Worsen the better

Whenever we find that our religious life is making us feel that we are good - above all, that we are better than someone else - I think we may be sure that we are being acted on, not by God, but by the devil.

C. S. Lewis

Using religion to elevate oneself above others debauches the nature of faith.  A spiritual pride imparts not virtue, but a corruption of compassion and wisdom.  It obscures both the true nature of the observer and the observed; and serves to promote a venal mindset.  Selling integrity for self aggravation squanders morality and purchases the squalid comfort of feigned superiority; a bargain where only evil gains.  Humility demands a recognition  of one's own shortcomings, along with an acceptance that each person must deal with their own demons.  

One can't sanctify personal vice by the desecration of others; this only worsens the better of both.

Little big ones

Democracy demands that little men should not take big ones too seriously; it dies when it is full of little men who think they are big themselves.

C. S. Lewis

The smallness of stature prevails among many politicians.  This wouldn't be tragic, if they would acknowledge their diminutive nature, and act accordingly.  There exists, however, a breed of political animals that flourishes in the discordant and belligerent environment that dominates today.  These people have bloated themselves with self importance; forsaking humility in a mad pursuit of power.  Their willful ignorance blinds them to realistic self appraisal; and fuels egotistical behaviors based on an inflated self image.  As such, they reject compromise and accommodation as beneath their dignity, clamoring instead for ever increasing control over the civic policy by any means necessary.  

Thus, the process of democracy dies, killed by the aristocratic demands for domination.  In the pursuit of winning, even a the cost of chaos, a republic lies slaughtered.  Scavengers pick at the carcass; gorging themselves on the carrion that was a commonwealth.  

In the name of "freedom" the little big ones make the mountains of liberty into minuscule molehills of tyranny- and laud themselves as giants in such a land.

Tumor of the times

For pride is spiritual cancer: it eats up the very possibility of love, or contentment, or even common sense.

C. S. Lewis

Willful ignorance depends upon more that just a lack of knowledge; it requires a rancid pride to sustain it against the reality it denies.  Of all failings, pride remains the most pernicious, the most intractable, and the most destructive vice common to all humans.  It breeds contempt, it spawns both arrogance and indifference; it is a disease as infectious as it is persistent in the minds of the many.  Pride proclaims compassion weakness; it devours the capacity to empathize with others; and it happily exterminates the capability to forgive.  

When pride overshadows humanity, the ensuing darkness cloaks vice in an impenetrable gloom; obscuring self reflective considerations that might mitigate ignorance and hatred.  Allowed to spread unchecked, pride consumes faith, hope and charity; ravaging rationality and temperance in an ever increasing desire to obtain power at any cost.  

Pride has become the tumor of the times; a malignant malady of the spirit that must be excised lest it kills those who cherish it.