WEBVTT 1 00:00:08.039 --> 00:00:11.679 Alone. Welcome to Mythic Mind, we pursue wisdom of the past between primary 2 00:00:11.720 --> 00:00:15.640 secondary worlds. I'm your host, Andrew Snyder, and I'm always grateful for 3 00:00:15.720 --> 00:00:31.079 your company. All Right, welcome back as we get ready for the next 4 00:00:31.120 --> 00:00:34.320 episode on The Abolition of Man, in which we're going to cover the last 5 00:00:34.399 --> 00:00:38.200 essay of the book, The Abolition of Man. Now, as I mentioned 6 00:00:38.200 --> 00:00:42.880 in the last episode, this is part of a small mini series that I 7 00:00:42.960 --> 00:00:47.000 made for my Philosophy and Fiction of C. S. Lewis course, which 8 00:00:47.039 --> 00:00:51.039 is currently ongoing. And in that course, we're recovering the majority of Lewis's 9 00:00:51.039 --> 00:00:55.159 fiction, and so we're looking at the Ransom series through tape letters till we 10 00:00:55.200 --> 00:00:58.799 have faces, the Great Divorce, and all of the Chronicles of Narnia. 11 00:00:58.960 --> 00:01:03.040 Now, in this sub series that is happening within the That Hideous Strength series, 12 00:01:03.159 --> 00:01:07.159 I'm going over the Abolition of Man, which connects with That Hideous Strength. 13 00:01:07.480 --> 00:01:10.319 Now, because The Ablition of Man is obviously a nonfiction text, I'm 14 00:01:10.359 --> 00:01:12.879 kind of considering this a bonus series, which is why I'm willing to provide 15 00:01:12.879 --> 00:01:17.200 it in the general podcast here. And if you find this useful, you're 16 00:01:17.239 --> 00:01:19.560 more than welcome to jump into the Lewis course already in progress. We're just 17 00:01:19.640 --> 00:01:23.439 wrapping up till we have faces, and so then we're gonna jump into The 18 00:01:23.439 --> 00:01:26.120 Great Divorce and then the Chronicles of Narnia. Even though you've missed the course 19 00:01:26.200 --> 00:01:30.640 up to this point, you'll have access to all of the materials indefinitely, 20 00:01:30.719 --> 00:01:33.519 and so you're welcome to do that as you join us for the Great Divorce 21 00:01:33.560 --> 00:01:38.439 and Narnia, and make sure you use the Code podcast to get fifty percent 22 00:01:38.560 --> 00:01:41.959 off enrollment. But for now, let's go ahead and dive in with a 23 00:01:42.040 --> 00:01:52.719 third essay in the Abolition of Man. Well, welcome back as we wrap 24 00:01:52.840 --> 00:01:56.480 up the Abolition of Man. Now, last time, I'd mentioned a few 25 00:01:56.480 --> 00:01:59.879 times that there were four essays that we'd be covering two of them in this 26 00:02:00.359 --> 00:02:04.400 in this lesson right here. But despite the fact that I've read the Abolition 27 00:02:04.519 --> 00:02:07.479 of Man a number of times, it seems that I've invented a fourth essay, 28 00:02:07.560 --> 00:02:13.479 because there are indeed only three essays in the Abolition of Man. Last 29 00:02:13.479 --> 00:02:16.840 time we covered Men without Chess and the Way, and today we will cover 30 00:02:16.960 --> 00:02:21.680 the essay called the Abolition of Man. And so let's go ahead and get 31 00:02:21.719 --> 00:02:28.439 started on that. So in the first two essays he talks about this philosophy 32 00:02:28.479 --> 00:02:30.840 that's put out by the Green Book, as he calls it, And really 33 00:02:30.879 --> 00:02:35.599 it's this philosophy that was very prominent in his day, it's very prominent in 34 00:02:35.599 --> 00:02:38.960 our day as well, this idea that there is no real such thing as 35 00:02:39.360 --> 00:02:44.319 values, that we never really can talk about objective beauty, we can never 36 00:02:44.400 --> 00:02:47.879 talk about the responses we ought to have to nature, to art, to 37 00:02:49.000 --> 00:02:53.000 anything at all, because what they want to do is they want to remove 38 00:02:53.520 --> 00:02:59.319 any meaningful discussion of human nature, of who we fundamentally are and who it 39 00:02:59.360 --> 00:03:01.319 is that we are meant to be by nature. They want to remove that 40 00:03:01.439 --> 00:03:07.159 kind of teleology. They want to reduce all value speak to mere sentiment. 41 00:03:07.280 --> 00:03:10.759 And LUs has already pointed out that in doing this, what they're really doing 42 00:03:10.919 --> 00:03:16.520 is quote debunking traditional values, well, putting new values in their place that 43 00:03:16.560 --> 00:03:21.840 they believe everyone else ought to follow, right, I mean, in smuggling 44 00:03:21.879 --> 00:03:27.840 this philosophy into an English language book, a grammar book, really what they're 45 00:03:27.840 --> 00:03:31.000 doing is they're saying that we should view language in this way, we should 46 00:03:31.159 --> 00:03:38.400 use language in this way. We shouldn't use it to speak of potential metaphysical 47 00:03:38.400 --> 00:03:42.719 realities. We should only use it to link together statements of empirical fact. 48 00:03:43.039 --> 00:03:46.039 But in telling us what we should do and how we should be using language, 49 00:03:46.240 --> 00:03:50.680 they're not just strictly giving us a grammar. What they're doing is they're 50 00:03:50.719 --> 00:03:54.400 imposing a certain set of values on us well the same time undermining the very 51 00:03:54.439 --> 00:03:59.879 foundation of value at all. And so what we get out of this is 52 00:04:00.120 --> 00:04:05.000 a population that doesn't even recognize the philosophical controversies at play because their very use 53 00:04:05.000 --> 00:04:11.360 of language is already shaped by the conclusions that they don't know that they have 54 00:04:11.759 --> 00:04:16.000 made. And in this essay The abolitiontive Man Lewis is going to continue to 55 00:04:16.079 --> 00:04:23.720 talk about the consequences of this kind of philosophy, this philosophy that has shed 56 00:04:23.720 --> 00:04:29.120 itself of so called traditional values and most importantly, has attempted to shed itself 57 00:04:29.279 --> 00:04:31.680 from natural law, or as he calls it throughout this book, the Tao. 58 00:04:32.120 --> 00:04:35.040 And this is the set of values that we should have and that we 59 00:04:35.360 --> 00:04:40.680 would have and would understand if we were using reason appropriately, and if that 60 00:04:40.839 --> 00:04:46.160 reason we're then directing our pursuit of virtue. And what Luis is giving us 61 00:04:46.199 --> 00:04:49.319 here is a very classical way of thinking. If you read Aristotle, you 62 00:04:49.360 --> 00:04:54.360 read the Nikomackey and ethics. Aristyle is going to say only hand we are 63 00:04:54.399 --> 00:04:58.480 the rational animal. That one thing that separates us from the other animals of 64 00:04:58.560 --> 00:05:01.279 nature is that we can use reason. We don't just live by instinct, 65 00:05:01.439 --> 00:05:06.560 but we're able to consider potential realities. And then we're able to evaluate this 66 00:05:06.680 --> 00:05:12.639 potential realities in order to determine the best course of action. And once we 67 00:05:12.680 --> 00:05:17.000 start talking about the best course of action, that actions those set of actions 68 00:05:17.000 --> 00:05:20.360 that should be valued above others. Well, now we're in the realm of 69 00:05:20.480 --> 00:05:26.319 ethics. Because we are the rational animal, we are also the moral animal. 70 00:05:26.360 --> 00:05:29.759 We are the ethical animal. And connected to that, Aristotle says that 71 00:05:29.759 --> 00:05:32.439 we are the political animal because we are able to come together. Part of 72 00:05:32.480 --> 00:05:39.160 our use of reason means that we're able to communicate abstractly with language to one 73 00:05:39.160 --> 00:05:42.720 another about a shared reality, and say, we are the political animal. 74 00:05:42.759 --> 00:05:46.639 We're the moral animal precisely because we are the rational animal. But when you 75 00:05:46.680 --> 00:05:50.040 try to reduce reason to the purely natural, to the domain of physics, 76 00:05:50.279 --> 00:05:55.839 well, at that point all we ever have is a collection of is statements. 