Latest / The Grammar of Classical Education / Week 146: The Way: Can It Really All Be Relative? | The Abolition of Man #7

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Week 146: The Way: Can It Really All Be Relative? | The Abolition of Man #7 · The Grammar of Classical Education

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Grammar of Classical Education,
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: a podcast that examines the philosophical foundations of classical education,
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  SPEAKER_00: and then seeks to help classically minded educators bring those ideas to life
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  SPEAKER_00: in their classroom, co-op, or homeschool settings.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: I'm your host,
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  SPEAKER_00: Dr. Darlene Gomes, from Leading to Wonder, and I am so glad you've joined us today.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome back, or welcome if you're joining us for the first time.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: We are knee-deep, or maybe better put, waist-deep, into Chapter 2 of The Abolition of Man.
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  SPEAKER_00: We've been looking at C.S.
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  SPEAKER_00: Lewis' assessment of where man currently is in 1943 and where he's headed
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  SPEAKER_00: if he continues down this path.
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  SPEAKER_00: By way of quick summary,
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  SPEAKER_00: Lewis uses as his foundation a book he calls The Green Book by Gaius Antidius.
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  SPEAKER_00: It's a simple English textbook that Unsuspectingly presents an entire philosophy
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  SPEAKER_00: without using the big words and big ideas that you would assume
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  SPEAKER_00: a philosophy teaching book would use.
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  SPEAKER_00: Instead,
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  SPEAKER_00: they simply present their ideas as truth,
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  SPEAKER_00: specifically the fact that all truth is relative,
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  SPEAKER_00: that there is no objective moral values, that Do they come out and say that?
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  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely not.
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  SPEAKER_00: But they definitely demonstrate their view of relativism
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  SPEAKER_00: in their examples throughout the book as Lewis describes them.
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  SPEAKER_00: The first chapter,
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  SPEAKER_00: Men Without Chests,
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  SPEAKER_00: concludes with the idea that the head, logic,
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  SPEAKER_00: rules the belly the passions and desires Through the chest,
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  SPEAKER_00: the well-ordered affections or love that the students have had developed
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  SPEAKER_00: within them.
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  SPEAKER_00: As Lewis moved into Chapter 2,
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  SPEAKER_00: the second night of his lecture series, he begins to talk about the way.
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  SPEAKER_00: The fact that there must be an overarching objective moral compass found outside of man.
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  SPEAKER_00: Remember again, he is not talking to a group of Christians.
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  SPEAKER_00: He is talking to a gathering of highly educated men, and that guides Lewis's word choices.
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  SPEAKER_00: This objective moral value,
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  SPEAKER_00: which we as Christians would say is found in God and his word, Lewis calls the Tao.
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  SPEAKER_00: Now, he isn't promoting the Chinese religious views,
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  SPEAKER_00: but rather he is giving a name to the moral order that we recognize as humans.
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  SPEAKER_00: He also calls it the way.
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  SPEAKER_00: Now, the key feature of this is that it is found outside of man himself,
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  SPEAKER_00: that objective moral values are not subjective.
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  SPEAKER_00: They're not defined by each individual.
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  SPEAKER_00: In chapter 2,
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  SPEAKER_00: entitled The Way,
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  SPEAKER_00: Lewis makes five propositions about the way the way works and is demonstrated
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  SPEAKER_00: in life.
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  SPEAKER_00: Last week, we looked at the first two.
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  SPEAKER_00: His first proposition is that by saying their way of looking at moral value
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  SPEAKER_00: as being subjective is, in actuality, making their way of The objective truth.
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  SPEAKER_00: Remember though, the Tootsie Pop example.
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  SPEAKER_00: It looks like a regular lollipop until you really get to the center of their idea.
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  SPEAKER_00: And then it is not so sweet at all.
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  SPEAKER_00: The second proposition Lewis makes is the fact that there is
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  SPEAKER_00: a very strong connection between reason,
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  SPEAKER_00: logic, and values or objective moral values.
