Ask Lemmy

CS Lewis, 'The Abolition of Man'.

Well maybe not for kids themselves to read but, since its all bout teaching kids, a required read for all of us the ‘adults’. For anyone one wanting to 'have' children, for any one pretending to teach them anything, for anyone pretending to vote laws concerning the education of those children. Well, for all of us adults. Allow me to explain.

It's a short book (a collection of a few conferences he gave to British bomber pilots, sometime in 1943) in which he reflects on the consequences of all the reforms and wishful thinking that was already going on in the educative system of back then, and how the moral relativism that was being promoted (one should read the book to understand how he defines it) was threatening to destroy... our humanity, our ability to feel and to stand for some ideas, as well as our… individuality/ies. One should keep in mind Lewis was talking ‘the danger of moral relativism’ to young men (fresh out of school, barely older than kids) that were about to go die en masse while bombing (and killing en masse) Nazi Germany.

Lewis reflects on how this moral relativism is turning kids (and therefore all of us) into mere sheep in the hands of a few powerful people that will know how to manipulate those ‘relativist’ values in their own exclusive interest, not in the kid's best interest, and that includes convincing those kids to do the most stupid and (self-)destructive shit. Any semblance with our days and age may not be a coincidence.

This book could and should still be read today as an almost perfect description of how our respective educative systems, at least here in the West, are failing everywhere at teaching kids anything of value. Not just any useful practical knowledge but more importantly any… compass, any firm ground. Lewis talks of this system creating ‘men without chess’ (once gain he says that to young people that are about to go kill and die in a war).

He says that not only that they are failing at teaching kids but he reflects (rightfully so, imho) that it may even become their very purpose to fail at teaching kids anything (and making sure they can't learn much anywhere else, I would add).

CS Lewis is probably most well know for being the author of the ‘Chronicles of Narnia’. More than a movie adaptation it’s a series of books that is also worth reading, this time by kids too ;)

Also, knowing a lot of people around here are hostile to that, I prefer mention Lewis was a Christian thinker. But, by any mean, don’t let that stop you from opening his book.

As an atheist myself, I think it is one book that we should all read closely and then (calmly) discuss it. Like I said, maybe kids themselves should not be reading it (don’t think many of them would get much out of it but some undoubtedly would and, with any luck, they would trigger the alarm and help other kids around them realize how badly they’re being screwed in the name of wishful thinking), but definitely all parents should read it and, in a perfect world, all teachers too and all our representatives. The ones that are responsible for this mess. The ones that are asking for always more reforms in our educative systems, the ones that are voting them and, doing so, the ones that are destroying any hope to raise children decently, and failing to give them any chance to stand on/for something. While allowing a few powerful people use that failure as an opportunity to treat those kids as mere sheep.

Not a bad book. By not a stupid man.