S9E10: Abolition – Ch. 1, Pt. 1 (“Pretty Waterfalls”)

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It is time for our main book of the season, The Abolition of Man! In today’s episode we discuss its origin and dip our toe into Chapter 1…

Click here to download S9E10: Abolition 1.1 (“Pretty Waterfalls”)

Show Notes

Introduction

Welcome to the first episode devoted to the main book this season, The Abolition of Man!

Quote-of-the-Week

When the man said That is sublime, he appeared to be making a remark about the waterfall… Actually… he was not making a remark about the waterfall, but a remark about his own feelings… This confusion is continually present in language as we use it. We appear to be saying something very important about something: and actually we are only saying something about our own feelings.’

The Green Book

Chit Chat

  • Matt thinks it’s going to be a challenge avoiding the inherently political nature of this book. The philosophy that “The Abolition of Man” discusses is at the heart of the political and ethical divide, both in Lewis’s age in the UK, and here in modern day America.
  • Andrew’s new co-authored book, “Rediscovering Lewis”, is now out!
  • Matt is recording from Rome, where he’s attending an AI summit at the Vatican.
  • At the time of this recording, Christmas is approaching, and David learned that his Christmas present is a day by himself at a hermitage, where he gets to enjoy peace and quiet, completely internet free. It’s going to be weird!

Toast

Cheers to the Eternal City!

Discussion

01. “Background”

Q. The first time I read this book, I went into it completely blind – I knew absolutely nothing about it. What do you think is important for the listeners to know as we begin reading today?

  • Matt related TAOM to Carl Trueman’s “The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self”, which unpacks why feelings – as opposed to objective truth – rule the day. Trueman traces the origin of this thought back to the 30’s and 40’s. This means that Lewis was among the first generation to witness the decline.
  • Let’s take a moment to learn about the origin of the book and its present day popularity:
    • Origin
      • “The Abolition of Man” is a book published in 1943. It was part of a philosophical lecture series Lewis gave on the 24th, 25th, and 26th February of that year.
      • Named the Riddell Memorial Lectures, they were given at King’s College, Newcastle, which was part of the University of Durham.
      • TAOM followed Lewis’s publication of his first pure apologetics work, “The Problem of Pain”.
    • Popularity
      • It sold pretty well, but Lewis and his friend/biographer George Sayer didn’t think it was well received.
        • It has certainly passed the test of time.
        • It’s a prophetic book… but also rather dense (a different kind of riddle). You have to take your time going through it.
      • National Review ranked the book #7 in its 100 Best Non-Fiction Books of the 20th Century list.
      • It has been quoted on the floor of the United States Congress.
      • It’s a book which has been referenced by Popes, the most extensive treatment being given by Pope Benedict XVI in his Lecture at Fisher House.

02. “Overview”

Q. What about the contents of the book? What should people know before we begin?

  • Contents
    • TAOM is split up into three chapters, one for each of the three Riddell Lectures:
      • Chapter 1 – Men Without Chests
      • Chapter 2 – The Tao
      • Chapter 3 – The Abolition of Man
    • Rather than each chapter being independent of one another, they build on one another in a gradual crescendo. Here’s a one sentence summary of each chapter:
      • MWC – Lewis’s diagnosis of modern education, which teaches that only imperially provable statements mean anything
      • TT – “The Way”, or the moral law that spans across both the East and West
      • TAOM – Abandoning the Tao leads to humanity’s destruction or slavery, rather than its liberation
    • In this season we’re going to dedicate three episodes on each chapter, along with a bonus episode where we’ll be reviewing each chapter with a guest.
    • We have lots of resources for the book available on our website (PintsWithJack.com/the-abolition-of-man), but there’s two in particular we’d like to highlight:
    • Finally, we will make sure to reference the appendix of TAOM throughout our reading. It makes the readings much more comprehendible.
  • Lewis’ Argument
    • Though it’s certainly compatible with Christianity, it’s not a Christian book per se. In broad terms, it’s a defense of objective value and natural law. Lewis says that if we abandon these will we jeopardise our humanity and ultimately abolish man.
    • In this work, Lewis is responding to contemporary trends in both literature and philosophy:
      • Literature
        • The key figure is I. A. Richards, a professor at Cambridge who was a part of the “New School”. He followed “Close Reading”, which taught that books were meant to be read independently from one another, without any connections to other literature.
          • Richards actually came to Oxford for an event once, and Lewis, put in charge of finding lodging for him, gave him a spare room along with a book, saying “this should put you to sleep”. The book was written by Richards himself, filled with Lewis’s notes in the margins tearing apart his ideas!
      • Philosophy
        • The key figure is A. J. Ayer (Oxford), who believed in Logical Positivism, a philosophy based on the Verification Principle, which claimed that there is no meaning in sentences that are not either tautological or empirically verifiable.
          • In other words, you can’t say a lot about much, and it strips life of morality and enjoyment. Nothing can be weighed or measured.
          • “You acted wrongly in stealing that money” = “You stole that money”.

