evolutionnewsandviews--2020-08-18--The Main Argument of The Abolition of Man

Editor ’ s note : Published on August 16 , 1945 , C. S. Lewis ’ s That Hideous Strength is a dystopian novel that eerily reflects the realities of 2020 .
This week and next , to mark the book ’ s three-quarter century anniversary , Evolution News presents a series of essays , reflections , and videos about its themes and legacy .
Dr. Cameron Wybrow is a scholar , teacher , and writer with academic and popular publications on a variety of subjects .
He has a particular interest in philosophical and theological critiques of modernity , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ S. Lewis .
This post is adapted from Chapter 11 of The Magician ’ s Twin : C. S. Lewis on Science , Scientism , and Society , edited by John G. West .
See also : • “ The Education of Mark Studdock : A Sociologist Learns the Lessons of The Abolition of Man ” In this essay I venture to presume on the reader ’ s part a familiarity with the plot of That Hideous Strength .
I therefore do not summarize the novel , but refer to it as if @ @ @ @ @ @ @ easily recall the main events in the story .
However , I do not presume the same level of familiarity with the contents or argument of The Abolition of Man , and , as my purpose is to elucidate the connection between the two without constantly interrupting the flow of my discussion of That Hideous Strength with blocks of necessary information from The Abolition of Man , I have judged it helpful to the reader to first set forth a brief summary of the argument of The Abolition of Man .
Those who @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of Man might choose to bypass this brief summary ; on the other hand , those who have never read it , or who have not read it in a long time , or have read it but found it difficult , may find that the summary is exactly what they need to enable them to understand the argument of the rest of this essay .
The full title of Lewis ’ s book is The Abolition of Man ; or , Reflections on education with special reference to the teaching of English @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the second part of this title , one might infer that the book would be mainly of pedagogical interest , an essay on the goals and methods of English instruction in the senior grades ( “ upper forms ” ) of the British high schools .
But the two titles are juxtaposed for a very good reason : Lewis sees , in the defects of the teaching of English literature in the British schools , signs of the decay of long-standing affirmations of the civilization of the West .
His critique of English @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the philosophy which dominates modern Western culture .
The work opens with a discussion of “ The Green Book , ” Lewis ’ s pseudonym for The Control of Language ( 1939 ) by Alec King and Martin Ketley , a textbook intended for use in the senior grades of the British schools.2 Commenting that he did “ not want to pillory two modest practising school-masters who were doing the best they knew , ” 3 Lewis suppresses the authors ’ real names in favor of the pseudonyms “ Gaius ” and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the response by Gaius and Titius to a famous story about Coleridge at a waterfall , in which Coleridge endorses the judgment that the waterfall is “ sublime ” : Lewis ’ s critique of this statement occupies the rest of the first chapter .
Early on in the critique , Lewis writes : “ The schoolboy5 who reads this passage in The Green Book will believe two propositions : firstly , that all sentences containing a predicate of value are statements about the emotional state of the speaker ; and secondly , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 6 Against these propositions ( and related propositions offered by Gaius and Titius ) , Lewis urges : “ Until quite modern times all teachers and even all men believed the universe to be such that certain emotional reactions on our part could be either congruous or incongruous to it — believed , in fact , that objects did not merely receive , but could merit , our approval or disapproval , our reverence or our contempt.
” 7 Augustine , Lewis tells us , “ defines virtue as ordo amoris , the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ every object is accorded that… love which is appropriate to it.
” 8 The same notion , he argues , is found in Shelley , Traherne , Aristotle , Plato , early Hinduism , and ancient Chinese traditions.9 Summarizing this universal tradition , Lewis writes : “ This conception in all its forms , Platonic , Aristotelian , Stoic , Christian , and Oriental alike , I shall henceforth refer to for brevity simply as ‘ the Tao ’ … .
It is the doctrine of objective value , the belief that certain @ @ @ @ @ @ @ really false , to the kind of thing the universe is and the kind of things we are.
” 10 There is thus a conflict between the Tao and the view advocated by The Green Book .
This conflict necessarily produces two different views of education : Developing the last point , Lewis argues that for teachers outside of the Tao , education can only be : ( 1 ) the rigorous “ debunking ” of all noble sentiments , with the consequent production of a moral vacuum ; ( 2 ) propaganda @ @ @ @ @ @ @ though groundless , are deemed desirable for getting people to act in certain ways.12 Lewis grants that the authors of The Green Book do not endorse propaganda .
This leaves them with the first alternative , i.e.
, to debunk every noble sentiment in sight , and to presume that is there is some biological or other natural basis for morality that does not require noble sentiments.13 However , in the rest of the chapter , Lewis goes on to show the hopelessness of such an assumption .
He argues : This insight @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the chapter : In the light of his Platonic understanding , Lewis summarizes his criticism of Gaius and Titius thus : “ The operation of The Green Book and its kind is to produce what may be called Men without Chests.
” 16 But without “ chests , ” i.e.
, without the middle part of the soul that Plato called thumos , neither creative energy nor self-sacrifice , neither enterprise nor virtue , is possible.17 Thus , in seeking to abolish thumos , the authors of The Green Book unwittingly seek to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Judgments In the second chapter of The Abolition of Man , Lewis notes that , despite the ferocity with which the authors of The Greek Book debunk the basis of all judgments of value , they in fact are driven by such judgments themselves : “ Gaius and Titius will be found to hold , with complete uncritical dogmatism , the whole system of values which happened to be in vogue among moderately educated young men of the professional classes during the period between the two wars.
” 18 Lewis gives something of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ values ” in his note to the comment : Gaius and Titius disapprove of terms like “ brave ” and “ gentleman , ” and of the feeling of patriotism .
But they approve of peace , cleanliness , democracy , and education.19 The suburban , middle-class values of comfort and security , rather than either heroic or aristocratic values , are what motivate them .
Having noted that Gaius and Titius are not , for all their debunking , “ value-free , ” Lewis wonders why it is that they think that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ those of more old-fashioned people , should be invulnerable to debunking .
He suggests that they imagine that they provide a more “ realistic ” foundation for morality than the traditional , sentimental basis.20 However , Lewis is also determined to test the foundations of this allegedly more realistic morality , and by the end of chapter 2 , he has shown that all the alleged non-sentimental arguments ( e.g.
, utilitarian arguments ) for Gaius and Titius ’ s particular set of moral values can be “ seen through ” or “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the noble sentiments connected with the Tao.21 This conclusion sets up Lewis ’ s third and final chapter .
Having shown that the “ debunking ” spirit of The Green Book is inconsistent with the maintenance of any firmly held moral system or stable society , Lewis considers what might happen if teachers like Gaius and Titius were to abandon their inner inconsistency and reject the concept of value altogether .
Lewis envisions a future society in which “ man ’ s conquest of nature ” is complete .
Human beings have mastered @ @ @ @ @ @ @ produce food , shelter , medicine , and infinite creature comforts and entertainments at will .
The survival and physical contentment of the race is thus guaranteed .
But mastery over external nature will eventually involve mastery over biological and psychological nature , as the tools of science become more probing and powerful ; thus , mankind will be able to remake , not only the external environment , but even itself .
The human race will be able , for the first time , to define itself , to create its own @ @ @ @ @ @ @ situation in which man is at once master and slave : master over the externalities of nature — heat , cold , hunger , sickness , etc .
— but enslaved by the science which will control his own genetic constitution and his own emotional makeup through high-tech biological and psychological manipulation .
And who will be in charge of that scientific manipulation ?
Lewis foresees a class of men called “ the Conditioners.
” The Conditioners , more consistent than Gaius and Titius , have “ seen through ” all attempts to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the way things are , and consequently have rejected the authority of the Tao or any fragments of it ( such as the liberal , humanist fragments which still guide Gaius and Titius ) .
The Tao-less Conditioners are charged with deciding what man is to be .
They will choose the physical talents of future generations of human beings , and they will choose the set of emotions and valuations to implant in those future generations , in order to get them to behave in a desired way .
But Lewis asks @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Conditioners in their choice of the “ values ” which future men will have ?
These Conditioners may at first , out of habit , inconsistently rule under the sway of the old-fashioned morality , i.e.
, under the impression that as rulers they have some obligation of stewardship , some duty to promote the good of those ruled .
Thus , there might be a period of the government of the many , by the few , for the many .
But this state of affairs , Lewis points out , can @ @ @ @ @ @ @ will fully realize that their sense of obligation was nothing more than the result of the social conditioning of previous societies , and will cast it off ; after that , the only thing governing their behaviour will be their current whims .
They will make the kind of human beings that they please , and condition them with drugs and education and propaganda as they please .
With the last traditional moral restraint gone , the mastery of the human race over nature will turn into the mastery of the few over @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the many , by the few , for the few .
What will control how the few will act ?
Will they act , as in Brave New World , with the goal of giving the many a life of comfortable convenience , spiced with erotic and drug-induced pleasures ?
Or will they act , as in 1984 , with the goal of enslaving and crushing the human spirit ?
There is no way of predicting , since the Conditioners will act on the basis of their strongest current impulses .
Those impulses @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to be good .
And where will those impulses come from ?
They can not come from the Tao , which the conditioners have rejected as an artifice corresponding to no ultimate reality .
They will then come from chance factors that affect the rulers , e.g.
