Tuesday, Sept. 5 ~ Abolition Complete?

Go over J4 and start J5.

Warm-up Discussion:
a) What do you think society wants you to become? What is society training you to be? (consider the controllers in our own society.)

b) How are we "buying" knowledge and power at the cost of life, or our identity as humans with souls?

HW: Journal 5

(19) “Each advance [of Man over Nature] leaves him weaker as well as stronger.” In what way might our control over nature weaken us? Should there be limits on such progress?

(20) How far can present generations be said to control future ones?

(21) What role does Lewis see the Conditioners playing?

(22) Why does Lewis think the old kind of men are more likely to be abolished under the present system of education than at any other time in previous history?

(23) “If you will not obey the Tao, or else commit suicide, obedience to impulse (and therefore in the long run, to mere ‘nature’) is the only course left open.” What would be the consequences of attempting to follow this course (i.e. acting simply on impulse)?

(24) “If the eugenics are efficient enough there will be no second revolt.” Do you find Lewis’ chilling vision of a conditioned society plausible?

(25) “Outside the Tao there is no ground for criticizing either the Tao or anything else.” How does Lewis justify this?

(26) Did Lewis’ arguments in The Abolition of Man persuade you of the benefits of living by the standards of the Tao and trying to cultivate its values in education?