03. “Preparation”

Q. Any suggestions as to what might be helpful reading prior to talking Abolition?

  • Related Essays by Lewis
    • Check out the “Essays” page on our site, which documents all the essays that C. S. Lewis wrote.
    • A bunch on the subject of education – “My First School”, “Learning in Wartime”, “The Idea of an English School”, …
    • “On Ethics”
    • “The Poison of Subjectivism”
      • There’s also a great C. S. Lewis Doodle on this essay:
  • Novels
    • “Mere Christianity”
      • Book 1, chapters 1-4
    • “That Hideous Strength”
      • Lewis explicitly identifies this book as a parallel text in the Preface of TAOM.
    • “The Last Battle”
      • Objective truth is replaced with propaganda and relativism.
      • The debunking dwarves refuse to be “taken in”.
      • The loss of moral order literally ends the world. When moral reality is denied, even creation itself dissolves.

04. “Title and Subtitle”

Q. What do you think about the naming of this book? Any thoughts as to why he chose the final essay title as the main title? What are your thoughts about the subtitle? It’s a little… dry perhaps?

  • The book is named “The Abolition of Man” chiefly because it is a prophetic warning.
  • The subtitle of TAOM is “Reflections on education with special reference to the teaching of English in the upper forms of schools”. It puts a bit of a damper on the main title!
    • The opening paragraph of the Green Book says “The book is primarily designed for boys and girls in the upper forms in schools”, so TAOM’s subtitle is clearly written in reference to this.
    • It could also be because, like the authors of the Green Book, TAOM is claiming to be one thing but is actually another.
    • Lewis is also notoriously bad at choosing titles for his writing, and in the lectures, he didn’t have a publisher to push back on him.

05. “Book Epigraph”

The Master said, He who sets to work on a different strand destroys the whole fabric.—Confucius, Analects II. 16.

Q. There are four epigraphs in the book. What do you make of the opening one from Confucius?

  • Two interpretations of the epigraph come to mind:
    • “Stay in your lane”
    • Don’t leave a task unfinished
  • The author, Confucius, was a Chinese Philosopher from the 5th/6th Century.
    • He’ll be the source for Chapter 2’s epigraph too…
    • This epigraph is purposefully not Christian, pointing to the universality of this moral law, and preparing the way for a discussion on the Tao.

06. “Chapter 1 Epigraph”

Q. Chapter 1 opens with a rather interesting epigraph. “So he sent the word to slay And slew the little childer.” What do you make of it?

  • It’s from an anonymous 15th Century Christmas Carol, called Puer Nobis Nascitur (“Unto us is born a son”)

This did Herod sore affray
And grievously bewilder
So he sent the word to slay
And slew the little childer

Puer Nobis Nascitur
  • The song describes King Herod’s command in Matthew 2:16-18 to kill all the young male children in Bethlehem after the Wise Men betray him and don’t bring him to the newborn king.
  • It’s included to show how words are being sent forth to destroy innocent youth… much like what we’re going to see in Chapter 1 and “The Green Book”. Alan Jacobs points out that Herod killed the body, but that Lewis is implying that people today want to destroy their hearts, minds, and souls.

08. “The Green Book”

Q. Lewis begins his first lecture and the first chapter of this book talking about school textbooks. What does Lewis have to say about “The Green Book”? 

  • Lewis was sent a complimentary copy of “The Green Book” by a publisher, and after reading through some of it, he decided to write a rebuttal.
  • Unwilling to publicly shame them, he hides their names and the name of the book…
    • …but we know that “The Green Book” is really called “The Control of Language: A Critical Approach to Reading and Writing” (1939).
    • The Wade have the actual copy – marginalia would suggest Lewis only read the first 147-274 pages.
    • The authors were Alexander (“Alec”) King and Martin Ketley (← inspiration for the Magician’s Nephew?)
      • King and Ketley were Oxford men who moved to Australia before eventually returning to England.
      • Lewis makes a crack about Australia in his letter to Martyn Skinner: “Gaius and Titius were, as you will not be surprised to learn, Australians. Singapore knows what comes of Green Books now” (cf Fall of Singapore – February 1942).
    • “The Green Book” was used as a textbook in high schools and universities.
  • It does have a green cover (though not exclusively)
    • Some people – such as Malcolm Guite – have suggested that Jack may have named it this nor only for its cover, but also because of its associations – naivete, nauseousness and particularly envy (cf Ch. 3).

Q. Why talk about a school textbook, rather than directly confront the philosophers and literary theorists?

  • Responding to a school textbook shows just how insidious the ideas are, that they are finding their way into educational materials.

09. “Coleridge’s Waterfall”

Q. Lewis tells us that in Chapter 2 of The Green Book, the story is told of Coleridge at the waterfall. Who is Coleridge and what was the story?

  • Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834) was an influential English poet, literary critic, and philosopher who was a primary figure in the English Romantic movement. He’s best known for his poetry, including “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” and “Kubla Khan”, and his collaboration with William Wordsworth on “Lyrical Ballads”.
  • According to the retelling here, there were two tourists at a waterfall…
    • …one called the waterfall “sublime” which Coleridge affirmed as a Romantic.
    • …the other called it merely “pretty”, which disgusted Coleridge.
  • This isn’t quite how it actually happened, but Lewis doesn’t correct the narrative because it’s an illustration.

Q. What objection do the authors of The Green Book raise?

  • They claim that those commenting on the waterfall were only making remarks about their personally-felt emotions, not the waterfall itself. These descriptors are seen as subjective, not objective.
  • C. F. Hume once said “Beauty is no quality in things, themselves: it exists merely in the mind which contemplates them; and each mind perceives a different beauty”. In other words, it doesn’t matter what a thing is, but what our own opinion of it is.

Q. Lewis has a lot more to say about their claims, but what’s the first problem he points out in saying that “This is sublime” means that one has sublime feelings?

  • It can’t possibly be a projection of feelings – the feelings are different:

The feelings which make a man call an object sublime are not sublime feelings but feelings of veneration. If “This is sublime” is to be reduced at all to a statement about the speaker’s feelings, the proper translation would be “I have humble feelings”.

C. S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man (Chapter 1)
  • Lewis points out this leads to absurdities:
    • “You are contemptible” = “I have contemptible feelings”

Q. Lewis charitably says “But we need not delay over this which is the very pons asinorum of our subject. It would be unjust to Gaius and Titius themselves to emphasize what was doubtless a mere inadvertence” Andrew, as our resident Latin scholar, what does “pons asinorum”mean and what’s Lewis’ point here?

  • “Pons asinorum” translates to “Bridge of Donkeys”. It’s a phrase that means a test of critical thinking. Essentially, Lewis is saying to move forward and not focus on “ass”engine errors.

10. “Subtle Corruption”

Q. Matt, do you know what Lewis is talking about when he talks about ‘English prep’?

  • It’s British-speak for homework.

Q. What does Lewis say this teaches the child who reads this section of The Green Book?

  • Children are going to take away two things from reading this:
    • All sentences containing a predicate of value are really statements about the emotional state of the speaker, and…
    • …therefore, he will believe that all such statements are unimportant.
  • This ultimately leads to a loss of meaning, and an undoing of language.
  • These assertions haven’t been made by the text (as Lewis admits), and the authors may not have even intended this, but the students will take this example and make it real.
  • Lewis isn’t just operating by unfounded preconceived notions. According to his own letters and his autobiography “Surprised by Joy”, this same thing happened to him in his childhood, and it took quite a bit of work to undo the damage.
  • Jack expands on this mode of thinking more in future books, like “The Screwtape Letters”.

My dear Wormwood,

I note what you say about guiding our patient’s reading and taking care that he sees a good deal of his materialist friend. But are you not being a trifle naïf? It sounds as if you supposed that argument was the way to keep him out of the Enemy’s clutches.

That might have been so if he had lived a few centuries earlier. At that time the humans still knew pretty well when a thing was proved and when it was not; and if it was proved they really believed it. They still connected thinking with doing and were prepared to alter their way of life as the result of a chain of reasoning. But what with the weekly press and other such weapons we have largely altered that. Your man has been accustomed, ever since he was a boy, to have a dozen incompatible philosophies dancing about together inside his head. He doesn’t think of doctrines as primarily “true” of “false”, but as “academic” or “practical”, “outworn” or “contemporary”, “conventional” or “ruthless”. Jargon, not argument, is your best ally in keeping him from the Church. Don’t waste time trying to make him think that materialism is true! Make him think it is strong, or stark, or courageous-that it is the philosophy of the future. That’s the sort of thing he cares about.

C. S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters (Chapter 1)
  • If nothing has meaning, everything is relative and subjective. There is no objective truth anymore! And once there’s no objective truth, the statement itself becomes meaningless.
    • This leads to logical absurdities. Don’t believe us? Try asking a relativist what happens if “your truth” contradicts “their truth”.
  • The worst part of this trick is its subtlety – it won’t even be noticed by its readers:

 I do not mean, of course, that he will make any conscious inference from what he reads to a general philosophical theory that all values are subjective and trivial. The very power of Gaius and Titius depends on the fact that they are dealing with a boy: a boy who thinks he is ‘doing’ his ‘English prep’ and has no notion that ethics, theology, and politics are all at stake. It is not a theory they put into his mind, but an assumption, which ten years hence, its origin forgotten and its presence unconscious, will condition him to take one side in a controversy which he has never recognized as a controversy at all. 

C. S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man (Chapter 1)

Wrap Up

Concluding Thoughts

  • In the words of Professor Kirk:

“What do they teach them at these schools?”

C. S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

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David

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After working as a Software Engineer in England for several years, David moved to the United States in 2008, where he settled in San Diego. Then, in 2020 he married his wife, Marie, and moved to La Crosse, Wisconsin. Together they have a son, Alexander, who is adamant that Narnia should be read publication order.