, “ heredity , digestion , the weather , and the association of ideas.
” 23 That is , they will come from unregulated Nature .
The rulers , having repudiated the Tao , will let the previously subdued Nature back in , through the doorway @ @ @ @ @ @ @ since their wills are the ruling power over their civilization , their civilization , and all the human beings within it , will be ruled by the random impulses of nature — a massive irony for a civilization which started out in hopes of liberating itself by the conquest of nature.24 And this civilization , if technologically competent , will never be overthrown : “ Nature will be troubled no more by the restive species that rose in revolt against her so many millions of years ago , will be vexed no longer @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and beauty and happiness… and if the eugenics are efficient enough there will be no second revolt , but all snug beneath the Conditioners , and the Conditioners beneath her , till the moon falls or the sun grows cold.
” 25 Not Men at All In such a situation , man himself will have been abolished .
The Conditioners , Lewis says , will be neither good men nor bad men ; they will not be men ( in the true sense ) at all .
To be “ men ” in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to be within the Tao ( which determines what it is to be human , and what it is to deviate from the human ) , and thus to be capable of feeling the shame which comes with such deviation .
But they are not within the Tao .
They lack the middle part of the soul by which impulses are controlled in the name of something higher than impulse ; they are , in Lewis ’ s image , “ men without chests , ” and hence , outside of humanity altogether.26 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ will not live under the Tao , but only under whatever substitute moral principles the Conditioners have instilled in them .
Still , to the extent that such moral principles are internally consistent , might they not be said to participate in some dim way in humanity ?
They will have at least an “ artificial conscience , ” unlike their rulers and masters.27 Yet Lewis ’ s judgment upon them is clear : “ They are not men at all : they are artefacts.
” 28 Thus , the civilization which shall @ @ @ @ @ @ @ turn become completely enslaved by it ) , consists of rulers who , being beyond good and evil , are above ( or at least outside ) humanity , and subjects who are beneath it.29 Such , Lewis teaches , is the fate of the human race if it consistently abandons the authority of the Tao : a mastery over nature which puts man under the heel of nature to a greater extent than ever before ; a global tyranny of the conditioners over the conditioned , and the abolition of man himself @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Tao is encouraged and justified by the kind of arguments against noble sentiments which the authors of The Green Book would make a standard part of public education , the abolition of man will be the ultimate outcome if the philosophy and pedagogy of The Green Book is allowed to stand .
Tomorrow , “ The Education of Mark Studdock in That Hideous Strength.
” • C. S. Lewis , The Abolition of Man ; or , Reflections on education with special reference to the teaching of English in the upper forms of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 2001 ) .
All references in the present essay are to this edition .
The work consists of three unsectioned chapters , an appendix , and endnotes .
The references will use the short form of the title ( or , where appropriate , “ Ibid.
” ) , and will include the chapter number , followed by the page numbers of the HarperOne edition ; e.g.
, The Abolition of Man , ch .
2 , 49 .
The Abolition of Man first appeared in the form of a series of lectures @ @ @ @ @ @ @ [ now part of the University of Durham ] .
The lectures were delivered in February 1943 and published in book form late in that year .
• Lewis ’ s copy of this book is now housed at the Wade Center at Wheaton College .
• Lewis throughout the book seems to have in mind what the British call “ public schools ” ( which in North America would be called “ private schools ” ) ; such schools in Britain in his day were always ( or almost always ) “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” ; Lewis has in mind such boys ’ schools as he himself attended ; hence it is only “ boys ” of which he writes • It is hard not to see in Lewis ’ s sketch of a future society the scathing portrait , first sketched by Nietzsche , of a world of “ last men ” ruled by an elite of “ nihilists.
” Indeed , Lewis ’ s conception of Frost ( in That Hideous Strength ) seems inspired by Nietzsche ’ s portrait of the nihilist .

Image: Screen shot from That Hideous Strength: C.S. Lewis's Prophetic Warning against the Abuse of Science.
Editor’s note: Published on August 16, 1945, C. S. Lewis’s That Hideous Strength is a dystopian novel that eerily reflects the realities of 2020. This week and next, to mark the book’s three-quarter century anniversary, Evolution News presents a series of essays, reflections, and videos about its themes and legacy.
Dr. Cameron Wybrow is a scholar, teacher, and writer with academic and popular publications on a variety of subjects. He has a particular interest in philosophical and theological critiques of modernity, and hence in the thought of C. S. Lewis.
This post is adapted from Chapter 11 of The Magician’s Twin: C. S. Lewis on Science, Scientism, and Society, edited by John G. West. See also:
In this essay I venture to presume on the reader’s part a familiarity with the plot of That Hideous Strength. I therefore do not summarize the novel, but refer to it as if the reader knows the characters and can easily recall the main events in the story. However, I do not presume the same level of familiarity with the contents or argument of The Abolition of Man, and, as my purpose is to elucidate the connection between the two without constantly interrupting the flow of my discussion of That Hideous Strength with blocks of necessary information from The Abolition of Man, I have judged it helpful to the reader to first set forth a brief summary of the argument of The Abolition of Man. Those who are already very familiar with The Abolition of Man might choose to bypass this brief summary; on the other hand, those who have never read it, or who have not read it in a long time, or have read it but found it difficult, may find that the summary is exactly what they need to enable them to understand the argument of the rest of this essay.
The full title of Lewis’s book is The Abolition of Man; or, Reflections on education with special reference to the teaching of English in the upper forms of schools.1 From the second part of this title, one might infer that the book would be mainly of pedagogical interest, an essay on the goals and methods of English instruction in the senior grades (“upper forms”) of the British high schools. But the two titles are juxtaposed for a very good reason: Lewis sees, in the defects of the teaching of English literature in the British schools, signs of the decay of long-standing affirmations of the civilization of the West. His critique of English pedagogy will thus pass into a critique of the philosophy which dominates modern Western culture.
“The Green Book”
The work opens with a discussion of “The Green Book,” Lewis’s pseudonym for The Control of Language (1939) by Alec King and Martin Ketley, a textbook intended for use in the senior grades of the British schools.2 Commenting that he did “not want to pillory two modest practising school-masters who were doing the best they knew,”3 Lewis suppresses the authors’ real names in favor of the pseudonyms “Gaius” and “Titius.”
Lewis zeroes in on the response by Gaius and Titius to a famous story about Coleridge at a waterfall, in which Coleridge endorses the judgment that the waterfall is “sublime”:
Gaius and Titius comment as follows: ‘When the man said This is sublime, he appeared to be making a remark about the waterfall … Actually … he was not making a remark about the waterfall, but a remark about his own feelings. What he was saying was really I have feelings associated in my mind with the word “Sublime,” or shortly, I have sublime feelings…. 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.’4
Lewis’s critique of this statement occupies the rest of the first chapter. Early on in the critique, Lewis writes: “The schoolboy5 who reads this passage in The Green Book will believe two propositions: firstly, that all sentences containing a predicate of value are statements about the emotional state of the speaker; and secondly, that all such statements are unimportant.”6 Against these propositions (and related propositions offered by Gaius and Titius), Lewis urges: “Until quite modern times all teachers and even all men believed the universe to be such that certain emotional reactions on our part could be either congruous or incongruous to it — believed, in fact, that objects did not merely receive, but could merit, our approval or disapproval, our reverence or our contempt.”7
The Tao
Augustine, Lewis tells us, “defines virtue as ordo amoris, the ordinate condition of the affections in which every object is accorded that… love which is appropriate to it.”8 The same notion, he argues, is found in Shelley, Traherne, Aristotle, Plato, early Hinduism, and ancient Chinese traditions.9 Summarizing this universal tradition, Lewis writes: “This conception in all its forms, Platonic, Aristotelian, Stoic, Christian, and Oriental alike, I shall henceforth refer to for brevity simply as ‘the Tao’…. It is the doctrine of objective value, the belief that certain attitudes are really true, and others really false, to the kind of thing the universe is and the kind of things we are.”10
There is thus a conflict between the Tao and the view advocated by The Green Book. This conflict necessarily produces two different views of education:
Hence the educational problem is wholly different according as you stand within or without the Tao. For those within, the task is to train in the pupil those responses which are in themselves appropriate, whether anyone is making them or not, and in making which the very nature of man consists. Those without, if they are logical, must regard all sentiments as equally non-rational, as mere mists between us and the real objects. As a result, they must either decide to remove all sentiments, as far as possible, from the pupil’s mind; or else encourage some sentiments for reasons that have nothing to do with their intrinsic ‘justness’ or ‘ordinacy’.11
Developing the last point, Lewis argues that for teachers outside of the Tao, education can only be: (1) the rigorous “debunking” of all noble sentiments, with the consequent production of a moral vacuum; (2) propaganda, consisting of pseudo-moral principles which, though groundless, are deemed desirable for getting people to act in certain ways.12
Lewis grants that the authors of The Green Book do not endorse propaganda. This leaves them with the first alternative, i.e., to debunk every noble sentiment in sight, and to presume that is there is some biological or other natural basis for morality that does not require noble sentiments.13 However, in the rest of the chapter, Lewis goes on to show the hopelessness of such an assumption. He argues:
Let us suppose for a moment that the harder virtues could really be theoretically justified with no appeal to objective value. It still remains true that no justification of virtue will enable a man to be virtuous. Without the aid of trained emotions the intellect is powerless against the animal organism…. In battle it is not syllogisms that will keep the reluctant nerves and muscles to their post in the third hour of the bombardment. The crudest sentimentalism (such as Gaius and Titius would wince at) about a flag or a country or a regiment will be of more use.14
This insight brings Lewis to the argumentative climax of the chapter:
We were told it all long ago by Plato. As the king governs by his executive, so Reason in man must rule the mere appetites by means of the ‘spirited element’. The head rules the belly through the chest — the seat, as Alanus tells us, of Magnanimity, of emotions organized by trained habit into stable sentiments. The Chest-Magnanimity-Sentiment — these are the indispensable liaison officers between cerebral man and visceral man. It may even be said that it is by this middle element that man is man; for by his intellect he is mere spirit and by his appetite mere animal.15
In the light of his Platonic understanding, Lewis summarizes his criticism of Gaius and Titius thus: “The operation of The Green Book and its kind is to produce what may be called Men without Chests.”16 But without “chests,” i.e., without the middle part of the soul that Plato called thumos, neither creative energy nor self-sacrifice, neither enterprise nor virtue, is possible.17 Thus, in seeking to abolish thumos, the authors of The Green Book unwittingly seek to abolish man.
