The Abolition of Man

Over the holiday break I found no better way to close 2018 than re-reading C.S. Lewis’s The Abolition of Man.  This was particularly meaningful as 2018 marked the 75th anniversary of the book’s publishing. After three-quarters of a century, The Abolition of Man, originally titled The Abolition of Man:Reflections on Education with Special Reference to the Teaching of English in Upper Form Schools, has been lauded by literary critics and academics alike. Notably, The National Review and The Intercollegiate Studies Institute, two beloved institutions here at The Review, both rank this work in their top ten best books of the 20th century.  Nevertheless, even as C.S. Lewis’s other, more overtly religious works, namely Mere Christianity and The Great Divorce, have enjoyed newfound popularity among groups of young, born-again Christians both at the College and across the country, The Abolition of Man has remained a somewhat obscure love of great-generation academics. This is quite unfortunate as The Abolition of Man, despite its age, remains incredibly applicable to the lives of young students, regardless of whether or not they subscribe to Lewis’s Christian beliefs.

The Abolition of Man was not intended to be a book at all; C.S. Lewis delivered it as a series of three evening lectures at King’s College in 1943. The three lectures, entitled “Men Without Chests,” “The Way,” and “The Abolition of Man” now comprise the three chapters of the book. The first lecture “Men Without Chests” is a rebuke of two teachers whom Lewis refers to as Gaius and Titius and their publication “The Green Book.” Lewis adopted these pseudonyms in order to preserve the anonymity of the men and book he was critiquing, now largely believed to have been Alexander King and Martin Kently and their publication The Control of Language: A Critical Approach to Reading and Writing. Lewis’s choice to use to pseudonyms in his critique had an unintended consequence: expanding the application of Lewis’s argument. Instead of being a specific condemnation of King and Kently, “Men Without Chests” is now a critique of philosophical folly in the education system of the whole. The primary philosophy folly that Lewis identified in The Green Book is a callous dismissal of values. He takes issue with a seemingly innocuous passage in which Gaius and Titius criticize English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s description of a waterfall as sublime. Gaius and Titius argue that there is nothing about the waterfall that is objectively “sublime” in the same what that is could be called objectively large. They conclude that the adjective “sublime” does not describe the waterfall, but rather Coleridge’s feelings towards the waterfall, and therefore should be omitted from his description. Lewis argues that this conclusion, when carried to its fullest philosophical extent (as a young student is always want to do), will result in the dismissal of value itself. Lewis asks his readers to not dismiss him as pedantic, but rather to consider the proposition for themselves. If values such as sublimity or beauty or bravery are not measurably qualities that can be entirely objectively applied to any object, then Gaius and Titius relegate to mere whims of the writer. Under the best circumstances, the young students reading The Green Book will take the text at face value and will merely regard these values as unworthy of their attention; under the worst they will dismiss value from their consciousness entirely in a misguided attempt at self refinement. This endeavor to be led solely by the rational or the objective, Lewis argues, is like a body whose mind is strong buts whose supportive chest withers away, hence the title of the chapter “Men Without Chests.”

In the next two chapters, “The Way” and “The Abolition of Man,” Lewis details the potential ramifications should Gaius and Titius amature philosophy gain traction in society. First Lewis introduces the concept of the Tao, the sum total of all global value systems, eastern and western, religious and otherwise. Here Lewis acknowledges and indeed lauds the existence of virtues independent of any specific religious or cultural tradition. This independence allows the Tao have such a broad reach that it is entirely comprehensive, so much so that Lewis believes that all ideas fall into one of two categories: within the Tao or without it. Lewis states that men like Gaius and Titius who counsel skepticism of the Tao are both operating outside of the Tao and outside of basic reason itself. While he agrees with the sentiment that the mind of a young student should be critical of his surrounding influences, he also argues that this criticism must be used prudently. Used imprudently, an over-zealous student could start chipping away at the Tao while looking for a more foundational human understanding than these virtues when in fact none exists. He echos a core American ideal when he states that while the search for evidence is necessary in many fields, there also exist certain truths that are self-evident. A love and understanding of these self-evident truths, the virtues of the Tao are what call man to rise above the base and animalistic world; they are the defining feature of our species. Thus, an abolition of universal value necessitates the abolition of man.

If students are not sufficiently moved by the desire to preserve man, then perhaps they can be compelled to retain universal values by Lewis’s final argument in this masterpiece. Lewis calls on students to think of sight as an analogous quality to the knowledge that they claim to speak, as to see something clearly is the best way to know it. Using the same analogy, to look for a justification for knowledge that like the Tao is inherent to society is just a way of seeing through it. Having established this thought experiment Lewis closes remarking, “If you see through everything, then everything is transparent. But a wholly transparent world is an invisible world. To ‘see through’ all things is the same as not to see.”