77 00:05:55.920 --> 00:05:59.800 We can ever get any what should be kinds of statements, And this 78 00:05:59.879 --> 00:06:04.079 is philosophy of the analytic philosopher Luvik Wittckenstein. In his lecture on ethics delivered 79 00:06:04.120 --> 00:06:08.040 to Cambridge, he said that if you were to have a book that contained 80 00:06:08.160 --> 00:06:12.279 every fact that could possibly be and by this sement, every empirical fact, 81 00:06:12.319 --> 00:06:15.560 every fact about the natural world. If you have every fact you could possibly 82 00:06:15.600 --> 00:06:20.759 ever have compiled into one book, then you would not have one statement of 83 00:06:21.160 --> 00:06:26.399 absolute value, meaning you would not have one statement that gives us a prescription 84 00:06:26.639 --> 00:06:29.839 on how we ought to live or how we ought to construct our lives, 85 00:06:30.319 --> 00:06:32.959 because you can never get an aught from it is. And Wittgenstein recognized this, 86 00:06:33.240 --> 00:06:38.759 at least on a theoretical level, and Lewis's guys and titis recognized this 87 00:06:38.959 --> 00:06:43.160 as well, that you can never get an aught from and is. However, 88 00:06:43.519 --> 00:06:46.800 as soon as they say that we need to adopt this scientific world viewing 89 00:06:46.879 --> 00:06:49.879 methodology, they are then imposing a value on us. And so this is 90 00:06:49.879 --> 00:06:56.800 what Lewis is demonstrating that this philosophy is fundamentally self contradicting. And because it 91 00:06:56.879 --> 00:07:01.000 is a contradiction, it's very core anything that does is going to be unreasonable. 92 00:07:01.040 --> 00:07:04.720 It's going to be irrational. And what that means is it's not subject 93 00:07:04.920 --> 00:07:09.439 to the demands of reason, and that also means it is not subject to 94 00:07:09.560 --> 00:07:14.279 the demands of virtue. It is not subject to any kind of demands that 95 00:07:14.600 --> 00:07:18.279 human nature might impose on us, because there is no human nature. And 96 00:07:18.639 --> 00:07:24.319 I've frequently referenced this, but I think it's so poignant when the Oarsa of 97 00:07:24.360 --> 00:07:28.600 Mars is talking to Weston, and Weston keeps talking about the progress of man, 98 00:07:28.720 --> 00:07:31.839 and he's doing all his things for man, and Oarsa says, what 99 00:07:31.879 --> 00:07:38.040 do you even mean by man? And Weston is unable to actually engage with 100 00:07:38.079 --> 00:07:40.560 that question. He just says, I'm not here to deal with metaphysics. 101 00:07:40.600 --> 00:07:44.160 I'm not here at top logic. And that's because his philosophy, as much 102 00:07:44.160 --> 00:07:47.120 as it is built around, at least rhetorically, this idea of empowering man, 103 00:07:47.360 --> 00:07:53.199 doesn't actually make a place for man in his category. All he has 104 00:07:53.279 --> 00:07:56.800 is particular men. And that's going to be a major theme here in the 105 00:07:56.800 --> 00:08:00.480 first part of this essay. So let's go ahead and go into it. 106 00:08:01.120 --> 00:08:05.839 Lewis says, let us consider three typical examples of progress. The aeroplane, 107 00:08:07.000 --> 00:08:09.959 the wireless, and the contraceptive. In a civilized community in peace time, 108 00:08:11.279 --> 00:08:13.639 anyone who can pay for them may use these things. But it cannot strictly 109 00:08:13.680 --> 00:08:16.959 be said that when he does so, he is exercising his own proper or 110 00:08:18.000 --> 00:08:20.600 individual power over nature. If I pay you to carry me, I am 111 00:08:20.639 --> 00:08:24.480 not therefore myself a strong man. Any or all of the three things I've 112 00:08:24.519 --> 00:08:28.399 mentioned can be withheld from some men by other men, by those who sell, 113 00:08:28.720 --> 00:08:31.600 or those who allow the sale, or those who own the sources of 114 00:08:31.639 --> 00:08:37.080 production, or those who make the goods. What we call man's power is 115 00:08:37.320 --> 00:08:41.080 in reality a power possessed by some men, which they may or may not 116 00:08:41.480 --> 00:08:48.000 allow other men to profit buying. Now, obviously a great number of technological 117 00:08:48.039 --> 00:08:52.559 advantages have come through the advancement of science, and he's going to go on 118 00:08:52.600 --> 00:08:56.159 to say that his objective is not to fundamentally undermine science and all of its 119 00:08:56.159 --> 00:09:00.919 works. He's not even out to say whether or not these things that he 120 00:09:01.080 --> 00:09:05.639 just mentioned are good for man, are good for society, good for men 121 00:09:05.720 --> 00:09:09.639 in general. He's simply pointing out the fact that one thing that it does 122 00:09:09.720 --> 00:09:16.720 do is that gives a group of men power over other men. Every piece 123 00:09:16.799 --> 00:09:22.519 of technology put into our hands by someone else might give us some new abilities, 124 00:09:22.720 --> 00:09:26.240 but it makes us more at the whims of those who are able to 125 00:09:26.320 --> 00:09:31.200 produce, those who are able to sell, those who allow the sales, 126 00:09:31.240 --> 00:09:35.639 such as the government. And so every time we become more reliant on things 127 00:09:35.679 --> 00:09:39.159 that are not ours by nature, we seed away some degree of our power. 128 00:09:39.559 --> 00:09:43.840 And Boetheist makes this point a lot that we become weaker when we mistake 129 00:09:45.000 --> 00:09:50.159 external goods for internal goods, because external goods will always be just that, 130 00:09:50.200 --> 00:09:54.399 they will never be ours by nature. They may be ours by fortune, 131 00:09:54.440 --> 00:09:58.120 but they will never be ours by nature. And the more dependent that we 132 00:09:58.240 --> 00:10:03.639 become on external goods, especially external goods that are produced and maintained by somebody 133 00:10:03.720 --> 00:10:07.360 else, usually by a relatively small group of people, the less power we 134 00:10:07.399 --> 00:10:11.480 have, the less freedom we have, the more we are at whims of 135 00:10:11.519 --> 00:10:18.600 our societal betters. And so whenever these intellectuals or these progressive innovators talk about 136 00:10:18.759 --> 00:10:20.879 empowering man, really what they're doing is, yeah, they might give us 137 00:10:20.879 --> 00:10:24.039 some new gadgets, they might give us some new abilities, but they're actually 138 00:10:24.080 --> 00:10:30.000 empowering themselves, or they're empowering a small group of people over the masses. 139 00:10:30.200 --> 00:10:35.559 They're not empowering man as such. Again, as regards the powers manifested in 140 00:10:35.559 --> 00:10:39.639 the aeroplane or the wireless man is as much the patient or subject as the 141 00:10:39.679 --> 00:10:43.240 possessor, since he is the target both for bombs and for propaganda. And 142 00:10:43.279 --> 00:10:48.799 as regards to contraceptives, there's a paradoxical negative sense in which all possible future 143 00:10:48.799 --> 00:10:54.120 generations are the patient or subjects of a power wielded by those already alive by 144 00:10:54.200 --> 00:10:58.879 contraception. Simply, they are denied existence by contraception used as a means of 145 00:10:58.879 --> 00:11:01.759 selective breeding. They are, without their concurring voice, made to be what 146 00:11:01.759 --> 00:11:05.799 one generation, for its reasons, may choose to prefer. From this point 147 00:11:05.799 --> 00:11:09.759 of view, what we call man's power over nature turns out to be the 148 00:11:09.799 --> 00:11:15.559 power exercised by some men over men with nature as its instrument. So now 149 00:11:15.559 --> 00:11:18.639 he's starting to do something really important here. Not only are we increasingly at 150 00:11:18.679 --> 00:11:22.960 the whims of this small group of people who are the top of apple or 151 00:11:24.039 --> 00:11:28.759 you know, your Elon Musk or your politicians or whatever. Not only are 152 00:11:28.759 --> 00:11:33.679 we increasingly at the whims of those who are currently in power, but people 153 00:11:33.720 --> 00:11:39.879 also exercise power across time. The decisions that we make are going to impact 154 00:11:39.000 --> 00:11:45.279 future generations. And so you know, through selective breeding, we are determining 155 00:11:45.320 --> 00:11:50.279 in the future what kinds of lives are not valuable, which ones should be 156 00:11:50.320 --> 00:11:54.879 breeded out, And we're also determining which lives are valuable. And we're also 157 00:11:54.919 --> 00:12:00.519 determining which lives are valuable and which ones should be mainstreamed in mayline. And 158 00:12:00.559 --> 00:12:05.879 so in both cases we're taking a godlike role and deciding