This is the second post in a series constituting a commentary on C.S. Lewis's The Abolition Of Man. I would very much like to encourage my readers to obtain their own copy, but for those who are still In Doubt, I will be briefly summarizing the relevant parts here.
I also believe I owe an apology to those readers (both of them!) who were anticipating this post in anything remotely resembling a reasonable time-frame. I make no excuses for my sloth, but only beg your forgiveness.
Men Without Chests, part the first
Lewis opens his book with a critique of a particular English textbook intended for the upper forms of schools (ages 16-17, I believe). In order to protect the innocent, for he assumes that the authors of the book intended good rather than harm, he terms this the Green Book. It is not my place here to name the book, but a little Internet searching, I have found, will uncover its identity without difficulty.
The authors of the Green Book, whom Lewis dubs Gaius and Titius, first cite the "well-known story of Coleridge at the waterfall". This is a little more difficult to place, especially as in these latter days it is not exactly well-known. According to the Coleridge Bulletin [1], the story was often told and embellished by Coleridge at various lectures, but is best recounted in a passage from the journal of Dorothy Wordsworth (the sister of Wordsworth the poet):
We sat upon a bench, placed for the sake of one of these views, whence we looked down upon the waterfall, and over the open country, and saw a ruined tower, called Wallace’s Tower, which stands at a very little distance from the fall, and is an interesting object. A lady and gentleman, more expeditious tourists than ourselves, came to the spot; they left us at the seat, and we found them again at another station above the Falls. Coleridge, who is always good-natured enough to enter into conversation with anybody whom he meets in his way, began to talk with the gentleman, who observed that it was a majestic waterfall. Coleridge was delighted with the accuracy of the epithet, particularly as he had been settling in his own mind the precise meaning of the words grand, majestic, sublime, etc., and had discussed the subject with William at some length the day before. ‘Yes, sir,’ says Coleridge, ‘it is a majestic waterfall.’ ‘Sublime and beautiful,’ replied his friend. Poor Coleridge could make no answer, and, not very desirous to continue the conversation, came to us and related the story, laughing heartily.
The distinction between sublimity and beauty is not always straightforward, nor are the two categories mutually exclusive. To the modern reader who struggles with this difficulty, I would recommend Kant's Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and the Sublime, with the additional comment that it is eminently, eminently more readable and comprehensible (if less sophisticated) than his more famous Critiques. In that book, Kant describes a category of feelings or objects (but more on this later) as the splendid sublime, referring to objects which are not only sublime but beautiful as well. It seems to me that it would be valid to place a great waterfall in this category, and thus that, if we follow from Dorothy's journal and Kant's definition, Coleridge's friend was not, in fact, in error.
As such, it would seem that Coleridge, in his original story, may have understood the word "sublime" somewhat differently from Kant, despite drawing significant intellectual inspiration from his philosophy. The version of the story told by Coleridge makes the matter a little clearer:
As such, it would seem that Coleridge, in his original story, may have understood the word "sublime" somewhat differently from Kant, despite drawing significant intellectual inspiration from his philosophy. The version of the story told by Coleridge makes the matter a little clearer:
Coleridge was to get a good deal of mileage out of that story in later years, recycling it, with improvements, in a number of lectures, and in the ‘Essays on the Principles of Genial Criticism’, where it is the lady who speaks, and she is guilty of saying “Yes! and it is not only sublime, but beautiful and absolutely pretty’ (SWF, i.362).
From even a cursory reading of Kant, it should come as no surprise to us that Coleridge would privilege sublimity above beauty, and the lady would do the opposite. Gaius and Titius (or perhaps Lewis; it is not quite obvious whom) further simplify Coleridge's version by simply having the man declare the waterfall "sublime" and the woman call it "pretty", without qualification.
The Green Book proceeds to declare that all value judgments, such as those made by the three persons in the Coleridge story, are ultimately statements about one's emotions, and nothing more. Whilst several commentators have identified this as a statement of the philosophical position known as logical positivism, it is probably more correct to say that it is a statement of emotivism. Whilst emotivism and logical positivism are close bedfellows on account of historical confluence, they are not exactly the same thing. Logical positivism asserts that any statement which is not verifiable by pure logic and empirical observation has no meaning whatsoever; value judgments and ethical dictates would thus be deemed meaningless. By contrast, emotivism claims that statements about values and ethics are really statements about one's feelings. Clearly, Gaius and Titius espouse the latter view.
