Book Review: The Abolition Of Man

The Abolition Of Man, by C.S. Lewis

Many writers of an intellectual inclination look down from the lofty Olympian heights of philosophy or literary criticism and view writing directed towards children as being beneath their dignity. Fortunately for his own worth as a writer, and for those who either are young people or who care deeply about their education and well-being, this particular book exists as an extended critique of the contemporary spirit that can be found in our textbooks, in which people sneer at the ancient virtues or at the Way of God, and who come to biblical and other traditional texts only to debunk, as supposed paragons of criticism, rather than to sit humbly at the feet of the wise and learn as students. In this very brief, barely 100 pages, if it includes the lengthy description of how “the way,” including the golden rule, is described in many religious sources [1], and very quotable book [2], we see the extended reply of a logical and spiritual man to the immense folly of a supposedly advanced textbook, which C.S. Lewis received as a complimentary copy, disguising the author and the book so as not to shame those whose fashionable nonsense he so mercilessly skewers.

The contents of this book are very straightforward. First, there is an essay on men without chests, pointing to the fact that so much of contemporary education seeks to create in students a snug disregard for traditional morality, so that students are reared and encouraged in becoming scoundrels, without honor or nobility. Next, C.S. Lewis points to the existence of “the way,” that body of morality that is known by general revelation, not perfectly in some of its channels but recognizable enough so that people who follow it are able to live decently and recognize the decency of others who walk it, even from different cultures, as a result of their obedience to what others term the “natural law.” The third essay looks at the attempt to dominate nature as leading to the abolition of man, because nature itself has been viewed as a mere commodity or a mere object, stripped of all dignity and value and worth, and so by seeking to dominate nature, we show ourselves to be mere brutish beasts, and not rational men at all, a rather chilling thought [3].

In the body of C.S. Lewis’ work [4], this book serves as a brief but topical volume, not as well-known or as wide-ranging as Mere Christianity, but certainly more closely unified than collections like God In The Dock. In that it addresses concerns of great importance, namely social morality, and the education of children to learn proper ways of behavior, it is a book of vital importance. This is true even though Lewis himself concedes that he does not enjoy the company of small children and properly considers this a defect, even if little children are often rather rambunctious and extremely silly. Even so, this book demonstrate that at the core of education, even about such seemingly trivial matters as English Literature, is a concern for deeper matters of the sublime and noble, or the ridiculous and ominous, that are the deepest matters of theology and philosophy. We ignore what is being taught to children at our own peril; thankfully, C.S. Lewis did not ignore such matters in his own wide-ranging body of work.

[1] See, for example:

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2016/03/18/book-review-sacred-stories/

[2] See, for example:

“A lesson which had laid such literature beside the advertisement and really discriminated the good from the bad would have been a lesson worth teaching. There would have been some blood and sap in it—the trees of knowledge and of life growing together. It would also have had the merit of being a lesson in literature: a subject of which Gaius and Titus, despite their professed purpose, are uncommonly shy (7).”

“The right defense against false sentiments is to inculcate just sentiments. By starving the sensibility of our pupils we only make them easier prey to the propagandist when he comes. For famished nature will be avenged and a hard heart is no infallible protection against a soft head (14).”

“And all the time—such is the tragi-comedy of our situation—we continue to clamour for those very qualities we are rendering impossible. You can hardly open a periodical without coming across the statement that what our civilization needs is more ‘drive’, or dynamism, or self-sacrifice, or ‘creativity’. In a sort of ghastly simplicity we remove the organ and demand the function. We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honour and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful (26).”

“In actual fact Gaius and Titius will be found to hold, with complete uncritical dogmatism, the whole system of values which happened to be in vogue among moderately educated young men of the professional classes during the period between the two wars. Their skepticism about values is on the surface: it is for use on other people’s values; about the values current in their own set they are not nearly skeptical enough. And this phenomenon is very usual (29).”

“However far they go back, or down, they can find no ground to stand on. Every motive they try to act on becomes at once a petition. It is not that they are bad men. They are not men at all. Stepping outside the Tao, they have stepped into the void. Nor are their subjects necessarily unhappy men. They are not men at all: they are artifacts. Man’s final conquest has proved to be the abolition of Man (64).”

“We have been trying, like Lear, to have it both ways: to lay down our human prerogative and yet at the same time to retain it. It is impossible. Either we are rational spirit obliged forever to obey the absolute values of the Tao, or else we are mere nature to be kneaded and cut into new shapes for the pleasures of masters who must, by hypothesis, have no motive but their own ‘natural’ impulses. Only the Tao provides a common human law of action which can over-arch rulers and ruled alike. A dogmatic belief in objective value is necessary to the very idea of a rule which is not tyranny or an obedience which is not slavery (73).”

[3] See, for example:

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2016/03/17/ficken-ist-frieden/

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2011/08/09/dignity/

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2016/03/14/a-judicial-temperament/

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2016/03/11/you-never-once-talked-turkey-to-me/

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2016/02/17/between-how-it-is-and-how-it-should-be/

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2016/02/05/the-crushing-weight-of-castles-in-the-air/

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2015/12/07/a-womans-work/

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2015/11/28/writing-like-killing-is-always-personal/

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2015/08/15/i-dont-want-to-stay-where-the-blames-all-mine/

[4] See, for example:

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2016/03/11/audiobook-review-c-s-lewis-at-war/