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Date:         Mon, 11 Jan 1993 12:08:15 EST
From:         Dan Harling <harling@ROADRUNNER.PICTEL.COM>
Subject:      Re: CS Lewis - Abolition of Man 2

> Date: 09 Jan 1993 16:16:20 -0600 (CST)
> From: "Scott D. Weberg" <sweberg@GARFIELD.WES.ARMY.MIL>
> Subject: CS Lewis - Abolition of Man 2
> To: Multiple recipients of list CHRISTIA <CHRISTIA@asuvm.inre.asu.edu>
>
> To all avid CS Lewis fans:
>
> This critique was written with a light heart!  Don't take offense to
> some of the comments.  I have read some of Lewis' works and I like
> him.  This particular book just went a little too far into the realm
> of philosophy, making it a burden to read, and making the conclusions
> a little doubtful.  So I decided to blast Lewis a little bit, mostly
> in fun.

Understood.  As someone who read _The Abolition of Man_ and *enjoyed*
reading it (along with the other books in his set), I thought I would
interject some insights that might make the book easier to follow.  By
the way, I found the most challenging book of the set to be _Miracles_


> ....  Then in chapter three,
> Lewis levels his sights at a new target:  modern science.  He sees
> it, for whatever reason, as the method by which traditional values
> are destroyed...

Keep in mind the time period in which the book was written: copyrighted
in 1947.  Science itself was no different then than it is today, but
people's *perception* of science was radically different.  I am
speaking not of the theories that were popular in the day, but the role
that science was assumed to play in popular society.  Just like the
Christian reaction against Darwin's Theory of Evolution fifty years
earlier, science was commonly assumed to be the ultimate source of
knowledge and presented as the salvation of mankind, and the material
universe presented as "all there is."

Lewis' contemporaries propounded ideas in support of these sentiments.
Bertrand Russell in particular was a proponent of the "science equals
truth" school, and presented many arguments intended to show that not
only was belief in the supernatural irrational, but statements about
the supernatural are inherently meaningless.  Like many thinkers before
him, one of Lewis' greatest motivations for writing was to respond to
his contemporaries.

In short, Lewis does not refer to science, but to the role into which
science had been cast by society at the time, and more specifically,
its purported ultimate goal: complete, rational Human enlightenment,
through empirical inquiry.  At the very least, we have here the
foundations of "secular humanism": particularly when the fact that
science neglects metaphysical reality (for simplicity) is used in
circular arguments to *deny* metaphysical reality, as it cannot be
scientifically demonstrated!  Bertrand Russell failed to see this
connection.


>         Since chapter three proposes no concrete solutions by which
> the argument may be evaluated, the validity of the argument itself
> must be questioned.  Is there indeed a problem?  Does modern science
> really threaten to be "the abolition of Man?"  Lewis would like us
> to think so.  In his eyes the goal of natural science is the total
> conquest of Nature.

More accurately, the goal of natural *scientists* was the total
conquest of Nature, much like "manifest destiny".  The scientific
community had a spirit of optimism in which they assumed that through
science, Mankind could learn everything there is to learn, and become
better human beings as a result, without having to resort to the
metaphysical at all.  The fact that normative statements (like, you
*ought* to do this) are metaphysical may have been recognized by a few
philosophers like Lewis and Schaeffer, but apparently not by those
scientists and the people who listened to them.


>         This situation, the final conquest of Nature, is the basis
> for the argument against modern science.  Does the argument have a
> solid foundation?  It looks good on paper, but can Lewis' philosophy
> touch even remotely with reality?

Remember that science has its roots in philosophy, and its isolation
from "purpose" only recently became popularly misinterpreted as proof
of the lack of the existence of purpose!  For hundreds of years,
scientists were aware that scientific pursuits had philosophical bases
(e.g., the material universe is knowable and predictable because God is
consistent), and that their experiments dealt with a *subset* of
reality, not the whole.


> It is difficult indeed to imagine
> the existence of the Conditioners.  Separated from the Tao, they
> live in a world of no conscience, no emotion, no motivation on which
> to base action.  Lewis himself calls it a "void," where men cease to
> be men.  Here he speaks the truth, for to be in no way controlled by
> human nature is to be completely inhuman.  What then have the
> Conditioners become?

The imagery used to describe the Conditioners is metaphorical.  They
are not necessarily men and women in white lab coats in an antiseptic
laboratory; they may be people in positions of power or (more likely)
influence.  The books _1984_ and _Brave New World_, both of which were
written about the same time as _The Abolition of Man_, express similar
sentiments, and go into greater detail about the techniques the
"Conditioners" used to accomplish their goals.  The "Politically
Correct" movement comes to mind as a real-world example of "newspeak".


> Is it possible for Man to make himself
> something other than Man; right down to his very soul?  To believe so
> would be to lose touch with reality!  The problem, therefore, does
> not exist outside of philosophical theory.  No wonder Lewis is unable
> to find a plausible solution for his reader; if the problem does not
> exist, neither will an answer be found.  To look for one is only a
> waste of time.

It is a popular sentiment to throw out all traditional values and
replace them with others: for example, to replace chastity and fidelity
with "free love".  The question is, on what basis will these new values
be selected?  Lewis demonstrates rather well that the source of these
statements must be arbitrary, in which case Mankind *has* remade itself
by disassociating itself from the "tao" once and for all, or the source
must be the "tao" itself.  Francis Schaeffer used this line of
reasoning to argue that most people really want to get rid of some
parts of the "tao" and emphasize others, rather than get rid of all
moral arguments altogether.


>         It becomes increasingly clear that what is contained in the
> last twenty-five pages of _The Abolition of Man_ are simply the
> ramblings of an eccentric philosopher, set in his ways against the
> advancements of modern science...

Or, he (along with contemporaries Orwell and Huxley) recognized the
rationalistic trend of his day and saw some of the consequences, were
it to reach its logical conclusion.
____________________________________________________________________________
Daniel A. Harling                        (harling@pictel.com)
PictureTel Corp.             Opinions expressed are not necessarily those of
Peabody, MA  01960                   PictureTel Corp. (so there!)
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