The other day, I ran across a passage from “That Hideous Strength” that seems oddly applicable to our time. A dystopian novel written by C. S. Lewis at the close of World War II, “That Hideous Strength” finds one of its main characters, Mark Studdock, working for N.I.C.E., an organization that pulls the strings in a controlling, totalitarian society. Studdock is assigned to write propaganda articles for N.I.C.E., an assignment which he objects to when he receives it from his boss, Miss Hardcastle. Studdock argues that it won’t work because newspapers “are read by educated people” too smart to be taken in by propaganda. The story continues: “‘That shows you’re still in the nursery, lovey,’ said Miss Hardcastle. ‘Haven’t you yet realized that it’s the other way round?’ ‘How do you mean?’ ‘Why you fool, it’s the educated reader who can be gulled. All our difficulty comes with the others. When did …