Who was "Cleon"?

[Christopher J. Henrich]

C. S. Lewis wrote an essay titled "After Priggery – What?". It begins
by describing a very scurrilous journalist, to whom Lewis gives the
pseudonym "Cleon." "Cleon is a wicked journalist, a man who
disseminate for money falsehoods calculated to produce envy, hatred,
suspicion and confusion." Wow. Every time I have read this I have
wondered, who can that be? (The essay was published in 1945.)

Does anybody know, or have a guess?

[Star]

On Thu, 01 Jun 2006 18:37:51 GMT, "Christopher J. Henrich"

C. S. Lewis wrote an essay titled "After Priggery Ð What?". It begins
by describing a very scurrilous journalist, to whom Lewis gives the
pseudonym "Cleon." "Cleon is a wicked journalist, a man who
disseminate for money falsehoods calculated to produce envy, hatred,
suspicion and confusion." Wow. Every time I have read this I have
wondered, who can that be? (The essay was published in 1945.)
Does anybody know, or have a guess?

H G Wells? He and Lewis were pretty hostile to each other at times,
from what I can gather.

[Dan Drake]

Post by Star
On Thu, 01 Jun 2006 18:37:51 GMT, "Christopher J. Henrich"

C. S. Lewis wrote an essay titled "After Priggery Ð What?". It begins
by describing a very scurrilous journalist, to whom Lewis gives the
pseudonym "Cleon." "Cleon is a wicked journalist, a man who
disseminate for money falsehoods calculated to produce envy, hatred,
suspicion and confusion." Wow. Every time I have read this I have
wondered, who can that be? (The essay was published in 1945.)
Does anybody know, or have a guess?

H G Wells? He and Lewis were pretty hostile to each other at times,
from what I can gather.

I seriously doubt it. Wells would not be likely to be described as a
journalist. Also, in Miracles, Lewis talks of Wells fairly respectfully.
In that passage (chapter 5) he speaks of Wells as having proper feelings
and a real desire to improve the lot of mankind. He uses it as a setup, if
you will, to make a case that Wells cna't have any rational grounds (on
his own beliefs) for behaving properly; but it's not the sort of treatment
Lewis would imaginably give to someone whom he considers as foul as Cleon.

Nor would I make it J B S Haldane, who quite seriously didn't get on with
Lewis; again, because Haldane was a scientist, not a journalist. But who
it would be, I don't know. Could well be someone now deep in deserved
obscurity; but I fear it's not so.

[lasf13]

I would guess "anyone at the Manchester Guardian"

C. S. Lewis wrote an essay titled "After Priggery Ð What?". It begins
by describing a very scurrilous journalist, to whom Lewis gives the
pseudonym "Cleon." "Cleon is a wicked journalist, a man who
disseminate for money falsehoods calculated to produce envy, hatred,
suspicion and confusion." Wow. Every time I have read this I have
wondered, who can that be? (The essay was published in 1945.)
Does anybody know, or have a guess?
--
Chris Henrich
http://www.mathinteract.com
The total lack of evidence is the surest sign that the conspiracy is working.

[Christopher J. Henrich]

Post by lasf13
I would guess "anyone at the Manchester Guardian"

C. S. Lewis wrote an essay titled "After Priggery ‹ What?". It begins
by describing a very scurrilous journalist, to whom Lewis gives the
pseudonym "Cleon." "Cleon is a wicked journalist, a man who
disseminate for money falsehoods calculated to produce envy, hatred,
suspicion and confusion." Wow. Every time I have read this I have
wondered, who can that be? (The essay was published in 1945.)
Does anybody know, or have a guess?

That is consistent with Lewis's conservative political views. I don't
know what the Manchester Guardian" was like in 1945; I have read its
successor "The Guardian" at various times from 1971 to 1992, and then
it seemed to me a decent, moderately liberal paper. It was not rabid,
and I did not notice it smearing individuals, which is what Lewis
accuses Cleon of.

I don't think "Goebbels," suggested by someone else, is likely. In the
context, Cleon is a Briton, prosperous and successful; people cultivate
his acquaintance.

