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1-Page Summary of The Abolition of Man

Overall Summary

In the first of three lectures, “Men Without Chests,” C. S. Lewis criticizes secondary English textbooks for teaching students to devalue emotion and write stories without emotions or sentiment. He says that they are not distinguishing between good and bad ways to express emotion in literature, which is causing students to miss out on certain riches from their literary heritage.

Lewis believes that authors like Gaius and Titius are misguided in their excessive fear of sentimentalism. The real problem with modern students is that they have not been properly trained to express their sentiments. Lewis believes this because he thinks that educators no longer believe in objective value, which means they don’t think objects deserve certain responses from humans (like enjoying a beautiful waterfall).

Lewis cites a range of traditions—Platonic, Aristotelian, Christian, Hindu and Taoist—which he sums up as the “Tao.” The Tao is a repository of beliefs in which objective value is upheld: objective value being “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.” Modern education rejects this idea by teaching students to be like Gaius and Titius from Lewis Carroll’s “Alice in Wonderland.” This type of education produces men who lack chests because they can’t control their emotions.

In his second lecture, Lewis argues that educators are dangerous because they try to get past the Tao in order to find more basic values. He discusses a hypothetical Innovator who seeks a rational basis for believing it’s good to die for one’s country. Even if the Innovator could prove that dying is more rational than refusing, he would still need to prove that society is worth preserving. In other words, bare rationality isn’t enough; there must be some external basis for distinguishing between conflicting instincts and values.

The Tao is the basis of all value systems. You can’t justify one bit over another, so you have to accept it as a whole. That doesn’t mean that it can never change or develop; rather, a development from within—by someone who already understands and accepts the Tao—is different from an innovation imposed from without.

In the third lecture, “The Abolition of Man”, Lewis argues that when people think of Nature as a conquerable entity, it leads to a dangerous situation. When we see technology such as airplanes or the radio, we can understand this conquest of nature means power over other people. Eventually, this will lead to oppression and control by some people over others with technology as an instrument. This is unlike previous generations who were bound by their fidelity to Taoism. By stepping outside Taoism they are no longer human in any traditional sense and have achieved victory over humanity itself which he calls abolition of man.

Lewis says that we can’t have it both ways. Either people are rational or they’re not. If they’re not, then the Tao (the natural order of things) is all that matters and we should be ruled by those who understand how to manipulate us for their own gain. On the other hand, if people are rational, then science will help us harness nature’s powers without being destroyed by them ourselves. Lewis warns against trying to see through things like values just for the sake of seeing them clearly; this leads to a world in which everything is transparent and nothing has any meaning anymore because there’s nothing more than what you can see right now.

Chapter 1

In his first lecture, professor Lewis says that he doubts we pay enough attention to introductory textbooks. He then discusses a textbook intended for students in the upper forms and based on it. He refers to its authors as Gaius and Titius and its name as The Green Book.