C.S. Lewis here argues that objective value actually exists and that to believe otherwise is to create nonsense. Human beings appreciate values such as beauty and goodness because such things are part of reality. If absolute morality is denied there will not be any progress for mankind as the things that matter most will be explained away. "I am very doubtful whe ther history shows us one example of a man who, having stepped outside traditional morality and attained power, has used that power benevolently."
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Western Civilization is Falling., 26 January, 2001
Reviewer: A reader from Birmingham
...and The Abolition of Man explains why. We have become materialists and sacrificed all the most important spiritual beliefs that make us something other than mere animals. Man has abolished his own humanity in his quest to "conquer the world." Great reading. Also recommended: "Castle of Wisdom," a Christian book by Rhett Ellis, another great book, even if it is a bit on the strange side.
C.S. Lewis's The Abolition of Man purports to be a book specifically about public education, but its central concerns are broadly political, religious, and philosophical. In the best of the book's three essays, "Men Without Chests," Lewis trains his laser-sharp wit on a mid- century English high school text, considering the ramifications of teaching British students to believe in idle relativism, and to reject "the doctrine 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 kinds of things we are." Lewis calls this doctrine the "Tao," and he spends much of the book explaining why society needs a sense of objective values. The Abolition of Man speaks with astonishing freshness to conte
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