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Abolition of Man video part 1 n five minutes http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gux4Ldy8cN8Benjamin McLeanThe Abolition of Man is a short philosophy book by C. S. Lewis, one of the greatest Christian

writers of the 20th century. Alot of people know he was a friend of JRR Talkien. Most peopleonly remember him for his Chronicles of Narnia books but its his non-fiction that he ought to be

remembered for. Thats what people in England wanted to hear on the radio while the Blitz wasgoing on outside.Lewis was a classicist which means he agreed with Plato and Aristotle alot and considered

himself a converted pagan in a world of apostate Christians. He had a way of introducingparadigm shifts that turn modern thought completely around. Rather than vainly trying tohit unbelievers over the head with the authority of scripture as so many would-be Christianapologists have unfortunately tried to do, Lewis defended his ideas through force of argumentand tried to get people to examine and challenge their own philosophical presuppositions. The

fundamentals of his philosophy are outlined in, The Abolition of Man.

The thesis of this book is that if we debunk and abolish traditional moral values and gain controlover the conscience of man as science has enabled us to control other things in nature, itwill result in the eventual Abolition of Man, the dehumanization of humanity. Abolish mans

conscience and you abolish man. Although Lewis is a theist and argues for theism elsewhere,he makes no attempt to argue for the existence of God or any particular religion in this book.A staunch atheist could completely agree with The Abolition of Man and yet remain a staunchatheist.Lewis writes of two opposing views, the world of the Green Book and the world of the Tao. The

world of the Tao is a broad generalization that contains the traditional moralities of both Eastand West; the Bhuddist, Christian, Confucian, Hindu, Jewish, Muslim and Socratic all lumpedtogether. Lewis refers to, the sole source of all value judgements and calls it the Tao. The

Tao is, he asserts, not something we can change, for it ceases to be the Tao when we do.Judgements in the world of the Tao are right or wrong like mathematical statements.

But in the world of the Green Book, all value judgements are subjective. The Green Bookitself is an actual English textbook which, perhaps accidentally, teaches unwary children thatall sentences containing a predicate of value are not statements about qualities inherent intheir subjects but are really unimportant statements about the speakers own feelings. Lewis

first points out that this amateur philosophy is absolutely out of place in an English textbookregardless of its validity and proceeds to tear the position to shreds anyway.Lewis wrote, Until quite modern times all teachers and even all men believed the universe tobe such that certain emotional reactions on our part could be either congruous or incongruous

to itbelieved, in fact, that objects did not merely receive, but could merit, our approval ordisapproval, our reverence or our contempt. The educational problem is wholly differentaccording as you stand within or without the Tao. For those within, the task is to train in thepupil those responses which are in themselves appropriate, whether anyone is making themor not, and in making which the very nature of man consists. Those without, if they are logical,must regard all sentiments as equally non-rational, as mere mists between us and the real

objects. As a result, they must either decide to remove all sentiments, as far as possible, fromthe pupil's mind; or else to encourage some sentiments for reasons that have nothing to do

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with their intrinsic 'justness' or 'ordinacy'. The latter course involves them in the questionableprocess of creating in others by 'suggestion' or incantation a mirage which their own reason hassuccessfully dissipated.

Lewis models the mind of man in a Platonic division of three - the head, center of intelligence,the stomach, center of desire and the chest, center of will. He argues that removing all

sentiments from the mind as many modern so-called rationalists try to do produces, MenWithout Chests that value judgements are an essential part of a rational mindset. And thats

just part 1, there are three other parts to this book.