The Basis of Value Judgments
In the second chapter of The Abolition of Man, Lewis notes that, despite the ferocity with which the authors of The Greek Book debunk the basis of all judgments of value, they in fact are driven by such judgments themselves: “Gaius and Titius will be found to hold, with complete uncritical dogmatism, the whole system of values which happened to be in vogue among moderately educated young men of the professional classes during the period between the two wars.”18
Lewis gives something of the content of that “system of values” in his note to the comment: Gaius and Titius disapprove of terms like “brave” and “gentleman,” and of the feeling of patriotism. But they approve of peace, cleanliness, democracy, and education.19 The suburban, middle-class values of comfort and security, rather than either heroic or aristocratic values, are what motivate them.
Having noted that Gaius and Titius are not, for all their debunking, “value-free,” Lewis wonders why it is that they think that their moral judgments, as opposed to those of more old-fashioned people, should be invulnerable to debunking. He suggests that they imagine that they provide a more “realistic” foundation for morality than the traditional, sentimental basis.20 However, Lewis is also determined to test the foundations of this allegedly more realistic morality, and by the end of chapter 2, he has shown that all the alleged non-sentimental arguments (e.g., utilitarian arguments) for Gaius and Titius’s particular set of moral values can be “seen through” or “debunked” just as surely as can the noble sentiments connected with the Tao.21
This conclusion sets up Lewis’s third and final chapter. Having shown that the “debunking” spirit of The Green Book is inconsistent with the maintenance of any firmly held moral system or stable society, Lewis considers what might happen if teachers like Gaius and Titius were to abandon their inner inconsistency and reject the concept of value altogether.
Lewis envisions a future society in which “man’s conquest of nature” is complete. Human beings have mastered external nature and can use it to produce food, shelter, medicine, and infinite creature comforts and entertainments at will. The survival and physical contentment of the race is thus guaranteed. But mastery over external nature will eventually involve mastery over biological and psychological nature, as the tools of science become more probing and powerful; thus, mankind will be able to remake, not only the external environment, but even itself. The human race will be able, for the first time, to define itself, to create its own future reality. This creates the paradoxical situation in which man is at once master and slave: master over the externalities of nature — heat, cold, hunger, sickness, etc. — but enslaved by the science which will control his own genetic constitution and his own emotional makeup through high-tech biological and psychological manipulation. And who will be in charge of that scientific manipulation?
The Conditioners
Lewis foresees a class of men called “the Conditioners.” The Conditioners, more consistent than Gaius and Titius, have “seen through” all attempts to ground behaviour in any ultimate truth about the way things are, and consequently have rejected the authority of the Tao or any fragments of it (such as the liberal, humanist fragments which still guide Gaius and Titius). The Tao-less Conditioners are charged with deciding what man is to be. They will choose the physical talents of future generations of human beings, and they will choose the set of emotions and valuations to implant in those future generations, in order to get them to behave in a desired way. But Lewis asks the question: What will guide the Conditioners in their choice of the “values” which future men will have?
These Conditioners may at first, out of habit, inconsistently rule under the sway of the old-fashioned morality, i.e., under the impression that as rulers they have some obligation of stewardship, some duty to promote the good of those ruled. Thus, there might be a period of the government of the many, by the few, for the many. But this state of affairs, Lewis points out, cannot last.22 At some point the Conditioners will fully realize that their sense of obligation was nothing more than the result of the social conditioning of previous societies, and will cast it off; after that, the only thing governing their behaviour will be their current whims. They will make the kind of human beings that they please, and condition them with drugs and education and propaganda as they please. With the last traditional moral restraint gone, the mastery of the human race over nature will turn into the mastery of the few over the many It will be government of the many, by the few, for the few.
What will control how the few will act? Will they act, as in Brave New World, with the goal of giving the many a life of comfortable convenience, spiced with erotic and drug-induced pleasures? Or will they act, as in 1984, with the goal of enslaving and crushing the human spirit? There is no way of predicting, since the Conditioners will act on the basis of their strongest current impulses. Those impulses are as likely to be bad as to be good. And where will those impulses come from? They cannot come from the Tao, which the conditioners have rejected as an artifice corresponding to no ultimate reality. They will then come from chance factors that affect the rulers, e.g., “heredity, digestion, the weather, and the association of ideas.”23 That is, they will come from unregulated Nature. The rulers, having repudiated the Tao, will let the previously subdued Nature back in, through the doorway of their own unguided wills. And since their wills are the ruling power over their civilization, their civilization, and all the human beings within it, will be ruled by the random impulses of nature — a massive irony for a civilization which started out in hopes of liberating itself by the conquest of nature.24 And this civilization, if technologically competent, will never be overthrown: “Nature will be troubled no more by the restive species that rose in revolt against her so many millions of years ago, will be vexed no longer by its chatter of truth and mercy and beauty and happiness… and if the eugenics are efficient enough there will be no second revolt, but all snug beneath the Conditioners, and the Conditioners beneath her, till the moon falls or the sun grows cold.”25
Not Men at All
In such a situation, man himself will have been abolished. The Conditioners, Lewis says, will be neither good men nor bad men; they will not be men (in the true sense) at all. To be “men” in the old sense, they would have to be within the Tao (which determines what it is to be human, and what it is to deviate from the human), and thus to be capable of feeling the shame which comes with such deviation. But they are not within the Tao. They lack the middle part of the soul by which impulses are controlled in the name of something higher than impulse; they are, in Lewis’s image, “men without chests,” and hence, outside of humanity altogether.26
And what of the conditioned? They will not live under the Tao, but only under whatever substitute moral principles the Conditioners have instilled in them. Still, to the extent that such moral principles are internally consistent, might they not be said to participate in some dim way in humanity? They will have at least an “artificial conscience,” unlike their rulers and masters.27 Yet Lewis’s judgment upon them is clear: “They are not men at all: they are artefacts.”28 Thus, the civilization which shall have completely conquered nature (and in turn become completely enslaved by it), consists of rulers who, being beyond good and evil, are above (or at least outside) humanity, and subjects who are beneath it.29
Such, Lewis teaches, is the fate of the human race if it consistently abandons the authority of the Tao: a mastery over nature which puts man under the heel of nature to a greater extent than ever before; a global tyranny of the conditioners over the conditioned, and the abolition of man himself. And since the abandonment of the Tao is encouraged and justified by the kind of arguments against noble sentiments which the authors of The Green Book would make a standard part of public education, the abolition of man will be the ultimate outcome if the philosophy and pedagogy of The Green Book is allowed to stand.
Tomorrow, “The Education of Mark Studdock in That Hideous Strength.”
Notes


evolutionnewsandviews--2020-08-19--Watch: C. S. Lewis on Demonic Scientific Planning

We are currently celebrating the 75th anniversary of the publication of C. S. Lewis ’ s Space Trilogy novel That @ @ @ @ @ Professor C. John Collins of Covenant Theological Seminary explains the book ’ s critique of @ @ @ @ @ information , check out the book The Magician ’ s Twin : C. S. Lewis @ @ @ @ @ and Society , edited by John West , here .

Archives
Archives Select Month August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 April 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006 September 2006 August 2006 July 2006 June 2006 May 2006 April 2006 March 2006 February 2006 January 2006 December 2005 November 2005 October 2005 September 2005 August 2005 July 2005 June 2005 May 2005 April 2005 March 2005 February 2005 January 2005 December 2004 January 1970


evolutionnewsandviews--2020-08-19--The Education of Mark Studdock in That Hideous Strength

Editor ’ s note : Published on August 16 , 1945 , C. S. Lewis ’ s That Hideous Strength is a dystopian novel that eerily reflects the realities of 2020 .
This week and next , to mark the book ’ s three-quarter century anniversary , Evolution News presents a series of essays , reflections , and videos about its themes and legacy .
Dr. Cameron Wybrow is a scholar , teacher , and writer with academic and popular publications on a variety of subjects .
He has a particular interest in philosophical and theological critiques of modernity , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ S. Lewis .
This post is adapted from Chapter 11 of The Magician ’ s Twin : C. S. Lewis on Science , Scientism , and Society , edited by John G. West .