what life should look 159 00:12:07.000 --> 00:12:11.600 like. And again, Lewis is not giving a hard and fast argument for 160 00:12:11.879 --> 00:12:15.320 what we should do or what we shouldn't do at this point. He's just 161 00:12:15.360 --> 00:12:20.279 trying to get us to understand properly the role of power and empowerment. That 162 00:12:20.600 --> 00:12:26.120 every decision that's made in the name of ennobling men is ultimately a decision made 163 00:12:26.279 --> 00:12:31.360 by a man or usually a small group of men, relatively small group of 164 00:12:31.399 --> 00:12:35.759 men over a broader swathe of humanity, whether we're talking about those who are 165 00:12:35.759 --> 00:12:41.120 alive now or those who will be alive in the future, and from a 166 00:12:41.279 --> 00:12:46.120 perspective that transcends our own current perspective, those who already are alive, getting 167 00:12:46.159 --> 00:12:50.240 out of our chronological egoism. There's a certain sense in which those who will 168 00:12:50.279 --> 00:12:52.720 be alive are already just as live as we are. If we get outside 169 00:12:52.840 --> 00:12:58.639 of our current temporal perspective, in our relationship with those who, from our 170 00:12:58.679 --> 00:13:03.440 perspective, come after us involves a disbalance in power. We have power over 171 00:13:03.480 --> 00:13:07.360 them in a way that they don't have over us, and any attempt that 172 00:13:07.399 --> 00:13:13.559 we make to impose a certain understanding of humanity on them is a kind of 173 00:13:13.879 --> 00:13:18.720 tyranny. We are treating them as a patient, we're treating them as a 174 00:13:18.759 --> 00:13:24.200 subject without their consent. And the reason why this becomes particularly heinous is because 175 00:13:24.240 --> 00:13:30.600 that those who are most interested in inventing humanity, in creating humanity, are 176 00:13:30.639 --> 00:13:33.080 those who don't believe that there is a humanity that we should adhere to, 177 00:13:33.120 --> 00:13:37.320 but that we do need to do just that we need to create humanity, 178 00:13:37.840 --> 00:13:41.159 because these are people who don't appeal to a natural law, people who don't 179 00:13:41.360 --> 00:13:46.039 recognize that there is a human essence that transcends any particular existence, and that 180 00:13:46.039 --> 00:13:50.440 that essence is something that we need to increasingly move into, not something that 181 00:13:50.440 --> 00:13:54.480 we need to increasingly create. Because if we are simply creating human essence, 182 00:13:54.759 --> 00:13:58.559 then that we have no reason to say that it's good. We have no 183 00:13:58.639 --> 00:14:01.720 reason, no framework, to refer to this as progress, because what is 184 00:14:01.720 --> 00:14:05.399 it that we're progressing into? If there is nothing into which we might progress. 185 00:14:05.960 --> 00:14:11.000 That's where all of this takes a really dark turn. We recognize that 186 00:14:11.039 --> 00:14:16.360 all this talk of progress en betterment of humanity is empty and dark, and 187 00:14:16.440 --> 00:14:20.279 in the end comes down to nihilistic displays of power. All right, let's 188 00:14:20.320 --> 00:14:24.600 keep going. Let's keep going. I've already talked ahead of some of these 189 00:14:24.679 --> 00:14:28.200 quotations. I'm not speaking of particular corruptions and abuses which an increase of moral 190 00:14:28.279 --> 00:14:33.039 virtue would cure. I am considering what the thing called man's power over nature 191 00:14:33.120 --> 00:14:37.200 must always and essentially be, and by that he means the power of some 192 00:14:37.360 --> 00:14:41.279 men over other men. In order to fully understand what man's power over nature, 193 00:14:41.320 --> 00:14:45.120 and therefore the power of some men over other men, really means, 194 00:14:45.399 --> 00:14:48.679 we must picture the race extended in time, from the date of its emergence 195 00:14:48.720 --> 00:14:52.879 to that of its extinction. Each generation exercises power over its successors, and 196 00:14:54.000 --> 00:14:58.360 each insofar as it modifies the environment bequeaths to it, and rebels against tradition, 197 00:14:58.960 --> 00:15:03.240 resists and limits the power of its predecessors. This modifies the picture which 198 00:15:03.279 --> 00:15:07.320 is sometimes painted of a progressive emancipation from tradition and a progressive control of natural 199 00:15:07.360 --> 00:15:13.080 processes, resulting in a continual increase of human power. In reality, of 200 00:15:13.080 --> 00:15:18.559 course, if any one age really attains by eugenics and scientific education, the 201 00:15:18.600 --> 00:15:22.360 power to make is the sentence what it pleases. All men who live after 202 00:15:22.440 --> 00:15:26.159 it are the patients of that power. They are weaker, not stronger, 203 00:15:26.440 --> 00:15:30.799 for though we may have put wonderful machines in their hands, we have preordained 204 00:15:30.960 --> 00:15:35.840 how they are to use them. So here Lewis says much more poignantly exactly 205 00:15:35.919 --> 00:15:41.919 what I was saying when we adopt this philosophy, that human existence precedes essence. 206 00:15:41.960 --> 00:15:43.080 In other words, we are just thrown out into this world. We 207 00:15:43.120 --> 00:15:48.919 have no nature other than that which we take dominion over. We have no 208 00:15:48.000 --> 00:15:54.320 human nature other than that potential which we choose to actualize. Then what this 209 00:15:54.399 --> 00:15:58.600 means is that when we are trying to reinvent for ourselves what it means to 210 00:15:58.679 --> 00:16:03.279 be human, and it is especially when this is tied to a growing scientifically 211 00:16:03.399 --> 00:16:11.080 driven technocracy, then we end up treating the individual men of future generations as 212 00:16:11.200 --> 00:16:17.600 unconsenting patients for the whims of those who are currently alive and who are able 213 00:16:17.639 --> 00:16:22.960 to execute those whims. And so the last men, far from being the 214 00:16:22.960 --> 00:16:26.759 heirs of power, will be of all men, most subject to the dead 215 00:16:26.799 --> 00:16:30.919 hand of the great planners and conditioners, and will themselves exercise least power upon 216 00:16:30.960 --> 00:16:37.279 the future. So we have this progressivism which has powerful, inspiring, stunning 217 00:16:37.279 --> 00:16:42.759 and brave rhetoric about how we are lifting ourselves up from the dark ages. 218 00:16:42.879 --> 00:16:48.440 We're lifting ourselves up from the mire of traditional values, and we are freeing 219 00:16:48.480 --> 00:16:52.559 ourselves. We're unshackling ourselves, and we are going to create a better and 220 00:16:52.679 --> 00:16:57.440 better man over time. Well, in reality, every decision that we make 221 00:16:59.000 --> 00:17:02.960 is shaping what the future is going to look like. And this continues down 222 00:17:03.000 --> 00:17:07.240 the line, and so eventually, once we get to the last generation of 223 00:17:07.319 --> 00:17:11.519 humanity, what we're not going to have are progressive people of unbridled power. 224 00:17:11.680 --> 00:17:15.079 Now, we're going to have these people who have been entirely cut and shaped 225 00:17:15.359 --> 00:17:18.720 by those who happen to be alive before them, and so they won't be 226 00:17:18.799 --> 00:17:22.200 the most powerful men. They will actually be the most disempowered men, living 227 00:17:22.279 --> 00:17:26.200 at the whims of those who are long dead. And so Lewis goes on 228 00:17:26.400 --> 00:17:30.039 man's conquest of nature. If the dreams of some scientific planners are realized means 229 00:17:30.079 --> 00:17:33.720 the rule of a few hundreds of men over billions upon billions of men, 230 00:17:34.200 --> 00:17:40.039 there neither is, nor can be, any simple increase of power on man's 231 00:17:40.240 --> 00:17:44.720 side. And so, in other words, human nature itself is never going 232 00:17:44.759 --> 00:17:48.799 to change. Man is always going to be what man is. It doesn't 233 00:17:48.839 --> 00:17:51.880 matter what kind of technology we have, it's never the masses that are going 234 00:17:51.920 --> 00:17:56.759 to gain more net power. Overall, the more that we are empowered by 235 00:17:56.880 --> 00:18:00.200 technology, the more that we are empowered by science, well, the more 236 00:18:00.200 --> 