The Story

Listed at number 7 on the National Review’s 100 Best Non-Fiction Books of the 20th Century list, The Abolition of Man is comprised of three essays written by Lewis about the education system and the purpose of teaching values in school.

The Response

I really do love C.S. Lewis. I know that a lot of people find his work, especially The Chronicles of Narnia, to be very much Christian propaganda, but in The Abolition of Man his Christian beliefs aren’t really that evident – he speaks more on the teachings of Aristotle and Plato, on the Chinese Tao, on Hindu beliefs, than he does on his Christian beliefs.

I love the non-fiction stuff that he’s written as much as I love his fictional stuff. ESPECIALLY his Christian stuff – which is odd, considering I normally don’t want to read Christian stuff at all – because logic has a good deal to do with his arguments. In fact, all of his stuff is based so thoroughly on logic.

The first portion of this book, Men Without Chests takes a look at a book being used at that time in English schools – he argues that the way things are taught tell the school boys that emotion isn’t important. He also goes in to the fact that school children weren’t shown the difference between “good” writing and “bad” writing – just shown what is bad, but not explaining why – and how that was going to have an effect on them in their futures.

As I mentioned before, Lewis talks a lot about various ancient teachings, such as Aristotle and Hinduism. He bases a lot of his arguments on the fact that all of these philosophies and religions have some of the same basic truths: “doctoring of objective value, the belief that certain attitudes are really true, and others really false, to the kind of thing the universe is and the kind of things we are.”

I think this portion was my favourite of the book, perhaps because I was having a conversation on this topic earlier yesterday before I even picked up the book to read it. I don’t know how relevant what Lewis was writing about still is for the most part, but it’s definitely true that boys and men are taught they need to be strong, and that certain emotions take away from their manliness. Reading about where a part of that education begins – misplaced in books that are supposed to be teaching about English, grammar, and the like – was extremely thought-provoking.

The second portion, The Way, looked a little further into what was discussed in the first portion, and also begins to speak about the values of humanity. The most interesting point about this one was where Lewis started talking about how the people who are belittling others values don’t look objectively at their own to see whether they are moral, or whether there is something that could be changed or improved upon for them as well. And this is something that is seen all the time these days – especially when people (and I’m not saying anyone specific, and I’m sure I’m just as much like this as everyone else) start talking about religious beliefs that other cultures have.

The last section of the book, The Abolition of Man, Lewis looks at what it would mean if we got rid of our values altogether – and it’s the basis of a very dystopian future indeed! If you consider that mankind can be defined by the fact that we aren’t just motivated by our instincts and wants, but also by our sense of duty (to our country, to our family, etc). This section of the book talks about how when we finally overcome our values, then at that point we are only motivated by our wants, so it’s practically the end of mankind. One of the ways to prevent this from happening is (and here we are brought back to what is discussed in the first portion of the book) to teach emotions to our children, and to teach them how to see the difference between good and bad.

The Bottom Line

So this book brought forth a lot to think about, but that doesn’t mean it was a difficult read – I got through the whole book in a couple of hours last night. Not my favourite of Lewis’ nonfiction books, but definitely one that I will be keeping.

Other Reviews

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