See also : • “ The Education of Mark Studdock : A Sociologist Learns the Lessons of The Abolition of Man ” • “ The Main Argument of The Abolition of Man ” Mark and Jane Studdock are in a sense the protagonists of That Hideous Strength .
They are an unhappily married young couple , who , in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ forced to come face to face with the faults each of them has which have caused their marriage to be so unhappy .
The events of the story separate them for most of the book , and the sort of challenges that they face , while in some ways parallel , are also specific to each character ’ s weaknesses , and the particular set of weaknesses possessed by Mark are the ones which concern us here , as they connect much more directly with the themes of The Abolition of Man .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ less important in the story than Mark , we will focus almost exclusively on Mark .
Mark is a young sociologist .
His exact age is not given , but as Jane is said to be twenty-three , it is a reasonable guess , given the age difference between husband and wife typical of his class and era , that he is about twenty-eight .
In confirmation of this estimate , we know that he has been at Bracton College for at least a few years , long enough to be well-acquainted with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ assume that he started teaching there at about age twenty-three,1 an age in the late twenties seems quite likely .
Mark ’ s exact area of research in sociology is not given , in part , no doubt , because it is not relevant to the story , but perhaps in part because Lewis wants us to see Mark ’ s social thought as broad and diffuse rather than focused and incisive .
If Mark were a precise sort of sociologist , e.g.
, the type who does detailed mathematical analyses of particular @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a disciplined and scholarly character which the narrator tells us it did not have .
We know that he lacks both scientific and Classical training,2 and that he was a “ glib examinee in subjects that require no exact knowledge , ” who “ had always done well on Essays and General Papers.
” 3 We are thus not to imagine Mark as a Max Weber or an Emile Durkheim , a sociologist steeped in the rigors of Continental scientific and humanistic learning .
He is more like the “ socially relevant ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ analyst , inclined to make large generalizations about the nature of man and society based on the currently dominant set of social science concepts ( e.g.
, “ class ” ) , but not terribly critical of the theoretical foundations of his subject .
Like many sociologists then and now , Mark has an interest in his subject not primarily out of the sheer love of knowing — which was the motive of Greek theoria — but because he sees it as preparing the way for a more “ scientific ” society : @ @ @ @ @ @ @ human living which , being more efficient , will produce wealth , health , inventions , progress and happiness in a systematic way not possible in previous societies .
Thus , he sees his studies as aimed at the social good , in a way that ( to his mind ) dusty old Classical studies like Greek and Latin are not .
( Mark ’ s school Latin is represented in the story as rudimentary and practically all forgotten . )
In the course of the story , Mark is lured away from @ @ @ @ @ @ @ become part of the massive research effort known as the N.I.C.E .
( National Institute for Co-ordinated Experiments ) .
The N.I.C.E .
is a “ think tank , ” as we should now say , but a think tank with an extreme technological bent .
It desires to see scientific knowledge applied not only to external things ( better fertilizers and radios and the like ) , but to the control and improvement of human behavior .
It is thus heavily into intrusive biological and psychological research ( including experimentation upon criminals @ @ @ @ @ @ @ takes place largely behind closed doors and out of the public eye .
It champions the new ( and purportedly more humane ) idea that the purpose of a legal system is not for the meting out of just punishments , but for the rehabilitation of the offender ; thus , it arranges for the State to ship a good number of criminals to its laboratories for social reconditioning .
Its long-term goal is to have all criminals taken out of the hands of traditional authorities ( police , courts , and jails @ @ @ @ @ @ @ researchers for inner reshaping .
But it is not merely criminals that it wants to reshape ; it hopes in the long run to re-socialize all of England , by applying “ scientific ” measures of control and education , ultimately even prenatal conditioning , to bring into being a new and improved form of humanity .
To Do Away with Humanity At least , these are its overt goals .
As the story proceeds , we learn that beneath this scientific humanism , the demon-controlled leadership of the N.I.C.E .
intends eventually @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and replace it with a small number of highly evolved beings who have none of the softness or sentimental characteristics we associate with human beings , because they have evolved into nearly pure minds , free of bodily constraints .
But only the inner circle of N.I.C.E .
people knows of this goal .
The majority of its functionaries and researchers are kept in the dark , and led to believe that they are collaborating in a grand secular humanist project , an extended Baconian mission to relieve the human estate through better @ @ @ @ @ @ @ individuals and societies by remaking them through modern technology .
When Mark is first brought into the N.I.C.E .
by Lord Feverstone , this is his own understanding of the project .
As the story progresses , he is slowly brought deeper and deeper into the inner ranks of the organization , and eventually the supernatural motivation behind its workings is made known to him .
Mark is at first wanted by the organization because he is a good writer .
He has a gift for turning sociological insights into persuasive popular prose @ @ @ @ @ @ @ public to accept the idea of a more and more scientific society , with the state ( or quasi-state institutions like the N.I.C.E . )
having more and more power in traditional realms such as law , child-rearing , economics , and education .
His job is to convince the public that increasing central control over such things , far from being a threat to human freedom , will increase human freedom and happiness by providing more wealth , more health , greater longevity , more technical gadgets to make life more comfortable @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for propaganda is used by the Institute , and gradually he is asked to write things that are more and more dishonest , knowingly concealing from the public the true extent of the power over individual lives that the N.I.C.E .
seeks .
Mark is praised by the inner circle of the N.I.C.E .
for his artfulness in the expression of deceptive half-truths , and through the pride generated by this praise , Mark is corrupted .
Why He Was Picked by N.I.C.E Mark was in fact picked out by the N.I.C.E .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ influenced his earlier hiring at Bracton College — precisely because he was felt to be a gifted writer whose morality was somewhat malleable .
But this must not be misunderstood .
Mark was not dishonest about matters of money or sexual fidelity .
He thought of himself as , and in many ways was , a conventionally moral person .
But he was young , academically vain , eager to please people , and eager to be thought well of , and the inner circle of the N.I.C.E .
was looking for just @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by crude means may be quite corruptible by more insidious ones — those which play upon pride and ambition .
Within Mark ’ s discipline of sociology , one of the ways to “ move up ” in the esteem of one ’ s colleagues is to show how one can “ see through ” all the institutions of society , how they serve the selfish purposes of certain groups or classes , rather than the good of the whole .
Thus , Mark has contempt for the class of rentiers , the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ bad element ” ; 4 he has learned from his sociology to think of them as a selfish class , which ought to be swept away by a scientific reorganization of society .
He is ( in line with much 20th-century sociological and political science opinion ) less harsh toward the peasant and the working classes , but he soon learns that the N.I.C.E .
regards them , too , as a retrograde influence that stands in the way of progress , and that they , too , must be eliminated or @ @ @ @ @ @ @ pen to the propaganda which will eventually subject these people to plans of the N.I.C.E .
for a new , scientific , planned England .
Mark ’ s sociological habit of “ seeing through ” classes and their weaknesses clashes with a certain instinctive knowledge which he possesses ( though in much smaller quantity than does his wife Jane , or any well-balanced , decent Englishman ) .
When he visits a village full of bourgeois and working-class people , he finds that they are in many ways likeable ; his lived experience @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ deconstruction ” which “ proves ” these people to be a dead weight upon society .
But over his weeks at the Institute , he slowly learns to suppress all such instinctive and empirical knowledge in favour of the abstract conceptions ( class , etc . )
which he is so clever in expounding .
He must be against what the Institute is against , and for what it is for , if he hopes to rise high in its ranks and be influential in it .
Mark has other personality traits @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
For example , he is “ not as a rule very sensitive to beauty.
” This is important , as the N.I.C.E .
will be doing many things that are not beautiful , from cutting up living animals ( Mark has no objections to vivisection6 ) , through tearing down the ancient Bragdon Wood at Bracton College , to destroying the quaint village of Cure Hardy in order to reroute a river for the N.I.C.E.
’ s purposes .
A N.I.C.E .
colleague of Mark ’ s , Cosser , thinks that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Hardy , on the fine sunny day that they visit the village , is a “ bloody awful noise.
” 7 The N.I.C.E .
has no love of nature as such , it wants to master nature , beat it into submission for its own ends .
Therefore , preserving the beauty of nature — or of social institutions — is of no concern to it .
But it is not merely the political program of the N.I.C.E .
which requires Mark to stamp out of his soul any fleeting concerns he has @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is secretly run by evil eldila , who are in fact demonic beings , aims at more than political and social control of England ; indeed , political and social power is only a subsidiary end .
It ultimately desires the conversion of the souls of the elite personnel of the N.I.C.E .
to demonic ends .
As Mark is brought into the inner circle , he is eventually invited into the deepest secrets of the organization , and the initiation will require him to perform a series of actions involving the embrace @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of wholesomeness and beauty .
He is of course prepared for this more than most people by his education , which has been “ Modern ” ; whereas a Classically educated person would be moved by beauty and unwilling to damage it , someone educated in the modern sentiment that all positive reactions to beauty are mere statements of private emotion having no truth-content , would be much more willing to desecrate the beautiful in order to work his way into the centre of an organization .
Thus , the extended discussion of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The Abolition of Man opens is central to Mark ’ s temptation .
It is precisely because he has a modern education , of the sort pushed in The Green Book , that he has a contempt for beauty , and therefore might be induced to repudiate it .
