The Green Book In his essay, The Abolition of Man, CS Lewis critiques the state of education the youth of his day, specifically through the example of an elementary textbook by the pseudonym, "The Green Book". The anonymous writers of this textbook, ‘Gaius’ and ‘Titius’ are subconsciously conditioning their readers into limiting the world to the sublime. They do this by presenting a waterfall as viewed by two tourists. One tourist described that the waterfall is 'pretty,' meaning that it has a characteristic within itself which inspires an emotional response in everyone. The other tourist described the waterfall as 'sublime,' by which he meant that the waterfall produced good feelings to himself, but that there is nothing special about
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Gaius and Titius’ explanation is, “This confusion is continually present in language as we use it. We appear to be saying something very important about something: and actually we are only saying something about our own feelings” (Lewis 3-4). The implications of this statement are that what men assert as objective facts can be interpreted as only the whims of an individual’s emotions. In short, nothing outside of the physical world can be viewed as concretely fact, all such statements are only opinions. Although he does not believe this was the intention of the authors, Lewis found the teaching of the Green Book to be toxic to the minds of the youth, as it plants a seed of doubt, which would sway the next generation into a state of nihilistic absolutism, in which there is no truth outside the self. Abolition means the undoing, or “the act of officially ending or stopping something ” which how Lewis viewed this philosophy. Lewis believed that if the next generation were educated to remove the spiritual value from the physical world, and view everything as subjective, it would be the undoing and collapse of of the moral …show more content…
The textbook attempted to portray morality is being fully subjective, so that no man's viewpoint however twisted were any better or worse than another's. This doctrine makes all actions meaningless, as it claims there is nothing outside of the self. However at some level, everyone believes in a truth outside of themselves, even the relativists. If it is true that there is no truth, then there is at least one truth. The argument breaks down when it becomes a
Gaius and Titius’ explanation is, “This confusion is continually present in language as we use it. We appear to be saying something very important about something: and actually we are only saying something about our own feelings” (Lewis 3-4). The implications of this statement are that what men assert as objective facts can be interpreted as only the whims of an individual’s emotions. In short, nothing outside of the physical world can be viewed as concretely fact, all such statements are only opinions. Although he does not believe this was the intention of the authors, Lewis found the teaching of the Green Book to be toxic to the minds of the youth, as it plants a seed of doubt, which would sway the next generation into a state of nihilistic absolutism, in which there is no truth outside the self. Abolition means the undoing, or “the act of officially ending or stopping something ” which how Lewis viewed this philosophy. Lewis believed that if the next generation were educated to remove the spiritual value from the physical world, and view everything as subjective, it would be the undoing and collapse of of the moral …show more content…
The textbook attempted to portray morality is being fully subjective, so that no man's viewpoint however twisted were any better or worse than another's. This doctrine makes all actions meaningless, as it claims there is nothing outside of the self. However at some level, everyone believes in a truth outside of themselves, even the relativists. If it is true that there is no truth, then there is at least one truth. The argument breaks down when it becomes a