Ponderings on "The Abolition of Man"

Last week I read through a short book entitled The Abolition of Man. Upon completion, my head was spinning from the exercise of attempting to track with its author's (C. S. Lewis) logic. The following week I listened to the audio version (as well as some lectures from Hillsdale College) which helped considerably. I am currently reading through it again because this book is that important. There is no question: we are observing the fulfillment of Lewis's prophecies day by day.

Lewis starts off The Abolition of Man by addressing a small quotation from an educational work for "the upper forms of schools" (what he calls the Green book) which states in summary that our feelings having no real relation with things outside of us. Lewis takes this small statement and shows how, when it follows its logical path, will inevitably lead to the abolition of man.

Lewis argues that If we teach the young that our emotions do not correlate with anything outside of us we will create a new generation of "men without chests"—individuals without any real passion, without the traditional "seat of magnanimity" to respond to those objective qualities that exist outside of us. These qualities Lewis refers throughout the book as the "Tao" (meaning natural law). He ends the first chapter saying that by denying the existence of all objective truth, we remove the organ while simultaneously demanding its function. We say there is no such thing as "good" while we insist the children "be good for goodness sake!" "We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful."

As the previous generations and cultures understood this transcendent rule, Lewis says, "they did not cut men to some pattern they had chosen. They handed on what they had received: they initiated the young neophyte into the mystery of humanity that over-arched him and them alike. It was old birds teaching young birds to fly." Lewis then warns of the drastic implications of education when "The Way" is denied: "This will be changed. Values are now mere natural phenomena. Judgements of value are to be produced in the pupil as part of the conditioning. Whatever Tao there is will be the product, not the motive, of the education."

As the argument continues, Lewis predicts that the only things subsequent generations will be able to be passionate for will be some severed portion of the Tao imposed on them from those in power. We will see a lot of emotionalism, but instead of it correlating with hard truths like objective morality and objective beauty--the emotions will relate with "values" that are selected by the rulers and storytellers and "ridden to death" by the masses.

And what do we see today? Instead of people lacking emotions for causes outside of them (which is the logical result of an honest embrace of modernism), we actually see emotion in considerable excess driven towards certain things such as "equality" or "sexual liberation" or "racial guilt". These "values" have no logical foundation from worldview assumed, because the modernist denies the reality of there actually being anything objective at all. If there is nothing really right or wrong, why do we decry inequalities? Why do we care so much about that greedy 1%? But, since we have denied that feelings have any relation to anything that is actually right or wrong--these select "values" are drummed up by the powerful (university professors, celebrities, entertainment) who from the outside select these portions of the Tao "arbitrarily wrenched from their context in the whole and swollen into madness by their isolation."

Lewis then goes to show how this eventually will lead to the abolition of man. We will eventually reach the climax of innovation and progress, which will in fact become the nadir of humanity--because there will be no humans left! The last line will be crossed, and like nature we will once again become. Lewis mentions these secret intentions throughout That Hideous Strength, which is actually a good book to pair with The Abolition of Man. In That Hideous Strength we see a full rejection of the Tao by the powerful NICE. We observe unhindered progress going further and further into the insidious culmination of the Head. This is the great end of liberalism. This where the ultimate revolution ends.

There are undeniable echoes from Chesterton throughout Lewis and, in this work in particular, there is no doubt he had a direct influence on Lewis. There is a beautiful quotation in Heretics where Chesterton argues that the believing of concrete dogmas is perhaps the most human trait. "If there be such a thing as mental growth, it must mean the growth into more and more definite convictions, into more and more dogmas." It is the grass that lacks opinions. "Trees have no dogmas. Turnips are singularly broadminded." The ability to reason, argue, and stand by things outside of us requires that there are things outside of us that are actually good, true, and beautiful to stand by. If you take that away, you really take away everything. There is no longer any reason to do anything but surrender to our basic animal instincts. The moral results will be tragic as we already observe today. "When all that says 'it is good' has been debunked, what says 'I want' remains."

We have yet to see if the madness will indeed crescendo to a babel-esc ending similar to the conclusion in That Hideous Strength.