00:18:04.160 that we are giving ourselves over to external goods that are at the whims of 237 00:18:04.240 --> 00:18:10.400 our societal superiors, the more that we are giving ourselves over to politicians, 238 00:18:10.400 --> 00:18:12.720 the more that we're giving ourselves over to tech companies, the more that we're 239 00:18:12.720 --> 00:18:18.359 giving ourselves over towards those who may or more likely may not have our best 240 00:18:18.359 --> 00:18:22.079 interests at heart. And so the more that we rise up over the demands 241 00:18:22.119 --> 00:18:26.160 of nature, the more we're giving ourselves over to the demands of particular men. 242 00:18:26.720 --> 00:18:30.920 This is why, in that hideous strength, when Mark is talking to 243 00:18:30.960 --> 00:18:34.400 Philistrato shortly before he meets with the head Mark, seems to think that the 244 00:18:34.480 --> 00:18:38.799 nice is trying to achieve immortality for everyone, and phil Strata says, no, 245 00:18:40.119 --> 00:18:44.279 not at all. They're trying to perfect immortality for a small group of 246 00:18:44.319 --> 00:18:48.200 men and ultimately for one man. That is what they are pursuing. And 247 00:18:48.519 --> 00:18:52.359 in that Lewis is giving us what he's talking about here in the Abolition of 248 00:18:52.400 --> 00:18:56.279 Man, that the conquest of nature is carried about by a conquer, and 249 00:18:56.480 --> 00:19:00.519 man in the abstract cannot conquer, only particular men can conquer. And so 250 00:19:00.599 --> 00:19:06.880 what we're gonna have is a tyranny or an oligarchy, a technocracy that has 251 00:19:06.920 --> 00:19:10.599 control over everybody else. And I know I'm reading a lot of long passages, 252 00:19:10.640 --> 00:19:11.920 but I just think that there's so much in this essay that I just 253 00:19:11.960 --> 00:19:15.599 don't want to skip over. And Lewis says this so poignantly. And so 254 00:19:15.039 --> 00:19:18.799 I am not yet considering whether the total result of such ambivalent victories is a 255 00:19:18.799 --> 00:19:22.319 good thing or bad. I am only making clear what man's conquest of nature 256 00:19:22.359 --> 00:19:26.480 really means, and especially that final stage in the conquest, which perhaps is 257 00:19:26.519 --> 00:19:30.880 not far off. The final stage has come when manned by eugenics, by 258 00:19:30.920 --> 00:19:36.119 pre natal conditioning, and by an education and propaganda based on a perfect applied 259 00:19:36.119 --> 00:19:41.000 psychology, has obtained full control over himself. Human nature will be the last 260 00:19:41.039 --> 00:19:44.680 part of nature to surrender to man. The battle will then be one. 261 00:19:44.799 --> 00:19:47.880 We shall have taken the thread of life out of the hand of Clotho, 262 00:19:48.240 --> 00:19:52.319 and be heaceforward free to make our species whatever we wish to be. The 263 00:19:52.359 --> 00:19:56.240 battle will indeed be one, but who precisely will have won it? And 264 00:19:56.279 --> 00:20:00.519 again this is just continuing that same idea that whenever we talk about our conquest 265 00:20:00.559 --> 00:20:06.720 of nature, transcending our nature, the question is what is it that we're 266 00:20:06.759 --> 00:20:11.359 transcending into. And there's nothing firm there. To move away from nature without 267 00:20:11.400 --> 00:20:15.200 having a broader metaphysical context for nature is to move into nothingness, because these 268 00:20:15.279 --> 00:20:19.640 naturalists don't have anywhere else to go. And so when we transcend nature from 269 00:20:19.640 --> 00:20:25.319 this perspective, there's nothing to determine whether or not we've gone in a positive 270 00:20:25.359 --> 00:20:27.839 direction. And so the more that we do this, the more that we 271 00:20:29.000 --> 00:20:33.279 gain victory over nature, the more foggy things become, because again we're moving 272 00:20:33.319 --> 00:20:37.559 into a territory that doesn't exist. This is why in that hideous strength. 273 00:20:37.720 --> 00:20:45.200 Belbury is just consumed in this fog, both metaphorically and for a time literally, 274 00:20:45.640 --> 00:20:49.400 that everything is just so uncertain. Every time Mark tries to get anything 275 00:20:49.400 --> 00:20:55.000 out of whether he just waxes eloquently, but nothing is actually said. Mark 276 00:20:55.079 --> 00:20:56.559 never knows what his place is. For the longest time, he doesn't really 277 00:20:56.559 --> 00:21:00.640 know what he's supposed to be doing. Nothing is clear, and that's because 278 00:21:00.640 --> 00:21:04.680 they're moving away from nature into the void. Whereas over at Saint Anne's there 279 00:21:04.720 --> 00:21:10.880 is remarkable clarity. In every conversation that Jane has, she gains a greater 280 00:21:11.039 --> 00:21:15.160 understanding of herself, of her responsibility, of what it is that she should 281 00:21:15.200 --> 00:21:18.640 be doing in life. She is increasingly gaining clarity. She is stepping out 282 00:21:18.680 --> 00:21:23.240 of the fog, and that's because she also is starting to transcend nature. 283 00:21:23.279 --> 00:21:29.960 But she's transcending nature into something even more certain, something even more stable. 284 00:21:30.440 --> 00:21:33.640 As Lewis says in The Great Divorce, heaven is what remains when everything else 285 00:21:33.759 --> 00:21:40.319 is shaken, and she is increasingly gaining a relationship with this heavenly stable reality 286 00:21:40.920 --> 00:21:45.680 through the company and the influence of Saint Anne's. And so she's rising up 287 00:21:45.799 --> 00:21:52.200 towards reason and virtue themselves as opposed to Mark, who is descending. He 288 00:21:52.279 --> 00:21:57.599 is moving further and further away into unthinking nature, all the while trying to 289 00:21:57.720 --> 00:22:03.359 transcend in conquer nature. Remember that Mark is pursuing the inner circle, and 290 00:22:03.400 --> 00:22:07.480 remember the innermost circle in a physical or maybe superficial is a better way of 291 00:22:07.519 --> 00:22:11.559 saying, that the inner level on a superficial understanding in the medieval cosmos is 292 00:22:11.640 --> 00:22:14.319 Hell, because remember Earth is at the center, and then Hell is at 293 00:22:14.359 --> 00:22:18.119 the center of the Earth. And so Mark is increasingly moving into the inner 294 00:22:18.200 --> 00:22:21.839 ring of nature, which is Hell, which is as close as you can 295 00:22:21.880 --> 00:22:26.440 get to non being without falling off into non existence. And so he is 296 00:22:26.559 --> 00:22:30.759 thinking of becoming more foggy as he moves further and further into nature, all 297 00:22:30.759 --> 00:22:34.680 the while trying to escape into the inner ring, whereas Jane's increasingly moving toward 298 00:22:34.880 --> 00:22:37.559 the true center of things, which is God. As we're told at the 299 00:22:37.640 --> 00:22:44.160 end of Perilandrum. Now Lewis comments that in all ages, no doubt, 300 00:22:44.319 --> 00:22:48.680 nurture and instruction have in some sense attempted to exercise this power. And in 301 00:22:48.759 --> 00:22:52.799 other words, people have always exercised some degree of power over the generations that 302 00:22:52.880 --> 00:22:56.680 came after them. However, he thinks that there's something unique going on here 303 00:22:56.839 --> 00:23:00.799 in the current movement. He says that, but the man of the new 304 00:23:00.880 --> 00:23:06.440 age will be armed with the powers of an omnicompetent state and an irresistible scientific 305 00:23:06.480 --> 00:23:11.039 technique. We shall get at last a race of conditioners who really can cut 306 00:23:11.119 --> 00:23:15.200 out all posterity in what shape they please. And so in the past people 307 00:23:15.240 --> 00:23:22.359 have tried to shape future generations through education, through appeals to reason, maybe 308 00:23:22.359 --> 00:23:25.640 even a misuse of reason, in fact, very often a misuse of reason. 