“All power yearns towards totality, and only authority stands in the way, [including] the moral authority of individual human beings who have their bearings” (Zuboff 404). Such is the reality that Mark recognizes in Chapter 14 of That Hideous Strength, as Professor Frost attempts to numb his humanity, replacing basic intuition with hardened rationalism. In this pivotal moment, Mark’s desperation to be a member of N.I.C.E.’s inner-circle is (at last) stymied by his own internal convictions. In rejecting this mental conversion effort, Mark shows his chest and spine, guided by an innate “moral authority,” which Lewis would refer to as “The Tao.” With his fundamental humanity threatened, Mark Studdock is finally able to shake his crippling insecurity.
Frost, true to his surname, promotes a frigid philosophy in which “external standards of value” and “emotions” are “preposterous idea[s]” (Lewis 293) worth discarding in the pursuit of human advancement and the perfection of society. Shoshana Zuboff, Harvard professor and author of The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, would assert that powerful tech companies (i.e. Google and Facebook) traffic within the same faulty guard-rails. Their motives loosely parallel N.I.C.E.’s, with both entities craving control of future development and interaction.
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