A Prescient Thought by C.S. Lewis

The 50th anniversary of the death of C.S. Lewis was three days ago (the same day as the 50th anniversary of the death of JFK). I saw the passage from his writings that I have pasted below in a number of different articles and blog posts noting the occasion, including one by Steven Hayward (currently a scholar at the University of Colorado). As Hayward notes, it was prescient:

• Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.