309 00:23:25.880 --> 00:23:30.119 But nonetheless they have tried to appeal to reason to say how things should 310 00:23:30.200 --> 00:23:33.400 be. They had a meaningful way of talking about what the good of man 311 00:23:33.559 --> 00:23:38.400 is and how to go about fulfilling it. That's very different than the powers 312 00:23:38.440 --> 00:23:41.960 at play that Lewis is talking about here. He says, the man molders 313 00:23:42.000 --> 00:23:47.839 of this age are going to be armed with an omniicompetent state and an irresistible 314 00:23:47.880 --> 00:23:52.400 scientific technique. And so we have powers at our disposal that the ancients could 315 00:23:52.440 --> 00:23:59.119 never have possibly dreamed of, from the atomic bomb, to so called gender 316 00:23:59.200 --> 00:24:03.920 reassignmentsuries, to chips in your brain, to whatever else we could think of. 317 00:24:03.000 --> 00:24:11.440 Here, the power of the scientific technique combined with an omniicompetent state, 318 00:24:11.440 --> 00:24:17.880 creates a force that we have never really had before in the history of man. 319 00:24:17.920 --> 00:24:21.920 And so as much as I try not to make too much of the 320 00:24:21.960 --> 00:24:25.400 time that we happen to be living in, we do need to recognize that 321 00:24:25.480 --> 00:24:30.119 some things are different in our current era, that we're not the case in 322 00:24:30.200 --> 00:24:33.160 the past. And so I think that Lewis is onto something when he says 323 00:24:33.200 --> 00:24:37.079 that the man molders of this new age are different than those who have come 324 00:24:37.079 --> 00:24:42.799 before us. These are people who deny transcendent reality and have great power in 325 00:24:42.880 --> 00:24:48.920 order to impose there apparently arbitrary wills on those who are alive now and those 326 00:24:48.960 --> 00:24:52.000 who will be alive in the future. And so this is and so this 327 00:24:52.079 --> 00:24:56.960 is a different era philosophically, and it is a different era scientifically. And 328 00:24:57.000 --> 00:25:02.279 so the conditioners then are to choose kind of artificial how they will, for 329 00:25:02.319 --> 00:25:06.200 their own good reasons, produce in the human race. They are the motivators, 330 00:25:06.240 --> 00:25:10.440 the creators of motives. But how are they going to be motivated themselves? 331 00:25:10.799 --> 00:25:14.720 For a time, perhaps by survivals within their own minds of the old 332 00:25:14.839 --> 00:25:18.920 natural tao. Thus, at first they may look upon themselves as servants and 333 00:25:18.920 --> 00:25:22.640 guardians of humanity and conceive that they have a duty to do it good. 334 00:25:22.240 --> 00:25:26.200 But it's only by confusion that it can remain in this state. And we 335 00:25:26.279 --> 00:25:32.200 see this now with all the progressive rhetoric about how we should act, how 336 00:25:32.200 --> 00:25:37.160 we should behave with one another, how we should go about pursuing self actualization 337 00:25:37.599 --> 00:25:41.400 and self affirmation, and all the talk about what we should do, what 338 00:25:41.440 --> 00:25:47.079 we shouldn't do, the justice that we owe to certain people. They use 339 00:25:47.160 --> 00:25:51.480 this language of teleology, they use this language of ethics, of the way 340 00:25:51.519 --> 00:25:55.119 that we should be, who we should be, what it means to be 341 00:25:55.240 --> 00:25:59.559 human well, denying that there is such a thing as transcendent reason that we 342 00:25:59.599 --> 00:26:03.880 ought to while denying things like natural law, while denying any kind of ground 343 00:26:03.960 --> 00:26:07.799 for objective value in virtue. And so they want to tell us how to 344 00:26:07.839 --> 00:26:14.920 act while also separating us out from any kind of transcendent standard that tells us 345 00:26:14.960 --> 00:26:18.440 how to act. And what that means is we are trading the freedom that 346 00:26:18.480 --> 00:26:25.359 we have fulfillment of form for tyranny. We are simply told to bow down 347 00:26:25.480 --> 00:26:29.839 to the conditions set by those who happen to have power over us in the 348 00:26:29.880 --> 00:26:33.079 moment. This is tyranny in the name of freedom. It is regress in 349 00:26:33.119 --> 00:26:37.640 the name of progress. And so he goes on duty itself is up for 350 00:26:37.680 --> 00:26:41.599 trial. It cannot also be the judge and good faars know better. They 351 00:26:41.720 --> 00:26:44.680 know quite well how to produce a dozen different conceptions of good in us. 352 00:26:44.839 --> 00:26:48.559 The question is which, if any, they should produce. No conception of 353 00:26:48.599 --> 00:26:52.200 good can help them to decide. It is absurd to fix on one of 354 00:26:52.240 --> 00:26:56.279 the things they are comparing and make it the standard of comparison. And this 355 00:26:56.400 --> 00:27:00.880 just continues that same idea that those who are condition those who are determining what 356 00:27:00.920 --> 00:27:06.279 the human essence is, how we ought to act, don't have any rational 357 00:27:06.319 --> 00:27:08.920 means of deciding what the good is. They don't have any rational means of 358 00:27:08.920 --> 00:27:12.559 deciding what our human duty is to each other, to ourselves, to society. 359 00:27:14.119 --> 00:27:18.119 It all just comes down to power. Now Lewis is obviously presenting it 360 00:27:18.160 --> 00:27:22.519 a rather dour outlook on these conditioners, or rather dour outlook on those who 361 00:27:22.559 --> 00:27:26.559 happen to be in power, and he responds to that. Here to some 362 00:27:26.680 --> 00:27:30.799 it will appear that I am inventing a factitious difficulty from my conditioners. Other 363 00:27:30.880 --> 00:27:33.799 more simple minded critics may ask, why should you suppose they will be such 364 00:27:33.920 --> 00:27:37.599 bad men? But I am not supposing them to be bad men. They 365 00:27:37.640 --> 00:27:41.279 are rather not men in the old sense at all. They are, if 366 00:27:41.319 --> 00:27:45.839 you like, men who have sacrificed their own share in traditional humanity in order 367 00:27:45.880 --> 00:27:51.720 to devote themselves to the task of deciding what humanity shall henceforth mean. Good 368 00:27:51.880 --> 00:27:56.440 and bad apply to them are words without content, for it is from them 369 00:27:56.480 --> 00:28:00.640 that the content of these words is henceforth to be derived. And so these 370 00:28:00.680 --> 00:28:03.799 are men that are worse than bad. At least, bad men still operate 371 00:28:03.880 --> 00:28:07.720 within a moral framework, and they could potentially become good men. But these 372 00:28:07.759 --> 00:28:12.400 are men who have transcended the categories of good and bad. These are people 373 00:28:12.400 --> 00:28:17.839 who are beyond good and evil, so to speak. And so because they 374 00:28:17.880 --> 00:28:22.319 are determining what the human essence is, they get to determine what the good 375 00:28:22.440 --> 00:28:27.759 is and what the bad is. And this is not connected to transcendent realm 376 00:28:27.920 --> 00:28:33.839 of natural law, a transcendent realm of value the virtues that ought to be 377 00:28:33.920 --> 00:28:38.559 valued. No good and bad is determined by the conditioners of this age. 378 00:28:38.680 --> 00:28:42.319 Therefore, they themselves are not subject to the categories of good and evil, 379 00:28:42.559 --> 00:28:47.240 and so at least within their philosophy, they are not moral agents at all. 380 00:28:47.559 --> 00:28:49.519 But being a moral agent is part of what it means to be human, 381 00:28:49.559 --> 00:28:52.759 at least that's what it means in the old sense. As Lewis says, 382 00:28:53.279 --> 00:28:57.759 Remember, for Aristotle, to be a human is to be a creature 383 00:28:57.920 --> 00:29:03.920 capable of reason and virtue, or actually, even better yet, to be 384 00:29:03.079 --> 00:29:08.440 human is to be a creature that exercises reason and virtue. The more that 385 00:29:08.480 --> 00:29:14.000 we make use of reason, the more that we embody virtue, the more 386 00:29:14.519 --> 00:29:18.519 essentially human we are, and the more that we pull away from these things, 387 00:29:18.720 --> 00:29:22.400 the more that we live according to animalistic instinct, the more that we 388 00:29:22.440 --> 00:29:27.039 neglect our nature, the more that we descend down into nature. As we 389 00:29:27.559 --> 00:29:33.319 become more like the natural beasts that don't have access to reason, that don't 390 00:29:33.359 --> 00:29:37.599 exist within the categories of good and evil, they simply are as all facts 391 00:29:37.680 --> 00:29:41.720 of nature are. They simply are. We have no facts about what could 392 00:29:41.720 --> 00:29:48.039 be derived from physical nature alone, And so the same people who talk about 