The Art of Manliness - Men Without Chests

00:00:00.000 brett mckay here and welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast we make men without

00:00:11.760 chest and expect from them virtue and enterprise we laugh at honor and are shocked to find traitors

00:00:16.360 in our midst while this quote from c.s lewis is often cited few completely understand what

00:00:20.580 lewis meant by it nor understand the book from which it was taken the abolition of man which

00:00:24.720 unlike lewis's more popular works of fiction and christian apologetics is a broad philosophical

00:00:29.440 treatise aimed at everyone and perhaps the most admired and yet least successful of lewis's

00:00:33.800 writings my guest today has written a guide called after humanity that is designed to make the

00:00:38.000 abolition of man more understandable to the average reader his name is dr michael ward he's both a

00:00:42.520 catholic priest and a senior research fellow at oxford michael kicks off our conversation today

00:00:46.160 by offering a big picture overview of what the abolition of man was about which centers on lewis's

00:00:50.440 argument against subjectivism and for the idea that there exist objective moral values the denial of

00:00:55.400 which brings destructive consequences we unpack the case lewis makes for the existence of a natural

00:00:59.840 order which underlies all religions and cultures and why he called this universal objective reality

00:01:04.320 the dao we then get into what lewis meant by the idea of making men without chest the function of a

00:01:09.340 man's chest and why chest aren't being developed today we enter conversation with why moral debates

00:01:13.940 can seem so shrill and fruitless in a world without agreement upon objective values and if anything can be

00:01:18.420 done to build the chest of modern men after the show's over check out our show notes at

00:01:22.660 aom.is slash men without chest michael ward welcome to the show thank you brett good to be with you

00:01:39.280 thank you so you have written a reader's guide to c.s lewis's book the abolition of man now i think most

00:01:46.240 people who have listened or listening to this podcast are familiar with c.s lewis at least with his fiction

00:01:50.660 the chronicles of narnia or his christian apologetics the abolition of man is neither a work of fiction

00:01:56.160 nor is it christian apologetics we're gonna get in the details of what the abolition of man is

00:02:00.660 but before we do big picture what is the abolition of man about like what was lewis trying to do with it

00:02:06.020 the abolition of man is about the objectivity of value and what will happen if we deny the objectivity

00:02:14.420 of value so it's really both a defense and a prediction lewis is defending the fact that moral values and indeed aesthetic values

00:02:25.020 have a kind of objectivity outside our own subjective preferences we don't confer value upon

00:02:32.580 the world we rather identify it in the world we discover it we don't invent it but if we take the

00:02:40.940 subjectivist line and and start supposing that no there's no objective value out there we we just

00:02:47.440 we just make it up we project it from our own arbitrary will and and choice and preference and

00:02:53.640 whims um if we take that stance we're on a short route to self-destruction really that's why he calls

00:03:02.940 his book the abolition of man we'll be denying an essential part of our own humanity if we take that

00:03:08.540 approach so that's what he's trying to accomplish both defending the objectivity of value and forecasting

00:03:15.060 what will happen if we deny it well let's give some background on this what he lewis gave some

00:03:21.880 lectures that he based the abolition of man on he gave them during world war ii how did world war ii

00:03:28.540 and then also lewis's experience with world war one influence his ideas and abolition well obviously

00:03:35.400 in world war ii his country britain where i'm speaking to you from today i'm here in oxford in england

00:03:41.780 britain during the world war during the second world war was you know undergoing a terrible trauma

00:03:47.320 his country you know london had endured the blitz and there was food rationing and you know soldiers

00:03:55.600 are around the world fighting and dying in defense of the allied cause um so and you know it was a war

00:04:02.140 that lasted six years from our point of view 1939 to 1945 and he gave these lectures in february 1943

00:04:09.820 so he'd already you know the country had already been at war for about nearly four years and in that

00:04:16.600 context you know with with so much going wrong it was focusing people's minds and making them

00:04:23.260 argue you know about about these deep philosophical matters i mean why does it matter that we defeat the

00:04:29.700 nazis for instance you know is nazi morality better or worse than than british morality on the disputed

00:04:37.640 questions um and of course he's lewis is arguing that nazi morality is is no morality at all it's

00:04:44.580 absolute perversion it's it's the it's a monstrous immorality but in order to take that step you have

00:04:51.140 of course to argue that you're measuring both nazi morality and christian morality by some external

00:04:56.840 standard by a third thing which is objective value the objective standard which all human beings can

00:05:05.180 perceive or ought to be able to perceive and this is why we could hold the nazis guilty of a moral

00:05:10.620 crime that they were falling short of something that they should have been able to perceive and

00:05:16.360 indeed really did know even though they tried to suppress it so that's the immediate context the second

