A New Remnant Series, With Apologies to C.S. Lewis...

How to Surive at Screwtape U

By Jason Morgan

Author's Note: Please don’t confuse these letters—collectively titled "How to Survive at Screwtape U"—with satire.

These are missives from the front lines of the culture wars, the wars we keep sending our kids off to fight every time we sign a check to a university bursar’s office. "Higher education" in the United States today is a pastiche of left-wing brainwashing, bullying, bloviating, and bathos. These letters are keyholeviews into the minds of our children’s tormenters.

But there’s hope! Yes, our schools have been hijacked by cultural Marxists and taxpayer-funded Maoists and Leninists.

What you may not know is that, beneath the scarved-and-horn-rimmed exterior of every tenured radical, there is a wilting mess of insecurity and contradiction.

So don’t get angry at the left—laugh at them. And teach your kids to laugh at them, too. If you must send your child to a secular college—for example, if you live on Neptune and Neptune State U. is all you’ve got—then send them off with these letters in their pocket. Reading them may preserve their sanity, just as writing them preserved mine. –

Jason Morgan

Letter One: The Project

Dear Blair, Your mom tells me that you’ve decided to go to college. I couldn’t be happier. You’ve made a wonderful choice.As you know— or will soon find out—your Christian upbringing has hampered your ability to think, feel, and thrive. College will wring that repressed past out of you like you were a wet mop. Before long, you’ll be free to make up your own mind, and the world, to mix metaphors, will be your oyster. I am so proud of you for having done the right thing. As the resident academic in the family (and the only one—and this is not coincidental— to escape from the dungeon of churchgoing and see the light of pure reason), I feel it incumbent upon me to write you a series of letters over the next few months, gathering my thoughts on your impending release from your traditionalist captivity and thereby giving you some pointers on how you can really succeed in college. These are going to be some of the best years of your life. I’ve been down that road, too, so I’m taking the time to reflect on my own experiences in order to help you amplify yours.

I know, I know. College hasn’t even started yet, and already the lectures are underway, you must be thinking. But that’s where you’re wrong! That’s how things used to be, but college has changed so much since your mom and I were in school. There are no more lectures, really, and no more wrong answers or even hard studying or the pressures of exams. College is a state of being, a mindful presence amidst some really smart people. If you play your cards right, you could even end up reclining on that pantheon’s couch yourself someday.

So, I encourage you not to look at these letters as being preachy (Gaia forbid!) or out of touch. Indeed, I want you to get in touch, with your inner learner, and lead that person out to bask in the radiant inclusivity that you’ll find at Necker U.This is gonna be one helluva ride, kid. So, stop taking notes, and let your old Uncle Joe do the thinking for you!

I’ll write more soon. In the meantime, start making preparations to leave that household, both physically and spiritually.

Think of it as packing your parachute. Silk rustles, so do it as secretly as you can. One good place to start might be in adopting an attitude of silent contempt for the goingson at church. Try it this Sunday. Whatever that sexually-repressed pastor says from the pulpit, mentally append the two letters, "BS!" to the end of each of his sentences.

If you listen to guys like that, you’ll never have any fun, and you’ll sure as hell never succeed in college!

This is your time to shine, kid. Get ready!

Love, Uncle Joe ▀