C.S. Lewis on Individuality

The following is a long quote from Screwtape Proposes a Toast on the topic of individuality in modern society. Lewis' thought on this subject is much like Kierkegaard's.

"Now this useful phenomenon [I'm as good as you] is in itself by no means new. Under the name of Envy it has been known to the humans for thousands of years. But hitherto they always regarded it as the most odious, and also the most comical, of vices. Those who were aware of feeling it felt it with shame; those who were not gave it no quarter in others. The delightful novelty of the present situation is that you can sanction it-make it respectable and even laudable-by the incantatory use of the word democratic.

Under the influence of this incantation those who are in any way inferior can labor more wholeheartedly and successfully than ever before to pull down everyone else to their own level. But that is not all. Under the same influence, those who come, or could come, nearer to full humanity, actually draw back from it for fear of being undemocratic. I am credibly informed that young humans now sometimes suppress an incipient taste for classical music or good literature because it might prevent their Being like Folks; that people who would really wish to be-and are offered the Grace which would enable them to be-honest,chaste,or temperate, refuse it. To accept might make them Different, might offend again the Way of Life, take them out of Togetherness, impair their Integration with the Group. They might (horror of horrors!) become individuals."