00:05:22.560 world war but in the background there's the first world war because in the first world war lewis had been

00:05:29.080 an officer a junior officer in the british army he'd been a second lieutenant and he'd served for six

00:05:35.980 months just towards the end of the great war and he'd been very nearly killed a shell had exploded in

00:05:41.880 his trench and it obliterated the man next to him and it spattered lewis full of shrapnel bits of which he

00:05:49.180 carried around in his body for a long time afterwards and uh he had a sort of out-of-body experience

00:05:55.500 the picture the thought came to him here is a picture of a man dying he thought he was done for

00:06:01.600 and that is relevant to the abolition of man because in the abolition of man he will argue that the

00:06:08.100 crucial test of the objectivity of value is our willingness to suffer for it until we have to suffer

00:06:14.900 for doing the right thing like defending our country until that happens it's hard to tell for sure that

00:06:23.460 the value is really objective because it might just be convenient it might just be to our advantage

00:06:29.060 but as soon as we have to suffer for it well then we realize oh no this has some objective reality

00:06:35.380 because if it were purely subjective i could change it couldn't i i could make it more compatible with my

00:06:40.720 wishes so having gone through a near-death experience himself and having seen many of his comrades killed

00:06:48.580 and some of his friends lewis knew what he was talking about when when he when he referred to

00:06:55.320 that old latin tag from the poet horus dulce decorum est pro patria mori it's sweet and seemly to die

00:07:03.880 for one's country this wasn't just some abstract principle some noble ideal from the past this was

00:07:11.060 something that lewis had had tested on his own pulses as it were so i think that helps account for for some of

00:07:17.940 the rhetorical power of the abolition of man that it sprang from a a deep part of lewis's own experience

00:07:24.900 and it has been you know a much admired book the abolition of man it's it's but we can come on to

00:07:30.780 that yeah well let's continue on some of lewis's like intellectual biography obviously the world war

00:07:35.940 one had a big influence on his thoughts about okay there is an objective moral reality value out there

00:07:41.660 because he experienced you know i'm dying for this thing that i believe in besides world war one

00:07:47.380 how else did lewis's life influence his thinking and abolition of man yes in in the course of my guide

00:07:54.860 that i've i've written after humanity i have a a few background chapters on the immediate context of

00:08:01.760 lewis's own life and indeed his his background growing up where he in various places talks about

00:08:08.780 his own struggles with with subjectivism he talks about his own vicious subjectivism in his autobiography

00:08:15.400 he talks about how his mind was split between the world of facts without one trace of value

00:08:23.300 and the world of feelings without one trace of truth or falsehood and that fact value distinction

00:08:30.700 or opposition that polarization between facts and values is is really something that he's he's trying

00:08:39.020 to overcome in the abolition of man by saying that facts have values and values can be factual

00:08:46.160 the opposition between the two is a is a false opposition it's a misleading dichotomy which we've been

00:08:52.660 lured into in the last three or four hundred years for for various historical and philosophical reasons

00:08:58.080 and we need to break out of that opposition and he had in his teens and his twenties he'd struggled

00:09:05.180 out of that mode of thinking and having found the escape route he wanted to share it having faced up to

00:09:13.780 the enemy of subjectivism he knew the power of that of that uh position so i think again that's

00:09:20.900 relevant to the abolition of man and why it has has achieved such status that it's it's

00:09:27.900 in a way it's a work of poetry of course it's not written in verse it's written in prose but it's

00:09:33.100 poetic in the sense that it it comes from lewis's own quarrel with himself wb yates the great irish poet

00:09:41.420 said that when we quarrel with others we make merely rhetoric but when we quarrel with ourselves we make

00:09:50.120 poetry and therefore the abolition of man can be seen as a poetic work because it comes out of lewis's

00:09:56.180 own struggle with himself on this very question he's not just taking pot shots at some some you

00:10:02.340 know target which will advance his academic career he's not just you know beating down some fashionable

00:10:08.360 opponent um which will make him look good no this is something that he's sort of existentially

00:10:13.600 grappled with okay let's dig into this book a bit and kind of suss out like what lewis means by

00:10:18.760 subjectivism why he thinks that's a problem and then his predictions for what happens if we don't

00:10:23.940 recognize there is objective value in the world so he begins the the abolition of man by referencing

00:10:28.740 a book that he calls the green book and this was an actual prep school textbook it was for english

00:10:34.520 composition basically and lewis makes the case that you know while this prep text book looks innocent

00:10:40.760 and useful he actually says it's really insidious what was lewis's problem with the green book

00:10:46.000 yes the green book was in reality a book called the control of language and it was by these authors

00:10:54.060 alec king and martin kettley though lewis calls them gaius and titius and as you say he refers to the

