The Abolition of Man after a decade (or more)

Tonight I re-read CS Lewis’ “Abolition of Man” for the first time in over a decade. I now realize that, just as “Mere Christianity” has implicitly shaped my fundamental assumptions in theology and epistemology, so also “Abolition” has shaped my fundamental assumptions in ethics and education. For instance:

Chapter 1: Moral Value is an objective fact in the universe, not just a subjective feeling or social construction. We discover the Moral Tao that shapes us, we don’t invent it. 

Chapter 2: Even the value (or “ought-ness”) of individual survival and species survival depends on an Objective Absolute Value that life ought to be pursued (as opposed to destruction or nihilism). And if “new” or “progressive” values are to be real and enduring, they have to develop and evolve out of the very nature of this ancient and enduring Moral Tao, not in spite of it.

Building on this, I would argue that the legitimate acceptance of cultural and gender diversity evolves out of the implicit value of all human life found in the Tao, not in contradiction to it. Our drive to Civil Rights for minorities, women, and LGBT persons in the last century has been because we realized the ancient Tao actually demanded MORE out of humanity than previous cultures realized, not because the Tao was fundamentally in error. 

Chapter 3: There are powers in modern culture which are highly invested in the “abolition of humanity” to create people “without chests” who are devoid of any deep moral commitments or even the ability to grasp moral value. This makes them compliant subjects who can be manipulated toward the ends of power or profit by the shapers of culture. The postmodern world desperately needs to form people in the opposite direction: People who will commit whole heartedly to the Moral Tao and its Virtues of Love, compassion, courage, kindness, peace, and justice over and above all the power and profit this world can offer. 

As an addendum, I am now fairly sure that the premise of Alasdair MacIntyre’s work “After Virtue” was inspired in whole or in part by chapter 2 of this book. All the outlines of his later work are found there, written at least two decades before MacIntyre.