Finish up on Lewis Bio notes (Journal 1)
Journal 2: Just to prepare our minds, engage in a wee experiment with me. Think of something in your life that is incredible and wonderful to you. Write a paragraph to describe that person, thing, concept, etc... We'll use that as a jumping point for the main concept in
The Abolition of Man.
Begin working on
The Abolition of Man
*Keep a dictionary or phone handy...lots of big words.
*This website is key in getting allusions and context:
http://lewisiana.nl/abolquotes/
*Tonight, let's read half the chapter...stop at the paragraph that begins "Until quite modern times..." (We will save all the bit about the Tao for tomorrow night.
Journal 3: Begin reading Chapter/Book One and answer the questions below:
(1) Why, in Lewis’ view, can’t Gaius’ and Titius’ dissection of the value judgement “this is
sublime” be applied to all judgements of value?
(2) Lewis contrasts Gaius and Titius’ example of the badly worded cruise advertisement with the
writings of Johnson and Wordsworth. What is the contrast designed to highlight?
(3) “The schoolboy 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.” Do you think
Lewis is right to be so wary of the effects a passage like this will have on the students?
(4) “Gaius and Titius… see the world around them swayed by emotional propaganda… my own
experience as a teacher tells an opposite tale. For every one pupil who needs to be guarded
from a weak excess of sensibility there are three who need to be awakened from the slumber
of cold vulgarity.” Do you agree with Lewis that most pupils are far more likely to suffer
from a deficiency of just sentiment than an over-abundance of false sentiment?
(5) “A good education should build some sentiments while destroying others.” Do you agree? If
so, which sentiments need to be encouraged, and which discouraged?
(6) “Aristotle says that the aim of education is to make the pupil like and dislike what he ought.”
Would you agree with Aristotle?
(7) Do you think Lewis is right to posit a radical shift in the “educational predicament” of past
and present educators?
(8) “I myself do not enjoy the society of small children: because I speak from within the Tao I
recognize this as a defect in myself – just as a man may have to recognize that he is tone deaf
or colour blind.” Do you agree that the Tao commands certain emotional responses of us?
Could it be a defect not to like some things if the Tao prescribes us to?
(9) “No justification of virtue will enable a man to be virtuous.” How then should virtue be
taught?
(10) “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.”
Would you agree with Lewis’ description of manhood (or personhood) here?
(11) Do you think there are any ‘Men without Chests’ around today? Can you draw on any
examples?
