Hey, I haven't posted in a while because for the past like six months I've been working on Stephen King's Dark Tower series. It took about five extra months because the file on my Kindle for the fourth book was corrupted so I had to find a hard copy, and then I dropped my Kindle while I was on the sixth book and I had to wait until I was back home to finish up the series.
Anyways, I didn't take any specific notes on the books... Well, I had some on my Kindle, but of course that means next to nothing now... But I have to recommend the series. If you've been looking for a fantasy epic, this is perfect, even if you're not a big fan of Stephen King. It's a lot different from many of his other books, and as always, there are a lot of Easter eggs for those who are a fan of his other books (but it still makes sense without having read every single other thing. In some cases, it would have been a little easier without having read certain things, and in some cases some stuff would seem random if you hadn't [like the cameo made by Dinky Earnshaw from "Everything's Eventual"]. And in some cases it is just neutral and whatever). Also, Desperation gets some play, which is always exciting for me.
As for Abolition of Man, it's one of CS Lewis's lesser-known works, though if you look at the post for That Hideous Strength, or read it, CS Lewis says that they are kind of theoretical or philosophical twins. Well, I've put that book out of my mind completely, so maybe that's why The Abolition of Man wasn't doing it for me. And I just noticed when signing into this account for the first time since December, someone commented on that post with a link to his own thoughts on the book--I skimmed it, it mentioned The Abolition of Man, I should probably read it prior to writing this, too late, I'm going to read it over the weekend instead.
Anywayyys. This book was kind of boring. He applies a lot of deconstructionism to real life, which... Well, deconstructionism in the literary theory sense doesn't really lend itself to real life applications, although I personally enjoy deconstructionist looks at fiction and whatnot. He starts off with deconstructing sections from textbooks he has read, which is all well and good, though he looks at it really subjectively which in this case really gets in the way of his reading. But then he tries to bring over his ideas to apply to real life, and it's bulky and awkward. It's kind of like how I felt when I was wrestling with various Camus works: well, that's an interesting theory, buuuut you only have to be alive to know that things aren't quite like that. CS Lewis seems to fall down a slippery slope, deducing that if textbooks present information that is theoretically wrong like X, society will slowly fall apart and this and that. Though some of his observations ring true, it's not going to be because of a textbook that life gets harder and perhaps less observant of humanity. He clearly doesn't remember grade school, because no-one read their textbooks/purged them immediately upon hitting the summer vacation. The fact that he doesn't remember says something too, eh?
Though unlike Camus there are things that apply to modern life. I also am not sure how CS Lewis thought he was going to try to take apart society without using, you know, sociology. It may seem like it's splitting hairs for me to say deconstructing and a sociological look at something are different and have different situations which they should be applied to--but they do, although they can work in tangent. It was just... really weird. Everything he set up was so awkward and unbalanced for me that I honestly couldn't even focus on the point he was trying to make there.
Oh, and while I'm thinking of it, the cover itself: the bio does not list Narnia in his best-known work. Come on, man.
One particularly weird thing I noticed that also made it hard for me to focus on his argument or figure out his point was his references to Hinduism. Granted, there are a lot of religions that believe that you can achieve enlightenment or become one with the universe or God(s) or whatnot, but in the second Space Trilogy book, CS Lewis says that "What Pantheists falsely hoped of Heaven bad men really received in Hell. They were melted down into their Master, as a lead soldier slips down and loses his shape in the ladle held over the gas ring. The question whether Satan, or one whom Satan has digested, is acting on any given occasion, has in the long run no clear significance. In the meantime, the great thing was not to be tricked again" (173). Obviously such an idea is not viewed positively. So when he (seems to) reference it positively here I was a tad bit thrown. He also relies heavily on concepts of "Tao" to get his points across, but I don't think his understanding of Tao is that great. Certainly the book suffers from his half-self-defined version of the concept as well.
His idea of Tao is also a little confusing because of his emphasis on it: he imagines it as state of mind, which to some extent, unless if I'm mistaken, Taoism is, or plays a major role in it. But again, he has expressed great disdain in other works for non-Christian religions, which this is considered. But it seems that he believes Taoism was the goal of how humanity ought to act/be, and every other religion and philosophy (oh?) is an attempt to line up with it. But... Hm. Well, you understand why I'm having trouble taking this from CS Lewis as opposed to, say, when Jack Kerouac expresses similar beliefs in The Dharma Bums or Desolation Angels, right?
Again, later, he goes on to describe how the sacrifice of oneself for the community would be nonsensical in the terms that the textbook has made which will somehow have a ripple effect on the entirety of society (by the way, what the textbook said was that when a man said something was sublime, it means that "I have sublime feelings" [Lewis 15]. Okay). This apparently 'debunks' sentimental/traditional values... The mindset "claims to be cutting away the parasitic growth of emotion, religious sanction, and inherited taboos, in order that 'real' or 'basic' values may emerge" (Lewis 41-42). One stupid idea in a textbook is not going to cause this. Perhaps it seemed a lot more likely that this would happen in 1947, when this book was first published (1984 wasn't published yet, but Animal Farm would have been fresh in the mind, and Brave New World had been around for over 15 years by that time), but the idea for that time still seems pretty unrealistic. Then again, Britain was also beaten a lot worse in WWII than America physically, so maybe such a negative outlook was expected. Again, the same germ which produced 1984, producing this.
