The Abolition Of Man And That Hideous Strength Analysis

The Abolition of Man and That Hideous Strength by C.S. Lewis are novels based on lectures given by the author that pursue the theme of man lacking empathy. Within the first book, The Abolition of Man, Lewis describes the importance of basing all judgments we make on what he calls the Tao: the conception of human behavior that, historically and in different moral traditions, has been considered good. As an emotion is not a judgment, it can be said that emotions and feelings do not respond to logical reasons—yet, they can be reasonable or unreasonable. Lewis states that “the heart never replaces the head; but it can, and must, obey it” (The Abolition of Man 19). Therefore, if Aristotle says that the aim of education is to get the student to have predilections and aversions for what corresponds, “the duty of the modern educator is not to cut down forests, but to irrigate deserts”, that is, the way to help the student to defend oneself properly against false feelings is to inculcate fair feelings (The Abolition of Man 13-14).
That Hideous Strength explores how education is totally different according to whether one is inside or outside. If any …show more content…
In The Abolition of Man, the author proposes a vindication of natural law while warning us about the dangers of an education that, based on subjectivism, substitutes judgments and objective values for raw emotion. The book, which is composed of a repertoire of coinciding moral postulates that any civilization ultimately proceeds and expands from a single center. The only way to reach that center is by following a path, a natural law inspired by Reason. The C.S. Lewis essay is quite relevant in a time like ours where education is intended to establish new systems of ad hoc values that are presented as conquests of freedom, but are only disguises of a terrible slavery and forms of manipulation that deprive man of his human