393 00:29:48.319 --> 00:29:53.799 transcending natural law, transcending any kind of fixed human nature, are actually descending 394 00:29:53.880 --> 00:30:00.319 back down into unthinking, a rational nature, a more nature. This is 395 00:30:00.319 --> 00:30:07.319 why when Mark begins to associate himself with Belbury, he becomes lost in the 396 00:30:07.359 --> 00:30:11.400 fog. Everyone there is able to speak really well, but they don't really 397 00:30:11.440 --> 00:30:15.640 say anything at all. Mark is so confused about what they're doing, what 398 00:30:15.720 --> 00:30:18.200 he's doing there, what he's supposed to be doing. Everything is fog. 399 00:30:18.279 --> 00:30:22.960 The more he goes in, the more just lost he becomes. And that's 400 00:30:22.960 --> 00:30:26.480 because Mark is constantly looking for the inner circle, right. He wants to 401 00:30:26.480 --> 00:30:29.400 get away from the masses, and he wants to get to the seats of 402 00:30:29.440 --> 00:30:33.880 power. He wants to get into the inner circle. And remember four medieval 403 00:30:33.079 --> 00:30:37.200 cosmology, which plays such a important role in the Ransom series. If you 404 00:30:37.240 --> 00:30:41.799 get into the superficial center of things, and well, you give the Earth 405 00:30:41.799 --> 00:30:45.440 at the center of the cosmos, but then at the center of the Earth, 406 00:30:45.480 --> 00:30:48.039 what you have as hell, and that is as close as you can 407 00:30:48.079 --> 00:30:52.319 get to non being as possible, and that's why everything is frozen over. 408 00:30:52.720 --> 00:30:56.559 And so when Marc is pursuing the inner Circle, that's actually exactly where he's 409 00:30:56.599 --> 00:31:00.920 headed. What he thinks he's moving toward transcendent, he's actually moving not further 410 00:31:00.000 --> 00:31:04.880 up and further in, but he's moving further down and further out away from 411 00:31:06.039 --> 00:31:08.160 the true center, and so he's moving into Hell, he's going downward. 412 00:31:08.240 --> 00:31:12.759 Things are becoming less rational, less clear, and this is a theme that 413 00:31:12.839 --> 00:31:17.079 runs throughout the Ransom series. And remember back in out of the Sidlent planet, 414 00:31:17.359 --> 00:31:21.119 Weston and Divine are pursuing transcendence, but instead doing they're actually being pulled 415 00:31:21.119 --> 00:31:25.000 down low. That's right toward the beginning, we're told that they're performing experiments 416 00:31:25.079 --> 00:31:30.079 on their dog, Tartaris, and so they're literally experimenting with forces of hell 417 00:31:30.359 --> 00:31:33.039 in order to reach Heaven. And so as they're trying to move upward, 418 00:31:33.119 --> 00:31:37.480 they're actually being pulled downward. Whereas I feel like at Jane moving towards Saint 419 00:31:37.519 --> 00:31:42.519 Anne's, she gains clarity with every conversation she has, Her reason is sharpened, 420 00:31:42.799 --> 00:31:48.640 her understanding becomes more expansive, and that's because she is moving toward Heaven, 421 00:31:48.720 --> 00:31:52.480 toward the true center. And as Lewis tells us in The Great Divorce, 422 00:31:52.759 --> 00:31:56.160 Heaven is what remains when everything else is shaken, and so that's where 423 00:31:56.160 --> 00:32:00.960 we find the greatest stability as we move upward toward transcendence, and as we 424 00:32:01.000 --> 00:32:06.480 move upward toward transcendence, the imminent world in which we find ourselves the realm 425 00:32:06.480 --> 00:32:09.920 of nature, actually gains more grounding and more stability. In other words, 426 00:32:09.920 --> 00:32:15.519 we come to discover anew the humanity that has been with us all along. 427 00:32:15.200 --> 00:32:19.480 And that's why when Mark is run around edge Stowe looking for Jane and he 428 00:32:19.559 --> 00:32:23.440 runs into Dimple, Dimple offers to help him leave the nice and he says 429 00:32:23.440 --> 00:32:28.559 that I'm inviting you back into the human family, because when we lose the 430 00:32:28.680 --> 00:32:37.200 transcendent in which humanity is found, will we actually lose our actualized participation in 431 00:32:37.240 --> 00:32:39.599 the human family. Because if there are no transcendent realities, if all we 432 00:32:39.680 --> 00:32:43.640 have are particulars, then we don't have anything that holds us in common, 433 00:32:43.640 --> 00:32:46.839 and so the idea of humanity falls apart. You only have humanity if you 434 00:32:46.960 --> 00:32:52.880 have a transcendent realm to anchor it in or to find it in. And 435 00:32:52.920 --> 00:32:57.799 along this line Loose continues. However far they go back or down, they 436 00:32:57.839 --> 00:33:01.359 can find no ground to stand on. Motive they try to act on becomes 437 00:33:01.400 --> 00:33:05.839 at once patitio. It is not that they are bad men. They are 438 00:33:05.880 --> 00:33:08.000 not men at all. Stepping outside the towel, they have stepped into the 439 00:33:08.039 --> 00:33:13.400 void, Nor are their subjects necessarily unhappy men. They are not men at 440 00:33:13.400 --> 00:33:17.480 all. They are artifacts. Man's final conquest has proved to be the abolition 441 00:33:17.720 --> 00:33:22.240 of man. And this reminds me of Lucy's question from Prince Caspian, And 442 00:33:22.279 --> 00:33:24.920 we'll talk about this more when we get to Prince Caspian, But she asks, 443 00:33:25.440 --> 00:33:30.559 wouldn't it be dreadful if someday in our own world at home, men 444 00:33:30.640 --> 00:33:34.920 started going wild inside like the animals here and still look like men, so 445 00:33:34.960 --> 00:33:38.079 that you never know which were which? And so this is getting to one 446 00:33:38.119 --> 00:33:43.640 of the recurrent themes that runs throughout Lewis's writing, fiction and nonfiction. We 447 00:33:43.720 --> 00:33:45.960 see this very clearly in the Ransom series, and we see this again come 448 00:33:46.039 --> 00:33:50.279 up in the Narni series, as we'll look at more detail when we get 449 00:33:50.279 --> 00:33:52.559 there. But I just want to repeat that question, wouldn't it be dreadful 450 00:33:52.720 --> 00:33:58.359 if someday in our own world at home men started going wild inside like the 451 00:33:58.400 --> 00:34:01.599 animals here and still look like men, so you never know which were which? 452 00:34:02.799 --> 00:34:06.400 And as I alluded to just a little bit ago, Lewis says here, 453 00:34:06.559 --> 00:34:08.920 man's conquest of nature turns out in the moment of its consummation to be 454 00:34:09.119 --> 00:34:14.440 nature's conquest of men. By abandoning reason, we abandon what it means to 455 00:34:14.519 --> 00:34:19.920 be human. We seep down into a rational, a moral nature in an 456 00:34:19.960 --> 00:34:27.039 attempt to gain ourselves anew we lose ourselves altogether, because without a metaphysical context 457 00:34:27.119 --> 00:34:30.559 in which to place ourselves, there's nowhere that we can be. We are 458 00:34:30.599 --> 00:34:37.119 simply lost. We are subsumed into unthinking nature. Even as Lewis tells us 459 00:34:37.159 --> 00:34:42.840 in Hell, everyone is subsumed in a perverted unity, into the hunger of 460 00:34:42.880 --> 00:34:47.000 Satan. And as Lewis often does, he points out that this kind of 461 00:34:47.079 --> 00:34:52.079 dystopia can come from democracy just as much from fascism, despite the fact that 462 00:34:52.360 --> 00:34:58.599 elsewhere he does argue for democracy on the grounds that not that everyone is so 463 00:34:58.679 --> 00:35:02.760 great, but that nobody is good enough to rule over other people. Absolutely. 464 00:35:04.280 --> 00:35:07.880 Nonetheless, he regularly points out the ways that democracy can go wrong, 465 00:35:08.199 --> 00:35:12.679 and so he says, I am not here thinking solely, perhaps not even 466 00:35:12.800 --> 00:35:16.239 chiefly, of those who are public enemies. At the moment. The process, 467 00:35:16.280 --> 00:35:21.840 which if not checked, will abolish man goes on of pace among communists 468 00:35:21.840 --> 00:35:27.360 and democrats no less than among fascists. The methods may at first differ in 469 00:35:27.400 --> 00:35:31.320 brutality, but many a mild eyed scientist, many a popular dramatist, many 470 00:35:31.360 --> 00:35:36.719 an amateur philosopher in our midst means in the long run, just the same 471 00:35:36.840 --> 00:35:42.840 as the Nazi rulers of Germany. Traditional values are to be debunked and mankind 472 00:35:43.000 --> 00:35:45.400 to be cut into some fresh shape at the will, which must, by 473 00:35:45.480 --> 00:35:52.159 hypothesis, be an arbitrary will of some lucky people in one lucky generation which 474 00:35:52.199 --> 00:35:53.800 has learned how to do it. And that or that, I think is 475 00:35:53.880 --> 00:35:58.199 just a good summary of everything that we've talked about up to this point. 