My dear Wormwood,
I’ve noticed in your last letter that insubstantial remark where you indicated that you’ve been directing your patient towards YouTube. I see that you’ve hidden the phrase in the ending paragraph; I hope, not in some feeble attempt to obscure the information. I require more details on this subject.
Are the videos he watches the sort we wish him to watch? I know that the patient has so far spurned this age’s delightful habits as regards pornography (remember to stroke his pride on that account): Is there a compromise we can lead him into? Many, indirectly led by the ingenious campaign of the lower levels, act as a sort of halfway point. Whereas these YouTubers are not denuding themselves, at least publicly, it cannot go unnoticed, even by a junior tempter such as yourself, that the language, body movements, and dress of these “hosts” are designed to excite a male audience. Though there is nothing wrong with this on the surface, see if your patient’s lust cannot be inflamed. What is it to us if your patient lusts after a fully clothed woman while watching videos in a Starbucks or lusts after the nudes of a Playboy in his basement? Both equally serve our purpose.
But that is only a child’s game. The real treasure we tempters have in YouTube and other such Social Media, as those feeble human creatures call it, is the poisoning of the patient’s social nature. See if you cannot, while the Enemy would doubtless want the patient engaged in that monstrous activity of being in the world but not of it, being a sort of transmitter of that abominable lie the Enemy calls love, see if you can indeed isolate him. The patient, one must never forget, is an animal, and as such, has natural drives, drives the Enemy designed for good, which we must twist so as to direct the patient into our father’s house. Your patient is driven by desires to reach out to other humans, to form relationships, but these desires are blind; they can be easily met without giving the patient any real connection to others via YouTube and Facebook and Twitter and all the rest.
I fear you will not yet comprehend. It is really rather simple. Any sin we tempt a patient towards is in essence tricking the patient away from what he truly wants to what we want him to want. Man desires bread, and we teach him to eat rocks. The fact that we have a new battleground does not really change what we have been doing for eternity. What the Enemy wants for the patient is for him to connect: connect with friends, family, and ultimately, the Enemy wants for the patient to connect with Him. Natural animal instincts will lead the patient to the first two; we want to corrupt that process. Teach his instincts to regard likes as real attention, empty comments as discussion, and teach him to pretend, though never for once let it slip into his conscious mind, that the “hosts” he watches actually know and care about him. What should be the personal and living experience of interacting with others can then become an empty well, one his desire for real connection will then be habitually pumping in desperation.
Be wary lest this solitude produces in your patient a contemplative spirit; in his loneliness he may reach out to the Enemy all the more, and indeed, the Enemy has at times used solitude to grow his disgusting connection with the earthly creatures he loves.
Your Affectionate Uncle,
Screwtape
Tale Told 