A Brief Comparison of Rand’s Toohey and Lew’s Screwtape
Even though Ayn Rand would have probably have been appalled by this comparison, Toohey's advice is very similar in many ways to that of the devil-like character in C S. Lewis's Screwtape Letters, wherein the devil-like character writes to his nephew, a lesser, novice devil, on how to demoralize and weaken the religious faith of his human victims.
I say Rand would have been appalled because of course she was an ostensible atheist, while Lewis was a prominent Christian. I say "Ostensible atheist" because there are places in Rand's writings that suggest some non-atheistic features of her thought. At one point in the Fountainhead someone says of Roark that though he will say he does not believe in God, he really does. Rand has also written somewhere that "God is a psychological reality". Isn't that a type of belief?
There are differences between Screwtape and Toohey, however. Whereas Toohey is trying to destroy humankind's hope and spirit, Screwtape's aim is to corrupt human souls, and, ultimately, to lead them to damnation (in the Christian theology).
This brief comment was inspired by the youtube video at
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