476 00:35:58.719 --> 00:36:04.320 That particular men to get power over its subjects by the subjects willingly relinquishing their 477 00:36:04.360 --> 00:36:07.800 power to particular men, whether this be done in the market or by political 478 00:36:07.880 --> 00:36:15.159 means. And so democracy does not necessarily equate freedom. Those are not interchangeable 479 00:36:15.239 --> 00:36:17.159 terms. Now towards the end here, I think he does something really important 480 00:36:17.199 --> 00:36:23.239 when he links together this kind of scientific progressivism with magic. And a lot 481 00:36:23.239 --> 00:36:28.159 of people think that magic was rampant in the Middle Ages, but then it 482 00:36:28.239 --> 00:36:31.320 was replaced by enlightenment science. But he makes the point that that's really not 483 00:36:31.400 --> 00:36:35.519 the case. He says that there was very little magic in the Middle Ages, 484 00:36:35.960 --> 00:36:39.239 the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries are the high noon of magic. The serious 485 00:36:39.239 --> 00:36:44.960 magical endeavor and the serious scientific endeavor are twins. One was sickly and dyed, 486 00:36:45.280 --> 00:36:47.920 the others strong and throve. But they were twins. They were born 487 00:36:49.039 --> 00:36:52.559 of the same impulse. Now that does not mean that we need to go 488 00:36:52.599 --> 00:36:54.599 burn the scientists as witches. That's not what Lewis is saying, and elsewhere 489 00:36:54.599 --> 00:36:59.599 he makes that very clear. But I do think he's doing something important here 490 00:36:59.639 --> 00:37:06.480 by pointing out the common impulses at work behind both magic and science. Now, 491 00:37:06.519 --> 00:37:13.440 obviously science as a study of the empirical world can be put to positive 492 00:37:13.480 --> 00:37:19.119 aims. However, if science is allowed to direct itself, then what we're 493 00:37:19.159 --> 00:37:23.320 going to get is the extension of this impulse for domination, this impulse for 494 00:37:23.440 --> 00:37:28.599 tyranny over nature. But as we've seen again and again, the more that 495 00:37:28.639 --> 00:37:31.840 you reach up for power, the more power reaches up for you. And 496 00:37:31.920 --> 00:37:36.199 in the end that power is going to win. You are going to be 497 00:37:36.239 --> 00:37:40.840 pulled down by forces that you cannot account for within a scientific worldview. Hence, 498 00:37:40.880 --> 00:37:46.039 the dark Eldells are the macrobes of the nice or the descent of west 499 00:37:46.119 --> 00:37:51.599 End into the unman. Science can be a great tool in the right hands. 500 00:37:51.679 --> 00:37:55.039 But when, as Busby says in that hideous strength, when science is 501 00:37:55.079 --> 00:38:00.639 put on scientific grounds, when science becomes self de we at that point we've 502 00:38:00.880 --> 00:38:06.320 given great power over to the sorcerer, over to the witch, and that 503 00:38:06.440 --> 00:38:09.960 is only going to lead to hell. Then he goes on saying, there 504 00:38:10.000 --> 00:38:15.360 is something which unites magic and applied science while separating both from the wisdom of 505 00:38:15.440 --> 00:38:19.440 earlier ages. For the wise men of old, the cardinal problem had been 506 00:38:19.480 --> 00:38:22.039 how to conform the soul to reality, and the solution had been knowledge, 507 00:38:22.199 --> 00:38:27.519 self discipline, and virtue. For magic and applied science alike, the problem 508 00:38:27.559 --> 00:38:30.119 is how to subdue reality to the wishes of men. The solution is a 509 00:38:30.159 --> 00:38:35.159 technique, and both in the practice of this technique are ready to do things 510 00:38:35.239 --> 00:38:39.280 hitherto regarded as disgusting and impious, such as digging up and mutilating the dead. 511 00:38:40.280 --> 00:38:45.480 This right here is such a profound statement. For the wise men of 512 00:38:45.519 --> 00:38:47.800 old, the cardinal problem had been how to conform the soul to reality, 513 00:38:49.159 --> 00:38:52.679 and the solution had been knowledge, self discipline, and virtue. So, 514 00:38:52.679 --> 00:38:54.360 in other words, there was this idea that there is a human nature, 515 00:38:54.719 --> 00:38:58.199 and that the more we act in a certain way, the more that we 516 00:38:58.320 --> 00:39:00.639 use reason, the more that we embody verse to you, the more that 517 00:39:00.679 --> 00:39:06.000 we exercise self discipline, the more essentially human we become, or rather the 518 00:39:06.039 --> 00:39:10.719 more that we conform to the human essence. Whereas today, the problem is 519 00:39:10.760 --> 00:39:15.599 not virtue, right, because that sounds like we're shaming somebody for how they're 520 00:39:15.639 --> 00:39:19.599 living. The correct answer is not reason, because I mean, it's oppressive 521 00:39:19.639 --> 00:39:22.639 to say that you have a foothold on truth and that you're right and somebody 522 00:39:22.639 --> 00:39:27.920 else is wrong. The problem is not self disciplined because that assumes a level 523 00:39:28.039 --> 00:39:31.800 of responsibility that again leads the feelings of shame and guilt. We really need 524 00:39:31.800 --> 00:39:37.079 are more sociologists and more psychiatrists who can give us the right techniques and apply 525 00:39:37.119 --> 00:39:42.960 the right medicine to fix us with their professional external means. And I mean, 526 00:39:43.000 --> 00:39:46.079 don't get me wrong, I'm not discounting psychiatry as a discipline, but 527 00:39:46.119 --> 00:39:52.480 I am discounting a lot of psychiatrists and a lot of popular psychiatric methodology and 528 00:39:52.519 --> 00:39:58.480 the philosophy that undergirds such movements, because a lot of those so called treatments 529 00:39:58.480 --> 00:40:02.440 are made by men without chess, who are trying to operate on nature without 530 00:40:02.480 --> 00:40:07.360 recognizing what it even means to be human. And so we'll talk about terms 531 00:40:07.360 --> 00:40:10.119 like mental health without having any kind of understanding for what it even means to 532 00:40:10.199 --> 00:40:15.239 be a healthy human, which means, in turn, we have people in 533 00:40:15.360 --> 00:40:22.000 power who are imposing their vision for humanity divorced from natural law, divorce from 534 00:40:22.039 --> 00:40:25.280 transcendent reason, divorce from any kind of transcendent understanding of human nature. They're 535 00:40:25.320 --> 00:40:32.199 simply imposing their understanding of humanity on other people through their technical, scientific knowledge. 536 00:40:32.760 --> 00:40:40.800 And oftentimes this involves doing things hitherto regarded as disgusting and impious. And 537 00:40:40.840 --> 00:40:46.199 so these people operating under the philosophy that Lewis has been talking about are trying 538 00:40:46.239 --> 00:40:52.400 to see through all these so called artificial constructs of society. They're trying to 539 00:40:52.400 --> 00:40:58.559 see through these supposedly oppressive constructions of traditional values and morality. They're trying to 540 00:40:58.559 --> 00:41:02.079 see through all this to just see things as they really are through their scientific 541 00:41:02.119 --> 00:41:07.639 empiricism. But as Lewis concludes this essay, but you cannot go on explaining 542 00:41:07.639 --> 00:41:13.760 away forever. You will find that you have explained explanation itself away. You 543 00:41:13.800 --> 00:41:17.079 cannot go on seeing through things forever. The whole point of seeing through something 544 00:41:17.239 --> 00:41:22.000 is to see something through it. It is good that the windows should be 545 00:41:22.039 --> 00:41:24.880 transparent, because the street or garden beyond it is opaque. How if you 546 00:41:24.920 --> 00:41:29.960 saw through the garden too, it is no use trying to see through first 547 00:41:29.960 --> 00:41:34.559 principles. If you see through everything, then everything is transparent. But a 548 00:41:34.559 --> 00:41:39.280 wholly transparent world is an invisible world. To see through all things is the 549 00:41:39.320 --> 00:41:45.519 same as not to see, and so we have to have first principles. 