00:11:02.040 volume itself as the green book so he's casting a sort of veil of anonymity over both the book and the

00:11:07.840 authors to save their blushes but also because you know this is just a springboard into his bait in

00:11:13.800 into his larger argument um we shouldn't get too bogged down in in the details of the green book

00:11:20.040 but we do need to obviously give it as much attention as lewis gives it and and the attention

00:11:25.600 lewis gives it is because it it introduces to school children a subjectivist frame of mind

00:11:33.760 which is bad enough in itself i mean that would be bad if it was done sort of openly and straightforwardly

00:11:39.160 but it's particularly insidious because it's not even the the real subject of the green book the

00:11:43.880 green book as you say is supposed to be about understanding literature it's not propounding a

00:11:49.060 particular philosophy of value it's smuggled in this very deleterious philosophy uh while supposedly

00:11:57.240 being about something else that's why it really gets lewis's goat he he thinks this is is is is not

00:12:03.300 just philosophically wrong it's it's a it's kind of crime against children too so the green book just

00:12:10.280 discusses the story of the poet coleridge samuel taylor coleridge and how he viewed a great waterfall

00:12:18.320 here in england and how as he was viewing it one a fellow tourist said isn't that waterfall sublime and a

00:12:27.720 second person said no it's merely pretty and coleridge supposedly endorsed the term sublime but

00:12:34.780 turned away from the epithet pretty with disgust and the authors of the green book use this as as a way

00:12:41.640 of saying yeah well why why would coleridge turn away in disgust it's it's not the case that the

00:12:48.440 waterfall had any objective value about it that it was objectively sublime if you want to call it sublime

00:12:54.600 call it sublime if you want to call it pretty call it pretty because you you confer value from your

00:12:59.280 own subjective perspective there's nothing real out there that you have to get your feelings into

00:13:04.380 accord with so that's what the green book argues and that's what lewis takes issue with and it as i say

00:13:14.000 it's a springboard into this larger case about about subjectivism and how the denial of subjectivism

00:13:20.800 leads to a very shrunk and shriveled and suffocating world of of competing subjectivisms because there's

00:13:29.040 no there's no common ground between between you and me if your truth and my truth are utterly

00:13:36.260 incommensurable and they can only be commensurable if there's an objective reality that you and i both

00:13:42.540 have access to all right so just to clarify and recap subjectivism says that there are facts out there

00:13:47.780 there are waterfalls there are cultures there are actions but they don't have objective value

00:13:53.480 themselves so you can look at the night sky at the stars and think well those are just big balls of

00:13:59.120 gas and not feel anything or you could look and think well that's awe-inspiring it's sublime it's

00:14:05.160 beautiful and with subjectivism either reaction is fine because it's you know to each their own

00:14:10.160 but what lewis is arguing is saying that no things do have an objective value and i got a quote here

00:14:15.900 where he basically says this he says things possess a quality which demands a certain response from us

00:14:21.620 whether we make it or not so he's saying certain things should they should elicit certain responses

00:14:27.500 from us yes that's that's right um there are realities which we perceive that meet our senses

00:14:36.100 and they they contain within them a certain quality which we need to recognize and respond appropriately

00:14:46.440 to in other words the world the world is is qualitative it's not just quantitative and this

00:14:53.460 is part of lewis's larger target here that the and this is why i said about the thing about how

00:14:59.600 over the last three or four hundred years we've arrived steadily at this more and more subjectivist approach

00:15:05.000 because since the the scientific revolution of the of the 17th 18th centuries we've come to view

00:15:12.500 facts as those things which can be measured and weighed and quantified according to the the systems of

00:15:23.940 of inductive scientific empirical inquiry all of which are good in themselves but they're only one way of

00:15:34.000 investigating reality and to reduce all knowledge to that quantitative measurable mathematical

00:15:40.700 mode of knowledge is is is limiting uh it's foolish there are many other ways of apprehending reality

00:15:48.860 other than the quantitative so that's that's why the fact value distinction has has has crept upon us

00:15:56.500 because we've we've we've come to think of facts as these as necessarily value free

00:16:01.760 they have no quality to them they're merely quantitative but that's that's a full step

00:16:08.680 that's a misstep and we should never have gone down that path and you know the the sad philosophical

00:16:15.000 history of the last three or four hundred years testifies to that fact we're gonna take a quick

00:16:19.580 break for your words from our sponsors and now back to the show okay so lewis he starts making this

00:16:26.880 case that there is a universal objective moral value based reality that it exists he calls it the

00:16:34.360 dao tao like the dao from like the way confucian way or the asian way what evidence does lewis give

00:16:42.160 for the dao's existence because you know the scientific mindset would look well there's no you can't see

00:16:47.280 the dao you can't see that there are this this objective value based reality exists you can't measure it

