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Title:
The Abolition of Man
Series:
(Non-Fiction)
Author: C.S. Lewis
Rating:
3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Philosophy
Pages:
66
Words: 21K
Publish: 1943
This
was a collection of three lectures that Lewis originally gave and
then collected into book format. It was mainly about moral relativism
and objectivity from a philosophical viewpoint.
I was not in a good head or heart place when I dove into this, but due to how I read, how I feel has no bearing on choosing which book to read. So that played a very big part on my reaction. I did not enjoy reading this, at all. It doesn’t mean I disagreed with most of Lewis’s conclusions, or even his starting assumptions, but I simply couldn’t enter into the fun of the thing. That meant that this was a real slog of a read. I was glad to be done with it by the end.
I think I will need to re-read this in a couple of years and I hope to get more out of it then.
★★★✬☆
From Grokipedia
Synopsis
The Abolition of Man originated as a series of three lectures delivered by C. S. Lewis as the Riddell Memorial Lectures at King's College, Newcastle upon Tyne—then part of the University of Durham—on February 24, 25, and 26, 1943. The Riddell Lectures, established in 1926 through a bequest by Margaret J. Riddell, were intended to address religion in relation to public affairs, though Lewis's contributions focused on education and moral philosophy.The first lecture, "Men Without Chests," critiqued trends in secondary education, using as its primary example an anonymous English grammar textbook—pseudonymously termed "The Green Book" by Lewis—that Lewis encountered while tutoring students. This text, intended for upper-form pupils, exemplified subjectivist pedagogy by dismissing objective value judgments in literature; for instance, it portrayed a description of a waterfall as "sublime" not as recognition of an inherent quality but as a mere projection of the observer's emotional state, thereby training students to reject transcendent standards. Lewis argued this approach eroded the formation of character, producing individuals lacking the integrated virtues of intellect, emotion, and will—what he termed "chests."The second lecture, "The Way," defended an objective moral order, which Lewis called the Tao, drawing from diverse traditions including Confucian, Christian, and ancient pagan sources to illustrate a universal consensus on basic ethical principles such as fairness and benevolence.[8] He contrasted this with modern innovations that prioritize utility over tradition, warning that rejecting the Tao undermined the grounds for any moral critique.[8]The third lecture, "The Abolition of Man," extended the analysis to implications of scientific mastery over nature, positing that those who wield such power as "conditioners" would ultimately abolish human nature itself, as values become artifacts of manipulation rather than fixed realities.[8]These lectures arose amid World War II, a period of intense reflection on technology's role in human affairs, including the atomic bomb's development and ideological totalitarianism, which heightened concerns about moral relativism in education and society. Lewis, a fellow at Magdalen College, Oxford, and recent convert to Christianity, drew from his wartime broadcasts and teaching experience to challenge progressive educational reforms that, in his view, prioritized emotional relativism over disciplined apprehension of objective truths. The resulting book was published by Oxford University Press in 1943, subtitled Reflections on Education with Special Reference to the Teaching of English in the Upper Forms of Schools.