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  SPEAKER_00: We do not make our decisions based solely on logical reasoning
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  SPEAKER_00: because practical reason always involves a judgment of value.
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  SPEAKER_00: There was in fact an experimentum crucius,
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  SPEAKER_00: or critical,
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  SPEAKER_00: crucial experiment that demonstrates that our logic works together
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  SPEAKER_00: with our objective moral values.
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  SPEAKER_00: Lewis used the example of men being willing to die in battle.
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  SPEAKER_00: Is that completely logical?
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  SPEAKER_00: No.
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  SPEAKER_00: But why then do they do it?
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  SPEAKER_00: Well, because they are directed by what is an objective moral compass outside of themselves.
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  SPEAKER_00: The third proposition,
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  SPEAKER_00: which we mentioned last week,
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  SPEAKER_00: and the more I got into this last half of the chapter,
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  SPEAKER_00: the more I realized that Lewis makes one statement with this proposition
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  SPEAKER_00: that really shows his view of these Innovators,
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  SPEAKER_00: what he calls those who refuse to accept that there is an objective moral value
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  SPEAKER_00: at work outside of man.
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  SPEAKER_00: Since these innovators can't explain things like why men would be willing to die
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  SPEAKER_00: in battle or why they do anything that's good yet appears unreasonable,
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  SPEAKER_00: Lewis says of them, quote,
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  SPEAKER_00: practical principles known to all men by reason are simply the Tao,
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  SPEAKER_00: which he, the innovator, has set out to supersede
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  SPEAKER_00: The innovator is more likely to give up on the quest for a rational core and to hunt
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  SPEAKER_00: for some other grounds even more basic and realistic, end quote.
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  SPEAKER_00: In other words,
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  SPEAKER_00: these innovators say,
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  SPEAKER_00: fine, fine, reason doesn't always guide man's choices, so it must be
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  SPEAKER_00: instinct.
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  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's it.
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  SPEAKER_00: It's just plain instinct that guides man.
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  SPEAKER_00: You know, the instinct of man to preserve the species.
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  SPEAKER_00: It's not really about doing what's good or just.
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  SPEAKER_00: It's just about the preservation of the species guided completely by instinct
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  SPEAKER_00: and instinct alone.
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  SPEAKER_00: Ethics and moral choices guided by instinct to preserve the species.
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  SPEAKER_00: Which would mean then that even things like determining sexual morality becomes a fluid choice.
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  SPEAKER_00: It made me laugh when Lewis says,
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  SPEAKER_00: realistically,
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  SPEAKER_00: we say instinct when we really don't know how or why something happens.
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  SPEAKER_00: Like the migration of birds.
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  SPEAKER_00: Instinct becomes the intellectual version of, well...
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  SPEAKER_00: Because I said so.
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  SPEAKER_00: Lewis then goes on to define instinct as, quote,
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  SPEAKER_00: an unreflective or spontaneous impulse widely felt by the members of
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  SPEAKER_00: a given species, end quote.
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  SPEAKER_00: So if we follow instinct naturally,
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  SPEAKER_00: we Why do books like the Green Book even need to be written?
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  SPEAKER_00: We follow those ideas naturally, right?
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  SPEAKER_00: Well, it's not that we must obey instinct or that it will make us happy if we do so.
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  SPEAKER_00: Back to the dying in war example.
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  SPEAKER_00: Certainly that wouldn't make one happy.
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  SPEAKER_00: But innovators say, no, it's really that we should obey our instincts.
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  SPEAKER_00: To which Lewis promptly asks, why?
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  SPEAKER_00: Again, very similar to the why because I said so conversation.
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  SPEAKER_00: Lewis is wanting to clearly identify the fact that using instinct
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  SPEAKER_00: as our ultimate justification for every moral obligation will never be effective
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  SPEAKER_00: because the question will then get raised, well, what about conflicting impulses?