00:16:52.680 so what does lewis propose as evidence that it does exist well he says that the dao is is self

00:16:59.300 evident that it's a premise it's not a conclusion we have to assume that value is objective before we

00:17:08.180 can get anywhere that that this is this is the moral ecology that we find ourselves within just as

00:17:15.380 we find ourselves within the actual physical atmosphere and environment of the world so there

00:17:23.480 is a moral ecology that could not be otherwise and we discover it we don't invent it these moral truths

00:17:32.920 are built into reality just as mathematical truths are built into reality and indeed you know that those

00:17:43.440 who would take a very reductive scientistic approach are themselves already acknowledging that fact

00:17:52.440 because by the by the very fact that scientists assume that the world is knowable and that and that

00:18:02.320 science can be either correct or false you know the the answer to a mathematical equation or to a

00:18:08.740 scientific experiment can be either true or false they're already acknowledging that there is something

00:18:14.340 out there called truth you know they may have a very attenuated understanding of what that truth is

00:18:19.260 they may see it only in quantitative terms but the fact that they see it in any objective terms at all

00:18:26.600 testifies to this very truth that lewis is arguing for that the dao surrounds us and supports us

00:18:32.600 before we take any step in any direction we can't get out of it so it's a it's a very foundational kind

00:18:41.080 of paradigmatic argument that lewis is making that we are our feet are already on the way whether we

00:18:49.240 like it or not we can't get out of it it's a little bit like the observer effect in science in physics you

00:18:55.980 know the the very fact of observing something changes the thing which is under observation

00:19:00.560 the very fact of trying to suggest that we live in a value-free world already implicitly

00:19:08.500 acknowledges that there is such a thing as value because you know even if you're trying to advance

00:19:13.960 a subjectivist case you're wanting to argue that subjectivism is itself objectively true so it's

00:19:21.100 self-defeating it's it's illogical so what lewis is really arguing for is basic foundational moral logic

00:19:29.780 so i mean why doesn't he call it like this sounds like natural law or first principles why does he

00:19:34.440 why does he call it the dao instead of that because he's wanting to argue for its universality and by

00:19:41.260 reaching all the way into chinese philosophy he's sort of emphasizing that fact through his through

00:19:47.360 the very terminology that he's deploying if he called it natural law um or some other much more sort

00:19:53.980 of western sounding term like the first principles of practical reason or something like that he would

00:20:00.760 have lost a trick in the game as it were in the rhetorical game of emphasizing the universality of

00:20:07.660 of this thing that he's trying to describe and remember even by 1943 when he gave these lectures

00:20:15.420 lewis had already acquired something of a reputation as a christian apologist he'd published the problem of

00:20:21.520 pain he'd begun his broadcasts over the bbc which became the book mere christianity so he already had

00:20:27.980 something of a profile as a speaker a defender of christianity and his point here is not to defend

00:20:34.620 christianity per se or even to defend theism he's wanting to defend the objectivity of value which precedes

00:20:45.040 and undergirds theism and christianity and indeed all systems of moral and logical thought whatsoever

00:20:52.200 so it's not it's not a peculiarly christian argument that he's making it's much more of a

00:20:58.180 humane argument it's part of our humanity that he's trying to describe because all human beings

00:21:04.140 have been made with this awareness of moral value it's you know from a christian point of view he would

00:21:12.700 argue of course that that is a that is a sign of the fact that we've been made in god's image and

00:21:17.800 this thing that he's talking about is really conscience what saint paul says in the in his

00:21:22.880 letter to the romans is the thing that even the gentiles who are without the law have as a as a law 1.00

00:21:28.100 written in their own hearts now accusing them now condemning them now acquitting them but he's not

00:21:33.620 wanting to rest his argument on those christian principles or those on that christian vocabulary

00:21:39.380 he's wanting to make a purely philosophical case which all people of goodwill all people of

00:21:46.000 who are you know prepared to accept the objectivity of value can can get on board with and that's one

00:21:53.620 of the reasons why the abolition of man has has acquired such a wide audience so many readers from

00:22:00.260 so many different backgrounds have have said this is a really valuable contribution to thought you know

00:22:05.940 there's a prominent british philosopher at the moment called john gray who's an atheist and he

00:22:12.560 devoted a whole bbc radio broadcast that he did recently to the abolition of man describing it as a

00:22:18.200 as a very prescient and prophetic work which was as relevant now as when lewis first delivered the

00:22:23.900 lectures and perhaps even more so and john gray is an atheist um but he's an atheist who believes in

00:22:30.520 the objectivity of value and what evidence does lewis give for the existence of the dao well

00:22:35.880 one piece of evidence is that is the the universal moral code that you can point to and that he does

00:22:43.100 point to in the appendix of the book so in the appendix he has eight moral laws the duty of general