550 00:41:45.719 --> 00:41:50.440 If we're going to use reason to determine the course of action that we should 551 00:41:50.440 --> 00:41:52.599 take, or to go back to the beginning, if we're going to use 552 00:41:52.679 --> 00:41:57.599 reason to determine even how language should be used, then we have to begin 553 00:41:57.679 --> 00:42:00.559 by assuming that there is such a thing as reason, that there is such 554 00:42:00.559 --> 00:42:02.000 a thing as a right way of thinking, and by extension, that there 555 00:42:02.000 --> 00:42:06.400 are many wrong ways of thinking. But if we aren't able to grant that, 556 00:42:06.480 --> 00:42:10.159 then our whole project falls apart into absurdity. And once we enter into 557 00:42:10.199 --> 00:42:14.840 the realm of absurdity, then we are beyond the realm of good and evil. 558 00:42:14.880 --> 00:42:16.840 We're beyond the realm of right and wrong. All we have is power 559 00:42:17.000 --> 00:42:21.559 enacted on those without power. I really like what Lewis says here that if 560 00:42:21.599 --> 00:42:25.599 we're trying to see through everything but there's nothing foundational at the bottom, then 561 00:42:25.679 --> 00:42:30.559 we're not actually able to see anything at all. Reminds me of his Meditation 562 00:42:30.639 --> 00:42:32.920 and a tool Shed, where he says that there are two ways to look 563 00:42:32.960 --> 00:42:37.480 at a beam of light coming into a dark shed. One hand, you 564 00:42:37.599 --> 00:42:39.840 can look along the beam. At that point you're not really looking at the 565 00:42:39.880 --> 00:42:43.880 beam at all. You're rather seeing that which the beam illuminates. And so 566 00:42:43.960 --> 00:42:45.559 you look through this beam of light and tool Shed, you're looking through the 567 00:42:45.559 --> 00:42:49.599 hole in the roof, and you're able to see some trees, and further 568 00:42:49.719 --> 00:42:52.280 up you see clouds, and eventually you may even see the sun itself, 569 00:42:52.360 --> 00:42:55.239 and so you're not at all actually looking at the beam of light. You're 570 00:42:55.280 --> 00:42:59.639 experiencing the beam of light, and in experiencing the beam of light, you're 571 00:42:59.639 --> 00:43:02.360 experience something real about the light. And he says that the modern way of 572 00:43:02.400 --> 00:43:06.519 looking at things is not to look along the beam, but rather to look 573 00:43:06.679 --> 00:43:09.360 at the beam. And so you don't want to get personally invested. You 574 00:43:09.400 --> 00:43:13.639 don't want to experience the beam. You want to study it objectively, which 575 00:43:13.639 --> 00:43:17.679 means removing yourself from it, just as the modern philosopher scientists might try to 576 00:43:17.719 --> 00:43:22.239 remove themselves from humanity in order to look upon it as if that would somehow 577 00:43:22.360 --> 00:43:28.800 give them more objective, more real, more true knowledge. And so the 578 00:43:28.840 --> 00:43:32.079 person studying the beam is said to have more true, more accurate knowledge in 579 00:43:32.159 --> 00:43:37.119 the person who is simply experiencing the beam of light. But then he says, 580 00:43:37.280 --> 00:43:42.719 by this line of thinking, would it not be more true, a 581 00:43:43.119 --> 00:43:45.800 more real perspective, if then you had somebody standing behind the guy looking at 582 00:43:45.840 --> 00:43:50.159 the beam. And this guy is now going to be studying the guy who's 583 00:43:50.199 --> 00:43:52.679 looking at the beam and looking at his brain chemistry. You know, he's 584 00:43:52.719 --> 00:43:58.440 looking at the gray matter in order to discover something about the thought of the 585 00:43:58.480 --> 00:44:01.119 person who's looking at the beam. And then in discovering the thought that's leading 586 00:44:01.159 --> 00:44:06.360 to his understanding of the beam, he then has a more real understanding because 587 00:44:06.400 --> 00:44:12.280 he's seen through the perception of the first observer. But then would it not 588 00:44:12.360 --> 00:44:15.840 be more real? Would it not then be more objective knowledge to have somebody 589 00:44:15.840 --> 00:44:22.440 else behind that guy looking at his brain to determine how he is thinking through 590 00:44:22.480 --> 00:44:25.199 his brain chemistry? But then would it not be more objective to have another 591 00:44:25.239 --> 00:44:29.599 observer looking at that observer looking at the first observer. And that goes on 592 00:44:29.800 --> 00:44:32.880 for infinity to the point where we're always seeing through something, but what we're 593 00:44:32.880 --> 00:44:38.079 never actually seeing is thought itself. And so we remove ourselves from the experience 594 00:44:38.159 --> 00:44:43.559 so far that we actually lose contact with the experience altogether. And that's what 595 00:44:43.599 --> 00:44:45.679 he's saying here at the end of the Abolition of Man, that when we 596 00:44:45.760 --> 00:44:51.119 see through everything, we actually lose the ability to see at all. We 597 00:44:51.239 --> 00:44:55.800 have to begin somewhere, and what Lewis proposed is that we begin where nearly 598 00:44:55.880 --> 00:45:01.599 everybody has begun throughout time, and that is with the presupposition that there are 599 00:45:01.760 --> 00:45:06.599 things to know. And if there are things to know, then there is 600 00:45:06.639 --> 00:45:09.840 a reason by which we might know them. And if there is a reason, 601 00:45:09.920 --> 00:45:14.480 if there is a better way of thinking than others, perhaps even a 602 00:45:14.599 --> 00:45:17.119 good way of thinking, then there also is a good way of acting. 603 00:45:17.400 --> 00:45:22.880 And by reason, we can consider different scenarios and we're able to actualize those 604 00:45:22.920 --> 00:45:25.920 at our best, first and foremost in our individual lives, but also as 605 00:45:25.960 --> 00:45:30.880 that works its way out to our relationships and into society. More broadly. 606 00:45:30.480 --> 00:45:36.679 In summary, the modern man needs to heed the invitation of dimble and re 607 00:45:36.840 --> 00:45:39.920 enter the human family. And that's it for now. Next time we will 608 00:45:39.960 --> 00:45:50.119 finish up that hideous strength. Until then, God's feeding. All right, 609 00:45:50.159 --> 00:45:52.760 Thanks for listening, And again, if you find that helpful and you would 610 00:45:52.800 --> 00:45:55.360 like to participate in the course from this point forward and get access to all 611 00:45:55.400 --> 00:45:59.719 the material, and definitely then make sure that you click on the link in 612 00:45:59.760 --> 00:46:02.800 the show and use the Code podcast to get fifty percent off tuition. And 613 00:46:02.960 --> 00:46:06.719 before we sign off, I want to go ahead and thank all of my 614 00:46:06.920 --> 00:46:09.119 patrons by name who are at the ten dollars tire or higher, and so 615 00:46:09.280 --> 00:46:14.679 many thank yous to Mark, Aaron, Jeff Paul Aaron, Andrew Brandon, 616 00:46:14.760 --> 00:46:19.599 Christopher, Emmy, Ian, Jeremiah, Jocelyn, Joshua Landon, Aaron, 617 00:46:19.760 --> 00:46:23.199 Matthew Steele and William as well as all of my five dollars month patrons as 618 00:46:23.239 --> 00:46:28.360 well. Your support allows me to have a little bit more flexibility to get 619 00:46:28.360 --> 00:46:30.239 things like this done. And if you appreciate the work that I do and 620 00:46:30.280 --> 00:46:34.199 you want me to be able to produce publicly on a regular basis, then 621 00:46:34.239 --> 00:46:37.480 I very much welcome your patronage over at patreon dot com slash mythic Mind. 622 00:46:37.679 --> 00:46:42.599 Your support helps me to keep going further up and further in to produce content, 623 00:46:42.760 --> 00:46:45.880 to move toward keeping a more regular schedule, and so I very much 624 00:46:45.880 --> 00:46:50.440 appreciate your patronage over at patreon dot com slash mythic Mind. But that's it 625 00:46:50.480 --> 00:46:52.639 for now and until next time, in which i'd hope to finally get back 626 00:46:52.639 --> 00:47:19.639 to the Beawolf series, I wish you many meaningful roads ahead.