A way to cultivate obedience

A quote from C.S. Lewis in A Preface to Paradise Lost:

"The very fact that pompous is now used only in a bad sense measures the degree to which we have lost the old idea of 'solemnity'. 

"To recover it you must think of a court ball, or a coronation, or a victory march, as these things appear to people who enjoy them; in an age when every one puts on his oldest clothes to be happy in, you must re-awake the simpler state of mind in which people put on gold and scarlet to be happy in.  

"Above all, you must be rid of the hideous idea, fruit of a wide-spread inferiority complex, that pomp, on the proper occasions, has any connection with vanity or self-conceit. A celebrant approaching the altar, a princess led out by a king to dance a minuet, a general officer on a ceremonial parade, a major-domo preceding the boar's head at a Christmas feast—all these wear unusual clothes and move with calculated dignity. ; they are obeying the hoc age which presides over every solemnity.  

"The modern habit of doing ceremonial things unceremoniously is no proof of humility; rather it proves the offender's inability to forget himself in the rite, and his readiness to spoil for everyone else the proper pleasure of ritual."

This quote from C.S. Lewis had a profound effect on my moral imagination.  In particular the sentence that suggests that those that are submitting to the details of a tradition are being obedient, not vain. While I do know that a ceremony can be a cause of pride, I also know, from personal experience, that spontaneity can just as easily - perhaps more easily - be a source of pride.


Quote link found here .