00:22:51.520 beneficence the duty of special beneficence the duty to ancestors and elders the duty to children

00:22:59.000 and posterity and and four other duties or laws and under each of these eight headings he he cites any

00:23:07.640 number of examples from traditions and cultures and religions around the world and down through history

00:23:14.280 he quotes babylonian sources hindu sources jewish christian native american aboriginal australian

00:23:24.080 norse any number of different cultures and approaches to the world have come to remarkably similar

00:23:33.420 conclusions about what is right and wrong obviously there are points of difference but lewis's aim in this

00:23:41.400 appendix is to is to point to the remarkable unanimity that there is on on major central points of

00:23:50.900 human behavior and he's not arguing that this proves the dao even universal common consent would not prove it

00:24:01.460 because it's self-evident it has to be taken as i say as a premise not as a conclusion it's the starting

00:24:09.220 point but the very fact that you can point to this huge overlap between different very different cultures

00:24:15.880 is remarkable sort of circumstantial evidence of of the of the validity of his argument

00:24:22.460 and how does lewis think we learn about the dao is it something you have to read about you have to get

00:24:27.240 lectured about what does the matriculation in the dao look like

00:24:30.480 well you can learn about it by reading you can learn about it by being lectured on it at school or university

00:24:40.060 um you can learn it and indeed most of us do learn it primarily from our parents and our siblings

00:24:47.980 as we grow up in our families because you know the the domestic arrangements are the are the prime

00:24:53.500 teachers of of value it's a case of old birds teaching young young birds how to fly that's a an image

00:25:02.520 that lewis uses we shouldn't think of it as as being conditioned into one particular mode of

00:25:09.900 thought the difference between the the lewis is talking about is the difference between propaganda

00:25:15.500 and propagation but a propagandist just conditions people into a into a set of views that he himself

00:25:24.600 the propagandist doesn't necessarily share but in true propagation of the dao in true moral formation

00:25:32.980 the the parent the teacher the pastor whoever it is finds this this moral law to be binding upon them

00:25:42.220 too they're sharing something that they know to be valuable they're not trying to to merely

00:25:49.400 condition other people to to take a view that will be of convenience to them so you know this is

00:25:57.620 you see this don't you in very little ways in in families when when the parents tell the children

00:26:03.480 don't swear you know don't use cuss words and then mummy or daddy says something rude

00:26:10.760 and the children say you shouldn't say that you told me not to say it and of course that's that's a

00:26:16.240 prime example of the very thing we're talking about here that you know the parents need to live up to

00:26:20.200 their own principles and you know sometimes parents say don't do as i say do don't do as i do do as i

00:26:26.680 say but true propagation of of moral value is when we we live up to the the very principles we're trying

00:26:36.200 to to communicate so the most famous line in the abolition of man is this i've seen people quote this

00:26:42.740 lots of times i think it's kind of taken out of context though so they're not they kind of take it

00:26:47.620 out they kind of rip it from the abolition of man and lose the big picture thing what lewis is trying

00:26:52.140 to do it's this it's uh we make men without chest and expect from them virtue and enterprise we laugh

00:26:58.460 at honor and are shocked to find traitors in our midst we castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful

00:27:03.600 the men without chest part i think is what gets most of the attention what what does lewis mean by

00:27:08.440 by chest what and what does it mean to not have a chest yeah the first chapter of the abolition of

00:27:13.840 man is entitled men without chests and that springs from a kind of threefold model of the human person

00:27:21.900 that lewis develops so he sees the human person philosophically speaking as a threefold unity

00:27:30.320 the head the chest and the belly and in the head we have rational thoughts in the belly we have

00:27:39.980 senses and passions and feelings appetites from the head upwards from the neck upwards we are as it were

00:27:48.900 you know like the angels angels are and are rational spirits from the belly downwards we're like the

00:27:55.180 animals we have senses and and passions but in the chest we have the definitively human faculty

00:28:04.040 and in the chest passions and emotions are not squelched or denied but they are regularized they're

00:28:13.800 stabilized um we we don't want to either pretend we are more spiritual than we are we are after all

00:28:23.060 embodied creatures but neither should we suggest that we are more sensual than we are because we are

00:28:31.220 also rational creatures and we need to combine the head and the belly in the chest and make ourselves

00:28:38.200 truly rational animals which is what you know that's the classic definition of a human being

00:28:43.620 and that combination that unification of the two sides of our nature happens symbolically speaking in the

00:28:51.960 chest which is this seat as lewis calls it of just sentiments stable and civilized feelings

00:29:00.480 regularized emotions so we can feel and we ought to feel we ought to feel deeply but we shouldn't feel

00:29:08.220 irrationally that's the point okay so to recap here basically a man without a chest is a man whose