And of course , as the demons know , the love of the beautiful and the love of virtue are connected ; to weaken the sense of the beautiful is to weaken the sense of the good overall , and hence to weaken virtue @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the N.I.C.E.
, Mark must transcend virtue altogether .
Thus , in Mark , Lewis paints for us a portrait of the “ modern ” educated man as set forth in The Green Book — largely insensitive to beauty , and tending to “ see through ” all alleged virtues ( whether of individuals or social classes or societies ) and dismiss them as emotional rubbish which must be swept away in the name of rationality and progress .
In the light of That Hideous Strength , we can see that the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a recipe for producing more Mark Studdocks , and not just in the Sociology departments but in the English and other humanities departments , and in fact in all walks of life , since all , or certainly many , will pass through senior English in the schools .
Their principles would generate a group of young intellectuals who mock virtue and beauty and can not exemplify them .
Such people will become willing disciples of social and political and ethical teachings that are , if not the product of literal demons as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in effect .
Of course , we must not suppose that Mark , despite his lack of understanding of beauty and virtue , is himself a vicious man or a man without some set of values.8 Mark has a set of values .
He believes in equality , for example , and is surprised when Professors Filostrato and Straik speak against it in the name of the supremacy of a single superman.9 Like all good democrats and socialists of the modern world , he also believes in the use of science to increase @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and in the goal of universal education.11 Finally , Mark believes above all in the survival of the human race.12 But in believing these things Mark is , as Lewis says of Gaius and Titius , better than his principles.13 For Mark has no justification for his beliefs in progress , universal education , universal prosperity , equality , democracy , or even racial survival.14 The sentiments underlying these beliefs are just as emotional and ungrounded as the sentiments for beauty and for kindness to animals which Mark rejects .
He is an @ @ @ @ @ @ @ who “ sees through ” certain older conceptions of beauty and truth and social good , but who does not “ see through ” his own views .
We are thus reminded of what Lewis said in The Abolition of Man : “ Gaius and Titius… hold… with complete uncritical dogmatism , the whole system of values which happened to be in vogue among moderately educated young men of the professional classes during the period between the two wars.
” It is only Mark ’ s exposure to the inner circle of N.I.C.E @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and Straik , and finally Frost — that eventually teaches him that even his wised-up , liberal , progressive values have no more truth than the dusty old Classical and Christian values which he has rejected .
It is in the conversations between Mark and Frost that Mark gains final clarity about the status of his own cynical debunking of tradition , and where it leads .
For in Frost we see the radical completion of modern thought , as set forth by Lewis in The Abolition of Man .
At the end @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Lewis had established that the half-hearted rejection of standards of value — the rejection of parts of the Tao , while retaining such parts of it as was necessary to sustain liberalism , progress , democracy , and so on — was logically inconsistent and could not stand .
But in the same passage , he granted that a full rejection of the concept of objective value — the abandonment of any attempt to seek out , and adhere to , the good , the true , and the beautiful — could be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , while the adoption of that position is characteristic of most of the inner circle of the N.I.C.E.
, its fullest incarnation is found in the character of Frost .
Frost is wonderfully characterized in the book .
His very name suggests an icy aloofness from others , and indeed , he exemplifies that throughout the story .
His appearance — pointed beard and pince-nez — evokes the stereotype of the cool , clinical psychoanalyst who regards his patients with supreme objectivity .
His conversation with all members of the N.I.C.E.
, even @ @ @ @ @ @ @ precise , and without wasted words , always driving to the point without concern for diplomacy or the esteem of others .
When he converses with Mark in the prisoner ’ s cell , where Mark is being held under threat of execution , he reveals the deepest secrets of the N.I.C.E .
— the organization to which he has given his soul and into which he wants Mark to be fully initiated — and there is not a hint of emotion : “ Frost remained , throughout the whole conversation , standing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ straight at his sides .
But for the periodic upward tilt of his head and flash of his teeth at the end of a sentence , he used no gestures.
” 16 In comparison with Frost , Mr. Spock from Star Trek is an ocean of seething emotions .
Frost believes in “ objectivity.
” For him , objectivity starts with the recognition that resentment and fear — and love and all other emotional responses — are merely chemical phenomena .
A rational person does not let himself be ruled by chemical phenomena @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by suppressing them by an act of will , but by realizing their non-objective character .
Once their purely subjective nature is fully grasped , they no longer have power over one ; one is liberated .
This means of course , that to be truly free , one must leave behind not only all the negative emotions — hatred and jealousy and fear — but all the positive emotions as well , and the whole world that goes with them : the world of virtue and beauty and morality .
One must @ @ @ @ @ @ @ good and evil as human beings normally understand those terms .
Mark ’ s final initiation involves the acquisition — through a rigorous training program designed to destroy all emotional attachment — of this form of objectivity .
If he passes his initiation , he will be , like Frost , free of all traditional human motivations .
Mark is thus invited to examine the vision of existence painted by Lewis in the last part of The Abolition of Man .
His choice whether or not to continue with his initiation will depend @ @ @ @ @ @ @ It would be misleading to overlook the fact that Mark ’ s final decision is influenced by things other than the intrinsic merits of Frost ’ s philosophy .
Mark has , by the time that Frost first offers him initiation , become disillusioned in many ways regarding the N.I.C.E .
He has learned that Feverstone brought him into the Institute not out of old college friendship but because his propaganda skills would be useful .
He has learned that the N.I.C.E .
has murdered his colleague Hingest , and planted his wallet @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to make him look guilty of the murder .
He has learned that Miss Hardcastle , head of the N.I.C.E .
police , burned his wife Jane with cigarettes in an interrogation .
He has been manipulated emotionally all along by Wither , the Deputy Director .
He has come to see that , even as he was apparently being brought more and more into the inner circle of the organization , he was more and more being used and enslaved by it .
And he now knows that the Institution wants to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ reasons that he can not imagine ( he is not aware that they want her for her gift of clairvoyance ) , and he is not yet so far gone in evil that he wishes to offer up his wife as a sacrifice to such people .
So he is already well on his guard by the time Frost comes to him with an offer of salvation both physical — release from jail and from the death sentence for the alleged murder of Hingest — and spiritual — admission into the innermost ring @ @ @ @ @ @ @ communicates directly with the bent eldila , the demons who are running the whole operation behind the scenes .
Nonetheless , Mark does , in the course of his conversations with Frost , and in the course of the initiatory acts which he performs ( in order to fool Frost into thinking that wishes to complete the process ) , reason critically about the theoretical basis of Frost ’ s position .
He probes the arguments of Frost with a clarity that exceeds the blurry fuzziness he practiced as a sociologist , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ himself has held for years and which has led him to where he now is .
Thus , while the manipulations and humiliations he has suffered , and the repulsiveness of the personnel of N.I.C.E.
, are major factors in his final decision , the decision is clinched by argument — an argument which in fact is identical with the argument of the closing chapter of The Abolition of Man .
All “ Head ” and No “ Chest ” Frost has told Mark shocking things .
He has said that war is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and evil , but in fact a necessary cleansing mechanism to reduce surplus human population , especially the inferior members of the human population — which is why the Macrobes ( the evil eldila ) have planned sixteen major wars for the 20th century.17 Frost has even denied that the survival of Man as such is important .
If Man should pass out of existence , having evolved into something purely mental — all “ head ” and no “ chest , ” and hence quite beyond what we now call human — @ @ @ @ @ @ @ what the evolutionary process ordains.18 In this context , Frost even refers approvingly to Waddington,19 a real-life biologist who had written a book about evolutionary ethics — a book whose doctrines Lewis criticized in The Abolition of Man.20 Frost ’ s assertions here are shocking precisely because he has passed beyond the half-hearted moral skepticism advocated by The Green Book and achieved the radical amorality of the Conditioners discussed by Lewis in The Abolition of Man .
At this point in the dialogue , Mark becomes almost the spokesman for Lewis ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ questions which strike at the heart of Frost ’ s position .
He grants ( feigning agreement with Frost ) that all traditional ideas of patriotism and humanity are mere product of the animal organism , and irrational ; but , he asks , if traditional emotional motives are to be entirely abandoned , what will replace them as the spring of action ?
21 Frost ’ s recapitulation and clarification is revealing : What does Frost mean by “ something else ” ?
It would appear , from the descriptions throughout the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ initiates Frost and Wither , that he means the direct communication of the will of the Macrobes , the evil eldila .
The will of the eldila , made known through direct verbal communication or through non-verbal promptings , guides the true initiate .
Freed of the influence of the organic body , the initiate is moved by pure spirit .
Mark has as yet no understanding of this kind of motivation , nor will he , until he has killed all the lower motivations and become a full initiate .
But such @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Frost does not mention .
Late in the story , after uttering a cold threat to Merlin ( whom Frost at that point takes to be a Basque priest ) , Frost does something very strange : “ Suddenly , not as if he wished to , but as if he were a machine that had been worked , Frost kicked him.
” 23 This action is uncharacteristic of Frost , who , true to his name , is usually “ cool ” and does not lose his temper .
Has Frost , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , “ fallen off the wagon ” and descended into the realm of the emotional ?
It appears not .
Frost acts as if he had been “ worked.
” His body acts as a tool in the hands of another .
But what other ?
Presumably , the Macrobes to whom Frost has given his soul .
It is the malice of the Macrobes which , through the body of Frost , kicks Merlin .