And if he just intended this text book to be the introduction to this idea, what an awkward way to do it! This would be a better example to put in its own paragraph or chapter, not to make it like the vein that runs through it, because it totally throws the paper and makes it lopsided and awkward.
Anywayyyys, the martyrdom thing. Basically he just says, should people like this succeed, you could never expect sacrifices for other men or community--shame wouldn't move them, nor love, nor whatever. In fact, nothing could move them either way. Okay. But if people are this flat, you could presumably just say, "Go get yourself killed". Of course, my idea takes into account that there will be people controlling brain dead masses. Which, should this come to fruition, would have to be the case, unless if everybody evolves backwards into cave men.
He also brings up, in the middle of nowhere, as an ill-fitting example, that of sexual satisfaction. This is another topic that kind of brings me pause when he brings up, because I don't think CS Lewis was all that experienced with, well, sex. So he says that "For of course sexual desire, being instinctive, is to be gratified whenever it does not conflict with with the preservation of the species" (Lewis 45). This doesn't get mentioned again till about a dozen pages later, in a different context. So what is CS Lewis talking about here? Against overpopulation? Protection of the parents'/mother's health? That seems a little modern for this, but since CS Lewis changes the subject right afterwards, we'll never know.
Oh yeah, on page 47, CS Lewis uses the phrase "infinite regress"--which is akin to putting a stamp on the cover over the book that says "I AM DECONSTRUCTING". I recognized what was going on prior to that, but upon seeing that I just kind of rolled my eyes. Deconstructionist ideals can be applied to the human psyche and real life, but this is the first time I've ever seen something taken apart by it (I'm thinking about it now, and you could argue that Camus's theories behind his works make him a deconstructionist, but it's so easy to destroy his works with deconstructionism that it doesn't even matter man), and boy is it awkward. The fact that he never brings in any other deconstructionist buzzwords or even just this earlier on gives me a feeling that he was sort of piddling around, kind of unsure about the theory he wanted to use. Then again, he didn't have the benefit of a handy-dandy book by Lois Tyson... So yeah, I'm probably being kind of harsh...
"If man chooses to treat himself as raw material, raw material he will be: not raw material to be manipulated, as he fondly imagined, by himself, but by mere appetite, that is, mere Nature, in the person of his dehumanized Conditioners" (Lewis 84).
"A dogmatic belief in objective value is necessary to the very idea of a rule which is not tyranny or an obedience which is not slavery" (Lewis 84-85). : / But your use of dogmatic makes this statement problematic...
At the end of this book there are sections of quotes which go to support his Tao theory and the laws he believes all cultures or many (especially Classical cultures, it must be noted) uphold. Personally, I think these would have been more useful, you know, in the actual paper used to support and strengthen it, but the quotes are still interesting:
"'Terrify not men or God will terrify thee'" (Lewis 97; Ancient Egyptian, Precepts of Ptahhetep).
"'"To live according to nature is the supreme good"'" (Lewis 107; Roman, Cicero).
"'The second of these achievements is no less glorious than the first; for while the first did good on one occasion, the second will continue to benefit the state forever'" (Lewis 108; Roman, Cicero).
Also problematic is that in this section, he includes a quote from the end of Beowulf--because this piece was edited by Christians in an effort to lay ideals onto Anglo-Saxons a little more easily, it is very unbalanced. Where Beowulf is manly and vicious and violent and an Anglo-Saxon idol, at his death in the end of the piece he is named as being "'the mildest and gentlest of the kings of the world'" (Lewis 116; for some reason CS Lewis does not site the poem itself properly, but it's there, I promise). This makes the editing in the original piece obvious, because it just doesn't gel with who Beowulf proves himself to be. He ripped Grendel's arm off! When he first comes to the castle he sure as heck doesn't uphold Christian modesty or anything like that. As I said, the editing that the scribe made back in the early ADs is painfully obvious at the end of the piece. So using this one specific quote makes Lewis look uneducated or as though he was purposely ignoring the whole rest of the book. Which of course never looks good.
So... as far as CS Lewis's books go... This is definitely my least favourite. It's either poorly written or very dated (or both). He doesn't use his theory well, but in his defense, deconstructionism is a pain in the butt. Still, he could have done a little more than throwing in one deconstructionist buzz phrase. The construction of the whole piece is a little off and awkward too, it's not organized that well. Then again, I also hated and had trouble with That Hideous Strength, and according to CS Lewis himself, the books were philosophical twins. Oops... Should I have read that article that guy sent me before I wrote this? Undoubtedly. But I'm going to go do that now...
Works Cited: Lewis, CS. The Abolition of Man. The Macmillan Company: New York, 1947.
Lewis, CS. Perelandra. Collier Books: New York, 1962.
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