00:29:15.020 sentiments aren't educated he either feels things too much when he shouldn't or he doesn't feel

00:29:20.880 anything at all when he should and what lewis is saying is we need to train our emotions to combine

00:29:25.520 reason with sentiment that gives us that chest and when we have that chest then you know like it's

00:29:31.560 like a cooler edge of the waterfall we can think about and recognize the right response to something

00:29:36.540 and then make it more tuned and congruent with nature and by nature i'm talking like capital in nature

00:29:43.340 absolutely yes uh so you you can you can discern value within objects that meet your senses

00:29:53.120 they're not just dumbly there they're not just imprinting themselves upon your senses as if you're

00:29:59.500 nothing more than a clay tablet one of the images that lewis uses in making this point is is the image of

00:30:06.740 the aeolian harp you know that stringed instrument that you you can put up you know hanging from the

00:30:13.300 branches of a tree or you put you fix it in the in in your window and and so as the wind blows through

00:30:19.620 the strings they sound that's an aeolian harp and the romantic poet shelley likens a human being to

00:30:30.620 an aeolian harp with this important difference that we're not we're not just physical instruments we are

00:30:39.100 rational instruments if you like we can think we we don't just receive impressions from the outside world

00:30:47.060 but we we can't we have the power of internal adjustment we can think about them and we can

00:30:54.400 make ourselves more or less in accordance with what we see so you know lewis isn't wanting to say

00:31:01.440 you know clicking his fingers in some sort of in some sort of reductive way and saying 0.99

00:31:05.600 well of course that waterfall is sublime you idiot um whereas this waterfall over here is you know 0.99

00:31:12.600 is is is merely pretty um it's not something that you you just can click your fingers and and sort out 0.99

00:31:19.740 there's there's there's there's a whole process of of of development of taste and perception you know

00:31:30.100 think of think of how over many years a great wine expert trains their palate so as to be able to discern

00:31:39.480 the the grape and the and the process of fermentation and all the other things that a great sommelier will

00:31:46.040 know about wine but you and i i dare say well certainly say this for myself i drink a wine and

00:31:53.480 i've i've got very little that i can say about it except oh i like it or i dislike it but if i bothered

00:31:59.280 to train myself to make myself more intelligent on this matter i i could begin to discern all sorts of

00:32:06.300 subtle shades likewise with waterfalls there may be some that are merely pretty there may be some that

00:32:12.300 are between pretty and sublime and but there are undoubtedly waterfalls that are absolutely sublime

00:32:17.780 and if you don't see that you're not really seeing the thing that is there but it it takes time you know

00:32:23.860 this this although it's a a self-evident framework of value that lewis is pointing out to be to be

00:32:31.680 self-evident it's not the same as to be obvious and that's why we need moral formation moral training

00:32:37.040 moral education we need to become what we are no it sounds like the development of this this chest

00:32:44.060 this part where we combine feeling with reason it's a very aristotelian project right like you learn

00:32:51.440 through just experiencing over and over again like the right emotions to have for the right things for

00:32:58.260 the right reason at the right time yes you're quite right to say it's aristotelian uh lewis himself

00:33:03.700 quotes aristotle um just turning to the bit in the book where where he quotes aristotle in the

00:33:11.000 nicomachean ethics aristotle says that the aim of education is to make the people like and dislike what he

00:33:18.700 ought to like and dislike in other words you know there are certain things that are likable and certain

00:33:25.460 things which are dislikable and if if you get them around the wrong way you are less than educated

00:33:30.200 you're less than human you need to develop your chest and this incidentally is you know just a

00:33:36.940 little side side light um this is something that we see in the narnia books so you know the great

00:33:42.460 king of narnia peter king peter the high king over all the other kings and queens when he he's a boy when

00:33:48.920 he arrives in the story but by the end of the lion the witch and the wardrobe he's grown into a

00:33:52.980 a tall and deep chested man whereas in the last narnia book the last battle we've got this evil

00:34:00.600 character that the ape shift and shift says that he has a weak chest apes always have weak chests he 0.94

00:34:08.400 says because he's not truly human he's merely an ape and lewis in the course of surprise in the course

00:34:15.320 of the abolition of man talks about how we can make ourselves into trousered apes if we choose we can

00:34:22.120 make ourselves less than human if we don't develop our chest and how does how do we not develop our

00:34:27.500 chest is it just is it happen on purpose do we decide i'm just going to ignore that or i mean what

00:34:32.780 do you what do you think lewis would say like why are we developing men without chest well it's happening

00:34:38.940 in all sorts of ways and one of the ways which he's identifying in that opening chapter is is through

00:34:44.780 through school textbooks which are subtly indoctrinating children with a subjectivist approach