[Dan Drake]

On Fri, 16 Jun 2006 02:53:56 UTC, "Christopher J. Henrich"

Post by Dan Drake
I don't
know what the Manchester Guardian" was like in 1945; I have read its
successor "The Guardian" at various times from 1971 to 1992, and then
it seemed to me a decent, moderately liberal paper. It was not rabid,
and I did not notice it smearing individuals, which is what Lewis
accuses Cleon of.
I don't think "Goebbels," suggested by someone else, is likely. In the
context, Cleon is a Briton, prosperous and successful; people cultivate
his acquaintance.

I always have trouble keeping Cleon and Creon and all those guys straight,
so I looked up Cleon: an Athenian politician, contemporary and bitter
enemy of Pericles, whom he accused of corruption, getting a conviction at
one point. He may or may not have been as bad as he's portrayed in
classical writings, but certainly the consensus when Lewis was educated
was that he was a serious baddie.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleon

I agree with both of the opinions above. All English newspapers are more
free with scurrilous opinions than respectable ones try, or claim, to be
in the US; but the Guardian was no Rude Pundit (*) of its day, and Lewis
was not so much into politics as to dismiss all socialists as moral scum.
If I had to lay a bet on one paper, it might be the Express, so pithily
described by His Royal Highness Prince Philip as "a bloody awful
newspaper"; but it could easily have been half a dozen other papers, of
any politics. One needs an expert in the journalism of the times to sort
through the worst columnists and calumnists, and find those whose profile
most nearly matches that of the historical Cleon.

Oh, by the way, Cleon (historical) was the guy who proposed the massacre
of the whole male population of Mytilene, an enterprise that was duly
approved and undertaken, but was canceled before being completed. Lewis's
Tory politics were not of the sort that approved that kind of thing, so we
need hardly look further to see whether his general distaste for Cleon was
justifiable or not. Whoever Lewis's Cleon was, we may make a working
assumption that he was quite excemptionally bloodthirsty; not that that
distinguishes him very well from other pundits of the lower sort.


(*) I am not giving the URL of this obscene leftie blog, which I name just
as an example of the existence of rudeness on both sides of the aisle.
Anyone who wants to sample it will have to look for it, and is forewarned.
Which is not to say that I don't enjoy reading it.

[Tim Bruening]

I would guess "anyone at the Manchester Guardian"

C. S. Lewis wrote an essay titled "After Priggery Ð What?". It begins
by describing a very scurrilous journalist, to whom Lewis gives the
pseudonym "Cleon." "Cleon is a wicked journalist, a man who
disseminate for money falsehoods calculated to produce envy, hatred,
suspicion and confusion." Wow. Every time I have read this I have
wondered, who can that be? (The essay was published in 1945.)
Does anybody know, or have a guess?

The only Cleon I know of is a fictional Emperor in Isaac Asimov's
Foundation Series. Cleon was on the throne when Hari Seldon was
developing his science of Psycho History, which can predict the future
of large populations of people, and predicted the fall of the Galactic
Empire within 500 years.

[Sherm Pendley]

C. S. Lewis wrote an essay titled "After Priggery Ð What?". It begins
by describing a very scurrilous journalist, to whom Lewis gives the
pseudonym "Cleon." "Cleon is a wicked journalist, a man who
disseminate for money falsehoods calculated to produce envy, hatred,
suspicion and confusion." Wow. Every time I have read this I have
wondered, who can that be? (The essay was published in 1945.)
Does anybody know, or have a guess?

From the time frame and job description, I'd guess Goebbels, Hitler's minister
of propaganda. I don't know that I'd call him as a "journalist" or not, but
the quoted passage is a very accurate description of his job.

Sorry if I've Godwined the thread... :-)

sherm--

[c***@yahoo.com]

Post by Sherm Pendley
Sorry if I've Godwined the thread... :-)

It never had -any- relavancy to Asimov, so it doesn't need Godwinning.

Watch you cross posts!

3ch