Frost neither intended nor personally executed the action .
More light is shed on this event by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ life in suicide , and it is a suicide directed by neither his mind nor his will .
It is motiveless , as far as he is concerned , yet not ultimately motiveless , for it is imposed upon him from the outside , by the evil eldila whom he had faithfully served .
25 This incident can perhaps best be understood if it is translated out of the demon-filled world of That Hideous Strength into the demon-free analysis of The Abolition of Man .
Lewis tells us that the Conditioners who are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ evil , and hence beyond all normal human motivation will still be driven by something , i.e.
, by the strongest chance impulse that happens to impinge upon their wills .
Just as the initiates in That Hideous Strength experience urges to destructive and self-destructive behaviour springing from the malignant and ultimately irrational will of the eldila , so the Conditioners in The Abolition of Man will do whatever they do ( to the human beings they rule ) out of the disorderly impulses which come to them from blind Nature .
If @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a world ruled by scientific Conditioners , humanity will be as enslaved by irrational caprice as it would be if it were ruled by literal demons .
Thus , in the question about the grounds of action posed by Mark Studdock to Frost , and in Frost ’ s answer ( as interpreted in the light of Frost ’ s slavelike and finally suicidal actions ) , we see the ultimate refutation of Frost ’ s view of “ objectivity ” and its corollary of motiveless action .
Motiveless action , if it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ action , but capricious action .
And it would proceed not from human choice but from the random impulses of nature .
Far from advocating a higher stage of rational existence than the human , Frost is advocating something lower than the human , a kind of radical un-freedom , a slavery to impulses over which human beings finally have no control , because they have given up the rationality by which they could exercise such control .
There is a moment in the story at which Mark ’ s theoretical awareness becomes @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Frost to Mark about the superiority of motiveless action , Mark ’ s thoughts are relayed to us by the narrator : It is “ the knowledge that his own assumptions led to Frost ’ s position ” that drives the truth home for Mark .
He sees that the intellectual habits of his whole life — of mocking traditional values , of belittling traditional institutions , of ignoring beauty , of regarding nature as purely stuff to be used or an enemy to be conquered , of preferring glib abstractions to the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ thinking that a reductionist “ science ” is the source of all truth and more important than humanity itself — must lead to the insane doctrine of amoral , motiveless action which produces ex-human monstrosities like Frost and Wither , and institutional monstrosities like the N.I.C.E .
As a sociologist , Mark was an educator in the spirit of Gaius and Titius , the authors of The Green Book .
In his final repudiation of the teaching of Frost , Mark in effect repudiates the position of Gaius and Titius .
In that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sort of wish-fulfillment on the part of Lewis : a Studdockian conversion of the Gaiuses and Titiuses of the world might be effected if such educators would read The Abolition of Man and repent of their destructive teaching about noble sentiments and judgments of value .
• It was not uncommon for British dons of the era to teach with only a Bachelor ’ s degree , with the Master ’ s degree being later granted by a semi-automatic procedure .
• I hesitate to use the term “ values , ” because @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Nietzschian flavor , suggesting that “ value ” is something posited by an act of will of human beings , rather than objectively existing .
However , Lewis himself uses the term , so I defer to his usage , while reminding the reader that “ value ” in Lewis ’ s language has an objectivity that it does not possess in modern historicist thought .
• Note that even Lord Feverstone is skeptical of arguments based on an alleged moral obligation to the future human race ; see That Hideous Strength , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , 41–42 .
Lewis expresses Feverstone ’ s skepticism in an extended argument in The Abolition of Man , ch .
2 , 37–39 , 41–42 .
• The Abolition of Man , n. 3 to ch .
2 , 109–111 .
Note that Lewis , observing Waddington ’ s apparent unease with his own conclusions , suggests that Waddington was a better man than his principles seemed to justify ; Frost , on the other hand , has adopted Waddington ’ s principles without Waddington ’ s hesitations or equivocations .
• @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
14 , sec .
5 , 317 ) , Dr .
Ransom had prophesied that once the N.I.C.E .
people were no longer useful to the eldila , the eldila would destroy them .

Image: Screen shot from That Hideous Strength: C.S. Lewis's Prophetic Warning against the Abuse of Science.
Editor’s note: Published on August 16, 1945, C. S. Lewis’s That Hideous Strength is a dystopian novel that eerily reflects the realities of 2020. This week and next, to mark the book’s three-quarter century anniversary, Evolution News presents a series of essays, reflections, and videos about its themes and legacy.
Dr. Cameron Wybrow is a scholar, teacher, and writer with academic and popular publications on a variety of subjects. He has a particular interest in philosophical and theological critiques of modernity, and hence in the thought of C. S. Lewis.
This post is adapted from Chapter 11 of The Magician’s Twin: C. S. Lewis on Science, Scientism, and Society, edited by John G. West. See also:
Mark and Jane Studdock are in a sense the protagonists of That Hideous Strength. They are an unhappily married young couple, who, in the course of the story, are forced to come face to face with the faults each of them has which have caused their marriage to be so unhappy. The events of the story separate them for most of the book, and the sort of challenges that they face, while in some ways parallel, are also specific to each character’s weaknesses, and the particular set of weaknesses possessed by Mark are the ones which concern us here, as they connect much more directly with the themes of The Abolition of Man. Thus, without implying that Jane is less important in the story than Mark, we will focus almost exclusively on Mark.
Mark is a young sociologist. His exact age is not given, but as Jane is said to be twenty-three, it is a reasonable guess, given the age difference between husband and wife typical of his class and era, that he is about twenty-eight. In confirmation of this estimate, we know that he has been at Bracton College for at least a few years, long enough to be well-acquainted with its internal politics; and if we assume that he started teaching there at about age twenty-three,1 an age in the late twenties seems quite likely.
A “Socially Relevant” Sociologist
Mark’s exact area of research in sociology is not given, in part, no doubt, because it is not relevant to the story, but perhaps in part because Lewis wants us to see Mark’s social thought as broad and diffuse rather than focused and incisive. If Mark were a precise sort of sociologist, e.g., the type who does detailed mathematical analyses of particular social phenomena, his thinking would have a disciplined and scholarly character which the narrator tells us it did not have. We know that he lacks both scientific and Classical training,2 and that he was a “glib examinee in subjects that require no exact knowledge,” who “had always done well on Essays and General Papers.”3 We are thus not to imagine Mark as a Max Weber or an Emile Durkheim, a sociologist steeped in the rigors of Continental scientific and humanistic learning. He is more like the “socially relevant” sociologist of today, an all-purpose social analyst, inclined to make large generalizations about the nature of man and society based on the currently dominant set of social science concepts (e.g., “class”), but not terribly critical of the theoretical foundations of his subject.
Like many sociologists then and now, Mark has an interest in his subject not primarily out of the sheer love of knowing — which was the motive of Greek theoria — but because he sees it as preparing the way for a more “scientific” society: a more organized, methodical form of human living which, being more efficient, will produce wealth, health, inventions, progress and happiness in a systematic way not possible in previous societies. Thus, he sees his studies as aimed at the social good, in a way that (to his mind) dusty old Classical studies like Greek and Latin are not. (Mark’s school Latin is represented in the story as rudimentary and practically all forgotten.)
In the course of the story, Mark is lured away from his teaching position at Bracton College to become part of the massive research effort known as the N.I.C.E. (National Institute for Co-ordinated Experiments). The N.I.C.E. is a “think tank,” as we should now say, but a think tank with an extreme technological bent. It desires to see scientific knowledge applied not only to external things (better fertilizers and radios and the like), but to the control and improvement of human behavior. It is thus heavily into intrusive biological and psychological research (including experimentation upon criminals and mental patients), research which takes place largely behind closed doors and out of the public eye. It champions the new (and purportedly more humane) idea that the purpose of a legal system is not for the meting out of just punishments, but for the rehabilitation of the offender; thus, it arranges for the State to ship a good number of criminals to its laboratories for social reconditioning. Its long-term goal is to have all criminals taken out of the hands of traditional authorities (police, courts, and jails) and turned over to N.I.C.E. researchers for inner reshaping. But it is not merely criminals that it wants to reshape; it hopes in the long run to re-socialize all of England, by applying “scientific” measures of control and education, ultimately even prenatal conditioning, to bring into being a new and improved form of humanity.
To Do Away with Humanity
At least, these are its overt goals. As the story proceeds, we learn that beneath this scientific humanism, the demon-controlled leadership of the N.I.C.E. intends eventually to do away with humanity altogether, and replace it with a small number of highly evolved beings who have none of the softness or sentimental characteristics we associate with human beings, because they have evolved into nearly pure minds, free of bodily constraints. But only the inner circle of N.I.C.E. people knows of this goal. The majority of its functionaries and researchers are kept in the dark, and led to believe that they are collaborating in a grand secular humanist project, an extended Baconian mission to relieve the human estate through better food and medicine and to improve both individuals and societies by remaking them through modern technology. When Mark is first brought into the N.I.C.E. by Lord Feverstone, this is his own understanding of the project. As the story progresses, he is slowly brought deeper and deeper into the inner ranks of the organization, and eventually the supernatural motivation behind its workings is made known to him.