00:34:51.260 to the universe when they're supposedly teaching them about english composition so we we breathe it

00:34:58.040 in from all different sorts of sources you know to a certain extent going back to that little example

00:35:03.700 i gave about bad parenting when parents don't live up to their own principles i mean that that is a kind

00:35:11.000 of subjectivism that a parent is unwittingly and you know no doubt regretfully imparting to their

00:35:18.180 children and then we as individuals if we see how how useful a dodge it can be to say that value is

00:35:26.560 subjective then we can say oh if someone's you know trying to get us to see a bit of moral logic

00:35:33.740 which might result in us us having to change our behavior we we might fall back into a subjectivist

00:35:40.360 viewpoint for our own convenience and you would say you know well that's your truth this is my truth so

00:35:47.400 who are you to tell me what to do and that's a way of you know short-circuiting any kind of moral

00:35:53.000 persuasion because you know from our own cowardly selfish point of view we don't want to change and

00:36:00.440 that that's i think underlies a lot of subjectivism it's it's just a way of defending our our selfishness

00:36:07.720 and then as lewis says in that second line of men without chess is that we laugh at honor and are

00:36:12.320 shocked to find traitors in our midst you know we go down the subjectivist route we kind of well there's

00:36:16.600 really is no such thing as honor is just a word right and then when someone does something

00:36:21.420 terrible or dishonorable like oh my gosh can you believe this guy it's like well what did you expect

00:36:26.740 yeah yeah yeah absolutely you know the you could take it into the sexual sphere couldn't you and

00:36:34.940 at the moment you know we've got this big movement the me too movement which in many respects is very good

00:36:42.520 and right and proper that um you know men should not abuse women i mean that that's an absolute

00:36:49.100 foundational statement of moral behavior but it's interesting how you know in in so many films

00:36:56.680 you may you may have seen men screwing around and you know james bond for instance sleeping with a

00:37:03.660 different girl every night and so on the one hand we want to indulge the you know the libido through

00:37:10.980 through the james bond proxies but on the other hand we get deeply and rightly annoyed with harvey

00:37:17.020 weinstein when he starts doing the same sort of thing in real life and we can't have it both ways

00:37:22.260 if we if we laugh at sexual self-control we can't really pretend to be shocked when we find

00:37:33.620 predators in our midst so your book is called after humanity which is a nod

00:37:39.220 to philosopher alistair mcintyre's great book after virtue and i'd write listeners who haven't

00:37:45.480 read that book go read it like it's one of those it'll like it shifts the way you view the world

00:37:50.300 after you read after virtue it's a hard book to read but i think it's a worthwhile one what insights

00:37:55.780 does mcintyre give us about what happens when we debate i guess morality outside of the dao

00:38:03.780 yes after virtue is a very very important work as you say it's it's not terribly easy but it's it's

00:38:12.640 worth grappling with just as the abolition of man is not terribly easy but worth grappling with

00:38:17.980 and indeed the the reason i called my guide to the abolition of man after humanity is a little nod to

00:38:26.460 after virtue in after virtue mcintyre is arguing that in our present culture differences of view

00:38:35.500 have become incommensurable like i was saying earlier there's no third thing between you and me

00:38:42.420 that we can measure our viewpoints against because there's no objective reality there's no objective

00:38:49.660 value is there in a subjectivist modernist viewpoint there's no common yardstick against which diverse

00:38:56.120 perspectives can be reckoned and for as long as these differences are considered unimportant

00:39:01.620 it doesn't really matter and we can celebrate diversity as a as a thing that's good in and of

00:39:08.040 itself and diversity is a good thing to a certain extent but but it won't solve serious disputes

00:39:15.640 because when you and i diverge when you and i have diverse opinions about say you know the me too

00:39:23.680 movement or you know rape and sexual predation who's gonna tell us that i'm right and you're wrong or

00:39:30.600 the other way around diversity is unable to arbitrate serious disputes and then the pendulum swings all

00:39:38.320 the way to the opposite pole and here now i'm finally going to quote alistair mcintyre that's why

00:39:44.960 mcintyre says it's easy to understand why protest becomes a distinctive moral feature of the modern age

00:39:52.260 and why indignation is a predominant modern emotion the self-assertive shrillness of protest arises

00:40:01.080 because the facts of incommensurability ensure that protesters can never win an argument

00:40:08.760 the indignant self-righteousness of protest arises because the facts of incommensurability

00:40:17.340 ensure equally that the protesters can never lose an argument either hence protest is characteristically

00:40:26.120 addressed to those who already share the protesters premises protesters rarely have anyone else to talk to

00:40:35.000 but themselves this is not to say that protest can't be effective it's to say that it can't be

00:40:41.820 rationally effective and that its dominant modes of expression give evidence of a certain perhaps