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  SPEAKER_00: How do we know which one to follow?
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  SPEAKER_00: And to that,
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  SPEAKER_00: the innovator might say, well,
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  SPEAKER_00: we follow the, quote, basic or fundamental or primal or deepest instinct, end quote.
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  SPEAKER_00: Oh, the basic, fundamental, primal, deepest instinct as determined by whom?
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  SPEAKER_00: Who sets this degree of
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  SPEAKER_00: Oh, it's the one which is spelt the deepest.
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  SPEAKER_00: And that is not really a set answer either.
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  SPEAKER_00: Do you see this problem?
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  SPEAKER_00: Lewis doesn't end there, though.
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  SPEAKER_00: He goes in for the kill.
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  SPEAKER_00: He goes back to the question that if anyone truly has an instinct to preserve
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  SPEAKER_00: the species,
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  SPEAKER_00: or if it's just an instinct to preserve self,
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  SPEAKER_00: or maybe immediate and extended family,
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  SPEAKER_00: because honestly,
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  SPEAKER_00: do most men or women Really think of the past or even the future that much.
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  SPEAKER_00: But he's not done.
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  SPEAKER_00: Lewis then begins to question if there really is any moral instinct
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  SPEAKER_00: that originates outside of the Tao itself,
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  SPEAKER_00: which, remember, is objective moral value or truth.
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  SPEAKER_00: Respecting the past, found in the Tao.
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  SPEAKER_00: Justice in acting in good faith, bounded in the Tao.
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  SPEAKER_00: Every element of how we deal properly with people and the world around us is taken
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  SPEAKER_00: from an objective moral value.
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  SPEAKER_00: Lewis points out that when the innovators reject some value judgments,
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  SPEAKER_00: they are actually rejecting all value judgments.
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  SPEAKER_00: He says, quote, if my duty to my parents is a superstition, then so is my duty to posterity.
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  SPEAKER_00: If justice is a superstition, then so is my duty to my country or to my race.
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  SPEAKER_00: If the pursuit of scientific knowledge is a real value, then so is conjugal fidelity.
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  SPEAKER_00: The rebellion of any new ideologies against the Tao is a rebellion of the branches
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  SPEAKER_00: against the tree.
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  SPEAKER_00: If the rebels should succeed, they would find they had destroyed themselves."
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  SPEAKER_00: So, as we get close to wrapping up this chapter on The Way,
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  SPEAKER_00: Lewis forces us to confront the question then,
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  SPEAKER_00: if there can ever be any changes in the Taos.
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  SPEAKER_00: He frames it in the sense of moral advancements or mere innovations.
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  SPEAKER_00: Moral advancements are done from within, from a true understanding of the Tao.
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  SPEAKER_00: Mere innovations are done from without,
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  SPEAKER_00: with neither an understanding or a desire to even know the Tao.
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  SPEAKER_00: If a person understands the value of objective moral truth,
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  SPEAKER_00: they can apply it in a variety of ways.
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  SPEAKER_00: When an innovator who doesn't see the value or importance of
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  SPEAKER_00: that objective moral truth tries to make changes,
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  SPEAKER_00: they do not make logical or moral sense.
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  SPEAKER_00: Jumping off of Lewis's example...
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  SPEAKER_00: It helped me to at least get a better picture in my head.
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  SPEAKER_00: Imagine someone comes up to you and says, oh, I hear you like fresh vegetables.
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  SPEAKER_00: You know, you should consider growing your own and then you would have really fresh vegetables.
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  SPEAKER_00: That is an example of a moral advancement.
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  SPEAKER_00: It's coming from someone who understands the value of veggies and is helping us
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  SPEAKER_00: to move our passions further along.
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  SPEAKER_00: Compare that with someone who comes up to us and says, Oh, I hear you like fresh vegetables.
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  SPEAKER_00: You know, I have some bricks and centipedes here.