Mark is at first wanted by the organization because he is a good writer. He has a gift for turning sociological insights into persuasive popular prose. His mission is to propagandize the public to accept the idea of a more and more scientific society, with the state (or quasi-state institutions like the N.I.C.E.) having more and more power in traditional realms such as law, child-rearing, economics, and education. His job is to convince the public that increasing central control over such things, far from being a threat to human freedom, will increase human freedom and happiness by providing more wealth, more health, greater longevity, more technical gadgets to make life more comfortable, etc. This talent of his for propaganda is used by the Institute, and gradually he is asked to write things that are more and more dishonest, knowingly concealing from the public the true extent of the power over individual lives that the N.I.C.E. seeks. Mark is praised by the inner circle of the N.I.C.E. for his artfulness in the expression of deceptive half-truths, and through the pride generated by this praise, Mark is corrupted.
Why He Was Picked by N.I.C.E
Mark was in fact picked out by the N.I.C.E. very early on — they had even influenced his earlier hiring at Bracton College — precisely because he was felt to be a gifted writer whose morality was somewhat malleable. But this must not be misunderstood. Mark was not dishonest about matters of money or sexual fidelity. He thought of himself as, and in many ways was, a conventionally moral person. But he was young, academically vain, eager to please people, and eager to be thought well of, and the inner circle of the N.I.C.E. was looking for just such a person. A person incorruptible by crude means may be quite corruptible by more insidious ones — those which play upon pride and ambition.
Within Mark’s discipline of sociology, one of the ways to “move up” in the esteem of one’s colleagues is to show how one can “see through” all the institutions of society, how they serve the selfish purposes of certain groups or classes, rather than the good of the whole. Thus, Mark has contempt for the class of rentiers, the small investors, whom he calls a “bad element”;4 he has learned from his sociology to think of them as a selfish class, which ought to be swept away by a scientific reorganization of society. He is (in line with much 20th-century sociological and political science opinion) less harsh toward the peasant and the working classes, but he soon learns that the N.I.C.E. regards them, too, as a retrograde influence that stands in the way of progress, and that they, too, must be eliminated or re-educated.5 He is thus to lend his pen to the propaganda which will eventually subject these people to plans of the N.I.C.E. for a new, scientific, planned England.
Abstraction Over Experience
Mark’s sociological habit of “seeing through” classes and their weaknesses clashes with a certain instinctive knowledge which he possesses (though in much smaller quantity than does his wife Jane, or any well-balanced, decent Englishman). When he visits a village full of bourgeois and working-class people, he finds that they are in many ways likeable; his lived experience does not fit in with his political/sociological “deconstruction” which “proves” these people to be a dead weight upon society. But over his weeks at the Institute, he slowly learns to suppress all such instinctive and empirical knowledge in favour of the abstract conceptions (class, etc.) which he is so clever in expounding. He must be against what the Institute is against, and for what it is for, if he hopes to rise high in its ranks and be influential in it.
Mark has other personality traits which are of use to the N.I.C.E. For example, he is “not as a rule very sensitive to beauty.” This is important, as the N.I.C.E. will be doing many things that are not beautiful, from cutting up living animals (Mark has no objections to vivisection6), through tearing down the ancient Bragdon Wood at Bracton College, to destroying the quaint village of Cure Hardy in order to reroute a river for the N.I.C.E.’s purposes. A N.I.C.E. colleague of Mark’s, Cosser, thinks that the cawing of the rooks at Cure Hardy, on the fine sunny day that they visit the village, is a “bloody awful noise.”7 The N.I.C.E. has no love of nature as such, it wants to master nature, beat it into submission for its own ends. Therefore, preserving the beauty of nature — or of social institutions — is of no concern to it.
Political and Social Control
But it is not merely the political program of the N.I.C.E. which requires Mark to stamp out of his soul any fleeting concerns he has for beauty. The N.I.C.E., which is secretly run by evil eldila, who are in fact demonic beings, aims at more than political and social control of England; indeed, political and social power is only a subsidiary end. It ultimately desires the conversion of the souls of the elite personnel of the N.I.C.E. to demonic ends. As Mark is brought into the inner circle, he is eventually invited into the deepest secrets of the organization, and the initiation will require him to perform a series of actions involving the embrace of filth and ugliness and the rejection of wholesomeness and beauty. He is of course prepared for this more than most people by his education, which has been “Modern”; whereas a Classically educated person would be moved by beauty and unwilling to damage it, someone educated in the modern sentiment that all positive reactions to beauty are mere statements of private emotion having no truth-content, would be much more willing to desecrate the beautiful in order to work his way into the centre of an organization. Thus, the extended discussion of the beautiful and the sublime with which The Abolition of Man opens is central to Mark’s temptation. It is precisely because he has a modern education, of the sort pushed in The Green Book, that he has a contempt for beauty, and therefore might be induced to repudiate it. And of course, as the demons know, the love of the beautiful and the love of virtue are connected; to weaken the sense of the beautiful is to weaken the sense of the good overall, and hence to weaken virtue. And to become a full initiate of the N.I.C.E., Mark must transcend virtue altogether.
A “Modern” Education
Thus, in Mark, Lewis paints for us a portrait of the “modern” educated man as set forth in The Green Book — largely insensitive to beauty, and tending to “see through” all alleged virtues (whether of individuals or social classes or societies) and dismiss them as emotional rubbish which must be swept away in the name of rationality and progress. In the light of That Hideous Strength, we can see that the authors of The Green Book are offering a recipe for producing more Mark Studdocks, and not just in the Sociology departments but in the English and other humanities departments, and in fact in all walks of life, since all, or certainly many, will pass through senior English in the schools. Their principles would generate a group of young intellectuals who mock virtue and beauty and cannot exemplify them. Such people will become willing disciples of social and political and ethical teachings that are, if not the product of literal demons as in That Hideous Strength, surely demonic in effect.
Studdock’s Values
Of course, we must not suppose that Mark, despite his lack of understanding of beauty and virtue, is himself a vicious man or a man without some set of values.8 Mark has a set of values. He believes in equality, for example, and is surprised when Professors Filostrato and Straik speak against it in the name of the supremacy of a single superman.9 Like all good democrats and socialists of the modern world, he also believes in the use of science to increase the wealth and happiness of the masses,10 and in the goal of universal education.11 Finally, Mark believes above all in the survival of the human race.12 But in believing these things Mark is, as Lewis says of Gaius and Titius, better than his principles.13 For Mark has no justification for his beliefs in progress, universal education, universal prosperity, equality, democracy, or even racial survival.14 The sentiments underlying these beliefs are just as emotional and ungrounded as the sentiments for beauty and for kindness to animals which Mark rejects. He is an inconsistent modern man; a modern man who “sees through” certain older conceptions of beauty and truth and social good, but who does not “see through” his own views. We are thus reminded of what Lewis said in The Abolition of Man: “Gaius and Titius… hold… with complete uncritical dogmatism, the whole system of values which happened to be in vogue among moderately educated young men of the professional classes during the period between the two wars.” It is only Mark’s exposure to the inner circle of N.I.C.E. — first Feverstone, then Filostrato and Straik, and finally Frost — that eventually teaches him that even his wised-up, liberal, progressive values have no more truth than the dusty old Classical and Christian values which he has rejected.
The Completion of Modern Thought
It is in the conversations between Mark and Frost that Mark gains final clarity about the status of his own cynical debunking of tradition, and where it leads. For in Frost we see the radical completion of modern thought, as set forth by Lewis in The Abolition of Man. At the end of chapter 2 of that work, Lewis had established that the half-hearted rejection of standards of value — the rejection of parts of the Tao, while retaining such parts of it as was necessary to sustain liberalism, progress, democracy, and so on — was logically inconsistent and could not stand. But in the same passage, he granted that a full rejection of the concept of objective value — the abandonment of any attempt to seek out, and adhere to, the good, the true, and the beautiful — could be a consistent position.15 In That Hideous Strength, while the adoption of that position is characteristic of most of the inner circle of the N.I.C.E., its fullest incarnation is found in the character of Frost.
Frost is wonderfully characterized in the book. His very name suggests an icy aloofness from others, and indeed, he exemplifies that throughout the story. His appearance — pointed beard and pince-nez — evokes the stereotype of the cool, clinical psychoanalyst who regards his patients with supreme objectivity. His conversation with all members of the N.I.C.E., even his superior Wither, is laconic, precise, and without wasted words, always driving to the point without concern for diplomacy or the esteem of others. When he converses with Mark in the prisoner’s cell, where Mark is being held under threat of execution, he reveals the deepest secrets of the N.I.C.E. — the organization to which he has given his soul and into which he wants Mark to be fully initiated — and there is not a hint of emotion: “Frost remained, throughout the whole conversation, standing perfectly still with his arms hanging down straight at his sides. But for the periodic upward tilt of his head and flash of his teeth at the end of a sentence, he used no gestures.”16 In comparison with Frost, Mr. Spock from Star Trek is an ocean of seething emotions.
