". The Negative Ideal Vocabulary The word unselfishness can direct attention toward the renunciation of one’s own wishes rather than another person’s actual good.

Unselfishness Replaced from "The Screwtape Letters". The Negative Ideal Vocabulary The word unselfishness can direct attention toward the renunciation of one’s own wishes rather than another person’s actual good.

The Negative Ideal Vocabulary The word unselfishness can direct attention toward the renunciation of one’s own wishes rather than another person’s actual good. It sounds virtuous while concealing rivalry. Conflict A couple may each fight for the other’s supposed preference and secretly resent the outcome. Language disguises self-righteousness as generosity.

Reality Named Selectively Reality Named Selectively from "The Screwtape Letters". The Word Real Manipulation Screwtape advises using real to mean bare physical facts when joy or spiritual experience might help the patient, then emotional…

Reality Named Selectively from "The Screwtape Letters". The Word Real Manipulation Screwtape advises using real to mean bare physical facts when joy or spiritual experience might help the patient, then emotional…

The Word Real Manipulation Screwtape advises using real to mean bare physical facts when joy or spiritual experience might help the patient, then emotional shock when suffering might corrupt him. Exposure The shifting definition makes pessimism seem uniquely honest. The patient’s final recognition exposes the inadequacy of a vocabulary that excludes spiritual reality.

Before the patient’s conversion

During the patient’s loss of religious fervor

After the patient becomes more modest in his expectations

During the discussion of courtship and marriage

During the patient’s experience of wartime destruction