The Abolition of Man - Lewis

In Wildness is the Preservation of the World...

One cannot argue that C.S. Lewis deserves all of the accolades he has received about being one of the great intellectual forces of the 20th Century and certainly many of the criticisms as well.  To be a well loved intellectual force in the 20th Century one must also generate an equal and opposite force of intellectual hatred.  One need only read through the notes of Ayn Rand in the margins of her copy of “The Abolition of Man” to see her disdain for him and his thoughts.

Discounting the debate for now and discarding the veracity of Lewis’s universal set of guiding principles, the Tao, or the way, Lewis sets out to prove it’s objective truth, while acknowledging the proof itself can only be observed, not tested.  In the “Abolition of Man” Lewis presents three lectures to make his case.  His case is simply that the erosion of objective truth, by the subtle replacement of truth over time with the subjective feeling of man’s base desires, if left unchecked, will lead to our downfall and ultimately the demise of our species.

In Chapter 1, “Men Without Chests”, Lewis shows examples of the how the subtle replacement of objectivity with subjectivity will lead to men of hollow character.

In Chapter 2, “The Way”, Lewis introduces what he believes to be the universal set of truth that has distinguished men from anything else.  And those truths are not natural they are opposite to what we would find in nature if our selfish desires emerged.

In Chapter 3, “The Abolition of Man”, Lewis ties it all together, specifically attacking threats to the Tao, such as science,  which argues that knowledge of our true self, which in the absence of the Tao, would be no different from the instinct of animals and leads to the elimination of that which  makes us men.  

Clearly, what makes us men, and what Lewis does not argue directly, and I’m not sure why, is our soul.  Lewis is arguing the “The Abolition of Man” is the abolition of our soul.  The human species would persist, but akin to animals, versus our unique human-ness, that which makes us human.  Most attacks against Lewis thus come in the form that the soul itself is subjective simply because no one can prove it’s existence, therefore Lewis’s entire argument is a contradiction.  The existence of a universal Tao, can only be observed, it cannot be proven.  This is also subjective.  The debate becomes circular and ad infinitum as well as ad nauseam.  (I throw a little Latin because one benefit of reading C.S.Lewis is he always throws in a lot of Latin -  my favorite of his use of Latin comes early in this book, “pons asinorum”,  or a bridge of asses)

There is a poetic beauty in C.S. Lewis’s writing and everyone should read this book...the contradiction is what makes it fascinating.   Nothing is more poetic than in the third chapter where he builds toward his abolition crescendo taking us through a description of how man’s victories over nature (through science and technology) will ultimately be our downfall.  Of course he is speaking of the downfall of our soul.  The ironic beauty of this passage is he is describing evolution...more eloquently than any scientist could have at the time...I truly wonder if he understood this while he was writing it.   It is through evolution that, although we may lose our souls in the process, we will be rescued as a species.  In wildness is the preservation of the world (Thoreau).  It would be neat to see C.S. Lewis and H.D. Thoreau debate the “Abolition of Man”.

In Wildness is the Preservation of the World

One cannot argue that C.S. Lewis deserves all of the accolades he has received about being one of the great intellectual forces of the 20th Century and certainly many of the criticisms as well.  To be a well loved intellectual force in the 20th Century one must also generate an equal and opposite force of intellectual hatred.  One need only read through the notes of Ayn Rand in the margins of her copy of “The Abolition of Man” to see her disdain for him and his thoughts.

Discounting the debate for now and discarding the veracity of Lewis’s universal set of guiding principles, the Tao, or the way, Lewis sets out to prove it’s objective truth, while acknowledging the proof itself can only be observed, not tested.  In the “Abolition of Man” Lewis presents three lectures to make his case.  His case is simply that the erosion of objective truth, by the subtle replacement of truth over time with the subjective feeling of man’s base desires, if left unchecked, will lead to our downfall and ultimately the demise of our species.

In Chapter 1, “Men Without Chests”, Lewis shows examples of the how the subtle replacement of objectivity with subjectivity will lead to men of hollow character.

In Chapter 2, “The Way”, Lewis introduces what he believes to be the universal set of truth that has distinguished men from anything else.  And those truths are not natural they are opposite to what we would find in nature if our selfish desires emerged.

In Chapter 3, “The Abolition of Man”, Lewis ties it all together, specifically attacking threats to the Tao, such as science,  which argues that knowledge of our true self, which in the absence of the Tao, would be no different from the instinct of animals and leads to the elimination of that which  makes us men.  

Clearly, what makes us men, and what Lewis does not argue directly, and I’m not sure why, is our soul.  Lewis is arguing the “The Abolition of Man” is the abolition of our soul.  The human species would persist, but akin to animals, versus our unique human-ness, that which makes us human.  Most attacks against Lewis thus come in the form that the soul itself is subjective simply because no one can prove it’s existence, therefore Lewis’s entire argument is a contradiction.  The existence of a universal Tao, can only be observed, it cannot be proven.  This is also subjective.  The debate becomes circular and ad infinitum as well as ad nauseam.  (I throw a little Latin because one benefit of reading C.S.Lewis is he always throws in a lot of Latin -  my favorite of his use of Latin comes early in this book, “pons asinorum”,  or a bridge of asses)

There is a poetic beauty in C.S. Lewis’s writing and everyone should read this book...the contradiction is what makes it fascinating.   Nothing is more poetic than in the third chapter where he builds toward his abolition crescendo taking us through a description of how man’s victories over nature (through science and technology) will ultimately be our downfall.  Of course he is speaking of the downfall of our soul.  The ironic beauty of this passage is he is describing evolution...more eloquently than any scientist could have at the time...I truly wonder if he understood this while he was writing it.   It is through evolution that, although we may lose our souls in the process, we will be rescued as a species.  In wildness is the preservation of the world (Thoreau).  It would be neat to see C.S. Lewis and H.D. Thoreau debate the “Abolition of Man”.