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  SPEAKER_00: Would you like to feast on these instead?
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  SPEAKER_00: What?
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  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
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  SPEAKER_00: They lack a basic understanding of the value of fresh vegetables.
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  SPEAKER_00: And so we see their recommendations as completely off base.
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  SPEAKER_00: That is a mere moral innovation.
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  SPEAKER_00: Hence why Lewis calls them innovators, by the way.
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  SPEAKER_00: Lewis closes this second lecture with a statement about his foundation
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  SPEAKER_00: for objective moral value, his belief in the foundation of the Tao.
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  SPEAKER_00: He says, quote,
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  SPEAKER_00: "...in order to avoid misunderstanding,
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  SPEAKER_00: I may add that though I myself am a theist and indeed a Christian,
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  SPEAKER_00: I am not here attempting any indirect argument for theism." I am simply arguing that
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  SPEAKER_00: if we are to have values at all,
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  SPEAKER_00: we must accept the ultimate platitude of practical reason
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  SPEAKER_00: as having absolute validity.
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  SPEAKER_00: That any attempt,
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  SPEAKER_00: having become skeptical about these,
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  SPEAKER_00: to reintroduce values lower down on some supposedly more realistic basis.
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  SPEAKER_00: You see,
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  SPEAKER_00: the Tao,
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  SPEAKER_00: or Objective Moral Values, or God and His Word, must be treated as an absolute.
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  SPEAKER_00: While it may not be fully understood,
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  SPEAKER_00: it must be acknowledged and held in its proper place,
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  SPEAKER_00: realizing that there are indeed objective values established outside of man himself.
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  SPEAKER_00: Lewis finishes up by saying that rejecting these objective moral truths results
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  SPEAKER_00: in what will be the title of his final lecture and the last chapter of this book.
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  SPEAKER_00: The abolition of man.
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  SPEAKER_00: Now, as we close, I need to put a little caveat in here.
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  SPEAKER_00: I am scheduled for some major oral surgery this week.
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  SPEAKER_00: And in light of that fact,
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  SPEAKER_00: there is a pretty good chance that we will have a small best of break For
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_00: the grammar of classical education, probably lasting two or three weeks.
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  SPEAKER_00: Believe me,
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  SPEAKER_00: the timing of this wasn't really ideal,
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  SPEAKER_00: but I am quite confident that it is all in God's good timing,
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  SPEAKER_00: and I really appreciate your patience during this time.
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  SPEAKER_00: And in fact, when I return, we'll finish up the final chapter of The Abolition of Man.
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  SPEAKER_00: Which means you get a very sizable two or three weeks to start digging
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_00: into chapter three, listening to it, reading through it slowly yourself.
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  SPEAKER_00: Hopefully you will find that, like me, Lewis is getting a tiny bit easier to wrestle through.
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  SPEAKER_00: Remember...
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  SPEAKER_00: This is the rigor that builds and encourages our very soul.
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  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much for joining us today.
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  SPEAKER_00: I trust that whatever your teaching situation,
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_00: whether it's in a classroom or co-op or homeschooling,
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  SPEAKER_00: that you have found these ideas not only encouraging, but challenging as well.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_00: You can listen to all of the episodes of the Grammar of Classical Education
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_00: on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_00: I also have available a weekly teacher's newsletter that includes some teacher tips
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_00: and freebies.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_00: You can sign up for that at the Leading to Wonder newsletter found at darlenegomes.substack.com.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_00: To learn more about me and Leading to Wonder, please visit the website leading2wonder.com.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_00: No spaces.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_00: I encourage you to reach out if you have any questions or if you're interested in
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  SPEAKER_00: the virtual or in-person workshops that I offer for schools,
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_00: co-ops, homeschool educators, and parent groups.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_00: Again, my name is Darlene Gomes, and thank you for joining us.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_00: Until next week, remember, as E.B.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_00: White said, always be on the lookout for the presence of wonder.