Change or be changed — that is the motto under which N.I.C.E. operates. Humanity’s true triumph and ascendence is only achieved when “nature herself begins to throw away the anachronism. [This is when] real civilization becomes possible” (Lewis 170). The hyper-rational N.I.C.E. members are apostles to this creed, believing themselves to be the ultimate catalysts of mankind’s “inevitable future.” In adhering to this worldview, they bely C.S. Lewis’ tri-pronged model (head, heart, and stomach working in harmony to form our moral compasses) for how natural law functions, seeking to dismiss the Tao through an almost religious fervor for science.
Lewis consistently tells his audience that this trajectory is destined, and that it will result in a gradual tragedy, which he refers to as “the abolition of man.” Polish political veteran Ryszard Legutko would assert that the roots of this “abolition” are already peeking through the soil, watered and gifted sunlight by communists, socialists, and modern liberal-democrats (mostly focused on European liberal-democrats). In The Demon in Democracy, he exposes their parallel disdain for tradition and natural order. He accuses both of “dislik[ing] communities for their alleged anachronism and, for that reason, thought them, because deep-rooted, to be the major obstacles to progress” (Legutko 92). Former communist officials and so called “liberal-democrats,” Legutko argues, have railed against dissenters, traditional family structure, and individualism, embodying the same rigid ideology which Lewis foresaw in That Hideous Strength.
In an eerily similar fashion, N.I.C.E. and its loyal minions seek to eradicate St. Anne’s on the Hill, because it represents the “Old Order,” and therefore threatens their subjective view of how the future MUST come to fruition. This mythically-oriented commune is dominated by tradition, community, and agrarianism — all direct and symbolic threats to N.I.C.E. and its frigid, technological strides towards progress. They are two dipoles, and operate as foils in the ideological sense, hence why they view each other’s existence as purely threatening.
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