Mere Chemical Phenomena
Frost believes in “objectivity.” For him, objectivity starts with the recognition that resentment and fear — and love and all other emotional responses — are merely chemical phenomena. A rational person does not let himself be ruled by chemical phenomena. He rises above them, not by suppressing them by an act of will, but by realizing their non-objective character. Once their purely subjective nature is fully grasped, they no longer have power over one; one is liberated. This means of course, that to be truly free, one must leave behind not only all the negative emotions — hatred and jealousy and fear — but all the positive emotions as well, and the whole world that goes with them: the world of virtue and beauty and morality. One must rise to a plane that is beyond good and evil as human beings normally understand those terms. Mark’s final initiation involves the acquisition — through a rigorous training program designed to destroy all emotional attachment — of this form of objectivity. If he passes his initiation, he will be, like Frost, free of all traditional human motivations. Mark is thus invited to examine the vision of existence painted by Lewis in the last part of The Abolition of Man. His choice whether or not to continue with his initiation will depend on how he assesses that vision.
Disillusioned by the N.I.C.E.
It would be misleading to overlook the fact that Mark’s final decision is influenced by things other than the intrinsic merits of Frost’s philosophy. Mark has, by the time that Frost first offers him initiation, become disillusioned in many ways regarding the N.I.C.E. He has learned that Feverstone brought him into the Institute not out of old college friendship but because his propaganda skills would be useful. He has learned that the N.I.C.E. has murdered his colleague Hingest, and planted his wallet near Hingest’s body so as to make him look guilty of the murder. He has learned that Miss Hardcastle, head of the N.I.C.E. police, burned his wife Jane with cigarettes in an interrogation. He has been manipulated emotionally all along by Wither, the Deputy Director. He has come to see that, even as he was apparently being brought more and more into the inner circle of the organization, he was more and more being used and enslaved by it. And he now knows that the Institution wants to gain possession of Jane, for dark reasons that he cannot imagine (he is not aware that they want her for her gift of clairvoyance), and he is not yet so far gone in evil that he wishes to offer up his wife as a sacrifice to such people. So he is already well on his guard by the time Frost comes to him with an offer of salvation both physical — release from jail and from the death sentence for the alleged murder of Hingest — and spiritual — admission into the innermost ring of N.I.C.E., the small group that communicates directly with the bent eldila, the demons who are running the whole operation behind the scenes.
Nonetheless, Mark does, in the course of his conversations with Frost, and in the course of the initiatory acts which he performs (in order to fool Frost into thinking that wishes to complete the process), reason critically about the theoretical basis of Frost’s position. He probes the arguments of Frost with a clarity that exceeds the blurry fuzziness he practiced as a sociologist, and he probes the philosophical position that he himself has held for years and which has led him to where he now is. Thus, while the manipulations and humiliations he has suffered, and the repulsiveness of the personnel of N.I.C.E., are major factors in his final decision, the decision is clinched by argument — an argument which in fact is identical with the argument of the closing chapter of The Abolition of Man.
All “Head” and No “Chest”
Frost has told Mark shocking things. He has said that war is not, as Mark supposed, wasteful and evil, but in fact a necessary cleansing mechanism to reduce surplus human population, especially the inferior members of the human population — which is why the Macrobes (the evil eldila) have planned sixteen major wars for the 20th century.17 Frost has even denied that the survival of Man as such is important. If Man should pass out of existence, having evolved into something purely mental — all “head” and no “chest,” and hence quite beyond what we now call human — that is good, because that is what the evolutionary process ordains.18 In this context, Frost even refers approvingly to Waddington,19 a real-life biologist who had written a book about evolutionary ethics — a book whose doctrines Lewis criticized in The Abolition of Man.20 Frost’s assertions here are shocking precisely because he has passed beyond the half-hearted moral skepticism advocated by The Green Book and achieved the radical amorality of the Conditioners discussed by Lewis in The Abolition of Man.
At this point in the dialogue, Mark becomes almost the spokesman for Lewis’s own position; he starts to ask questions which strike at the heart of Frost’s position. He grants (feigning agreement with Frost) that all traditional ideas of patriotism and humanity are mere product of the animal organism, and irrational; but, he asks, if traditional emotional motives are to be entirely abandoned, what will replace them as the spring of action?21 Frost’s recapitulation and clarification is revealing:
Motives are not the causes of action but its by-products. You are merely wasting your time by considering them. When you have obtained real objectivity you will recognize, not some motives, but all motives as merely animal, subjective epiphenomena. You will then have no motives and you will find that you do not need them. Their place will be supplied by something else which you will presently understand better than you do now. So far from being impoverished, your action will become much more efficient.22
What Guides the True Initiate?
What does Frost mean by “something else”? It would appear, from the descriptions throughout the book of the behaviour of the full initiates Frost and Wither, that he means the direct communication of the will of the Macrobes, the evil eldila. The will of the eldila, made known through direct verbal communication or through non-verbal promptings, guides the true initiate. Freed of the influence of the organic body, the initiate is moved by pure spirit. Mark has as yet no understanding of this kind of motivation, nor will he, until he has killed all the lower motivations and become a full initiate. But such motivation has problems of its own which Frost does not mention.
Late in the story, after uttering a cold threat to Merlin (whom Frost at that point takes to be a Basque priest), Frost does something very strange: “Suddenly, not as if he wished to, but as if he were a machine that had been worked, Frost kicked him.”23 This action is uncharacteristic of Frost, who, true to his name, is usually “cool” and does not lose his temper. Has Frost, in his impatience with the supposed priest, “fallen off the wagon” and descended into the realm of the emotional? It appears not. Frost acts as if he had been “worked.” His body acts as a tool in the hands of another. But what other? Presumably, the Macrobes to whom Frost has given his soul. It is the malice of the Macrobes which, through the body of Frost, kicks Merlin. Frost neither intended nor personally executed the action.
More light is shed on this event by a later scene:
For many years he had theoretically believed that all which appears in the mind as motive or intention is merely a by-product of what the body is doing. But for the last year or so — since he had been initiated — he had begun to taste as fact what he had long held as theory. Increasingly, his actions had been without motive. He did this and that, he said thus and thus, and did not know why. His mind was a mere spectator… Still not asking what he would do or why, Frost went to the garage… He came up with as many petrol tins as he could carry. He piled all the inflammables he could think of together in the Objective Room. Then he locked himself in… Like the clockwork figure he had chosen to be, his stiff body, now terribly cold… poured out the petrol and threw a lighted match into the pile.24
Not Ultimately Motiveless
Frost ends his life in suicide, and it is a suicide directed by neither his mind nor his will. It is motiveless, as far as he is concerned, yet not ultimately motiveless, for it is imposed upon him from the outside, by the evil eldila whom he had faithfully served. 25
This incident can perhaps best be understood if it is translated out of the demon-filled world of That Hideous Strength into the demon-free analysis of The Abolition of Man. Lewis tells us that the Conditioners who are beyond the Tao, beyond good and evil, and hence beyond all normal human motivation will still be driven by something, i.e., by the strongest chance impulse that happens to impinge upon their wills. Just as the initiates in That Hideous Strength experience urges to destructive and self-destructive behaviour springing from the malignant and ultimately irrational will of the eldila, so the Conditioners in The Abolition of Man will do whatever they do (to the human beings they rule) out of the disorderly impulses which come to them from blind Nature. If modern society ever reaches the stage of a world ruled by scientific Conditioners, humanity will be as enslaved by irrational caprice as it would be if it were ruled by literal demons.
Thus, in the question about the grounds of action posed by Mark Studdock to Frost, and in Frost’s answer (as interpreted in the light of Frost’s slavelike and finally suicidal actions), we see the ultimate refutation of Frost’s view of “objectivity” and its corollary of motiveless action. Motiveless action, if it could exist, would not be free action, but capricious action. And it would proceed not from human choice but from the random impulses of nature. Far from advocating a higher stage of rational existence than the human, Frost is advocating something lower than the human, a kind of radical un-freedom, a slavery to impulses over which human beings finally have no control, because they have given up the rationality by which they could exercise such control.
Complete Theoretical Awareness
There is a moment in the story at which Mark’s theoretical awareness becomes complete. Immediately after the statement by Frost to Mark about the superiority of motiveless action, Mark’s thoughts are relayed to us by the narrator:
The philosophy which Frost was expounding was by no means unfamiliar to him. He recognized it at once as the logical conclusion of thought which he had always hitherto accepted and which at this moment he found himself irrevocably rejecting. The knowledge that his own assumptions led to Frost’s position, combined with what he saw in Frost’s face and what he had experienced in this very cell, effected a complete conversion. All the philosophers and evangelists in the world might not have done the job so neatly.26
It is “the knowledge that his own assumptions led to Frost’s position” that drives the truth home for Mark. He sees that the intellectual habits of his whole life — of mocking traditional values, of belittling traditional institutions, of ignoring beauty, of regarding nature as purely stuff to be used or an enemy to be conquered, of preferring glib abstractions to the concrete reality of living people, of thinking that a reductionist “science” is the source of all truth and more important than humanity itself — must lead to the insane doctrine of amoral, motiveless action which produces ex-human monstrosities like Frost and Wither, and institutional monstrosities like the N.I.C.E.
As a sociologist, Mark was an educator in the spirit of Gaius and Titius, the authors of The Green Book. In his final repudiation of the teaching of Frost, Mark in effect repudiates the position of Gaius and Titius. In that sense, That Hideous Strength depicts a sort of wish-fulfillment on the part of Lewis: a Studdockian conversion of the Gaiuses and Titiuses of the world might be effected if such educators would read The Abolition of Man and repent of their destructive teaching about noble sentiments and judgments of value.
Tomorrow, “Concluding Thoughts on That Hideous Strength.”
Notes