00:40:49.740 unconscious awareness of this that's all mcintyre and it's it's like a it's like a finely detailed

00:40:57.280 portrait of the modern age isn't it just shout trying to shout down your opponents trying to out

00:41:03.200 protest the the uh the protesters on the other side of the fence but not through any rational argument

00:41:10.820 not through moral persuasion leading to a freely chosen change of viewpoint it's it's just

00:41:18.620 strong arming people into sharing your view whether they like it or not because there's no common yardstick

00:41:27.280 there's no objective reality to value that that's the moral age in a nutshell isn't it yeah explains twitter

00:41:35.700 i think yeah so yeah i mean so the point is that that mcintyre is making there is without that

00:41:43.160 objective moral reality that we can argue within basically the only way you can affect changes is

00:41:48.620 whoever whoever is the loudest or the most most forceful will win the argument yeah and so might

00:41:54.160 becomes right this is a point that lewis makes repeatedly in the course of the abolition of man

00:41:59.800 and in his in his other works that if if there's no objective value the only question is one of power

00:42:09.260 who has their levers on who has their hands on the levers of power the political power or

00:42:17.040 or the power of the media or literal physical power that that's where right will reside but not in a

00:42:28.940 neutral realm to you to which both the powerful and the weak have access you know this is nietzsche

00:42:35.020 predicted that too right when he said you know god is dead well here's what happens when god is dead

00:42:40.620 you're going to have it's basically will the power that's all there is yes absolutely so lewis you

00:42:45.980 know gives this idea it shows us what will happen if we turn our backs on that there's this idea that

00:42:51.180 there's an objective moral reality it just sort of turns into emotivism is what mcintyre calls just

00:42:56.580 people feeling things and shouting at each other and no one never coming to a conclusion did lewis

00:43:04.080 give any prescriptions on how to avoid avoid that or was this more of a just like here's what's

00:43:10.700 happening watch out what's happening if you're not careful this is what's going to happen

00:43:14.800 uh well he he's prescribing all sorts of ways of avoiding subjectivism principally by just arguing

00:43:24.460 showing it's it's falsity it's that it's it's self-defeating and also by forecasting the very

00:43:32.820 unattractive destination to which it leads as for how we train our chests well that's that's not

00:43:42.300 something that is easily done by an individual on their own it requires a whole community you know

00:43:49.480 parents training their children up in the way they should go teachers doing the same people in

00:43:56.400 positions of public authority not abusing that authority likewise shapers of public opinion in the

00:44:04.320 media being careful to speak the truth and to speak nothing but the truth artists in the way they tell

00:44:11.760 their stories and in novels and films everybody has a part to play so those are some of the

00:44:17.020 prescriptions which are sort of implicit in the abolition of man but really his argument is is is

00:44:21.920 principally intellectual and negative it's intellectual in that he's you know arguing for a

00:44:29.480 philosophy philosophically for the for the objectivity of value and it's negative in the way that he's

00:44:35.580 predicting a bad end if we adopt a subjectivist perspective yeah it's a jeremiah it's a prophetic

00:44:44.120 thing yes yeah well michael this has been a great conversation where can people go to learn more about

00:44:50.660 after humanity and your work more generally after humanity is published by word on fire academic

00:44:57.940 a new imprint and if you go to word on fire dot org slash humanity you can find lots more about the

00:45:06.320 book and um if you want to find about me more generally i've got a website michaelward.net

00:45:14.240 so and i'm also on facebook people can befriend me on facebook i don't do twitter myself but i i'm

00:45:21.160 i do quite a bit on facebook so yeah those are the ways to find out and i ought to add by the way

00:45:28.480 that if you order your copy of after humanity through word on fire's website you get a free copy of

00:45:34.760 the abolition of man by c.s lewis with a matching cover the publishers of the publishers of the

00:45:41.220 abolition of man have brought out a kind of complimentary edition which is very nice to have

00:45:46.140 well michael ward thanks for your time it's been a pleasure thanks brett i enjoyed it

00:45:51.160 my guest today was michael ward he's the author of the book after humanity a guide to c.s lewis's

00:45:56.000 the abolition of man it's available on amazon you can also go to wordonfire.org slash humanity to

00:46:01.600 pick a copy up there if you buy it from word on fire you'll get a free copy of the abolition of man

00:46:06.400 with your order also check out our show notes at aom.is slash men without chest where you find

00:46:10.720 links to resources where you delve deeper into this topic

00:46:12.900 well that wraps up another edition of the aom podcast check out our website at artofmanliness.com

00:46:24.400 where you find our podcast archives well as thousands of articles written over the years

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00:46:56.380 but put what you've heard into action

The Art of Manliness - July 14, 2021

Men Without Chests

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