C.S. Lewis- The Lie that Says "I'm as Good as You"

"You are to use the word (democracy) purely as an incantation...It is a name they venerate. And of course it is connected with the political idea that all men should be equally treated. You then make a stealthy transition in their minds from this political ideal to a factual belief that all men are equal. Especially the man you are working on. As a result you can use the word Democracy to sanction in his thought the most degrading...of all human feelings. You can get him to practice, not only without shame, but with a positive glow of self approval, conduct which, if undefended by the magic word, would be universally derided.

The feeling I mean is of course that which prompts a man to say I'm as good as you. 

The first and most obvious advantage is that you thus induce him to enthrone at the center of his life a good, solid resounding lie. I don't mean merely that his statement is false in fact, that he is no more equal to everyone he meets in kindness, honesty, and good sense than in height or waist-measurement. I mean that he does not believe it himself. No man who says I'm as good as you believes it. He would not say it if he did. The St. Bernard never says it to the toy dog, nor the scholar to the dunce, nor the employable to the bum, nor the pretty woman to the plain.

The claim to equality, outside the strictly political field, is made only by those who feel themselves to be in some way inferior. What it expresses is precisely the itching, smarting, writhing awareness of an inferiority which the patient refuses to accept.

And therefore resents. Yes, and therefore resents every kind of superiority in others; denigrates it; wishes its annihilation. Presently he suspects every mere difference of being a claim to superiority. No one must be different from himself in voice, clothes, manners, recreations, choice of food. 'Here is someone who speaks English rather more clearly and euphoniously than I- it must be a vile, upstage, la-di-dah affectation. Here's a fellow who says he doesn't like hot dogs- thinks himself too good for them no doubt...If they were the right sort of chaps they'd be like me. They've no business to be different. It's undemocratic...'

Under the influence of this incantation those who are in any or every 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 a full humanity, actually draw back from it for fear of being undemocratic. I am credibly informed that young humans now somethimes suppress an incipient taste for classical music or good literature because it might prevent their Being like Folks; that people who 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 against the Way of Life, take them out of Togetherness impair their integration with the Group. They might (horror of horrors!) become individuals." 

--C.S. Lewis, "Screwtape Proposes a Toast"