(As an aside, it seems to me that, by imputing some meaning, rather than no meaning, to statements of value judgment, emotivism represents an attempt to 'season' logical positivism into something more palatable to the everyman's taste, which would ordinarily be repelled, rightly or wrongly, by the assertion that one's value judgments mean precisely zilch.)
Lewis begins his critique of Gaius and Titius by observing that they have confused the feelings with the object of those feelings. In particular, he states that, even if one accepts the doctrine of emotivism, the statement This is sublime translates to I have humble feelings rather than I have sublime feelings. This is not necessarily incorrect, but it is nevertheless problematic. The criticism is not, as Lewis assumes, the pons asinorum of his subject. Rather, it is a criticism of the language which Gaius and Titius use. The reason should become clear if we merely apply the same criticism to their representation of the lady's statement. What feeling corresponds to the statement This is pretty? Delight? But delight can come from many sources other than beauty or mere prettiness. Since there is no proper description of the feeling inspired by prettiness, other than prettiness itself, it would be much clearer to represent the statement as My feeling is that this is pretty. Thus is the problem revealed to be a linguistic rather than philosophical one.
Now this would not be an issue, except that Lewis in a later passage criticises Gaius and Titius for feeding the schoolboy philosophy when they should be concerned with English, and here he is offering his reader an argument about language when philosophy ought to be the main concern. To his credit, however, he does not dwell on this distraction for long.
The more endemic issue with the Green Book, as Lewis proceeds to point out, is that the authors' strong bias towards emotivism has leaked out into their textbook, and thence into the minds of their young readers. He is quick to qualify this by making the assumption that this is not a deliberate move on the part of the authors, and commenting that they do not outright state that position, or claim the universality thereof.
Of course, the fact that they do not outright state that position is problematic in and of itself. It camouflages the position, whether deliberately or not, such that a young reader could unconsciously nod his head, could accept it as Received Truth and universalize it without the authors' explicit action.
And this is true not only of books, but of all parts of the educational enterprise. It is especially true of video and computer games, whether educational or otherwise, because so many games embody philosophical positions without outright stating them or claiming their universality. To consider two textbook examples: Monopoly embodies a particular outlook on economics, one which claims that capitalistic competition must inevitably end in the absorption of the weaker into the stronger. SimCity embodies a particular outlook on urban planning, one which assumes implicitly that transportation by means of private automobiles is the most important factor in the success of a city, that austerity measures are ultimately self-defeating, and that environmental factors can be "fudged" by outsourcing them to Foreign Parts where people aren't afraid to get their hands dirty.
One lesson we can learn here is that the surface bent of a game or text is seldom the most significant thing, and can indeed camouflage or lead the eye away from that thing. The Green Book's bland assertions about Coleridge and his interlocutors are unlikely to influence the reader's opinions on waterfalls or Coleridge, unless the reader is extraordinarily simple even by the standards of Upper Form schoolchildren. Likewise, violent shooting games do not necessarily influence one towards real-world violence, but they do plant in the player's mind the idea that he (it's usually a "he") is able, on his own, to decisively influence the outcome of any situation - as long as he is "strong enough", "skilled enough". Massively multiplayer role-playing games don't necessarily encourage the player, in real life, to ambush and kill people of an opposing ideology when they're out for a walk, but they do sell the contrasting ideas that with enough invested time you can rise to any level of achievement, irrespective of your starting point, and that one can only go so high before there is nothing more to be achieved, full stop. Whether these are desirable ends or not is out of the scope of this article, but it seems to be that they merit some thought.
[1] http://www.friendsofcoleridge.com/MembersOnly/PerryColsScotland.htm
The Green Book proceeds to declare that all value judgments, such as those made by the three persons in the Coleridge story, are ultimately statements about one's emotions, and nothing more. Whilst several commentators have identified this as a statement of the philosophical position known as logical positivism, it is probably more correct to say that it is a statement of emotivism. Whilst emotivism and logical positivism are close bedfellows on account of historical confluence, they are not exactly the same thing. Logical positivism asserts that any statement which is not verifiable by pure logic and empirical observation has no meaning whatsoever; value judgments and ethical dictates would thus be deemed meaningless. By contrast, emotivism claims that statements about values and ethics are really statements about one's feelings. Clearly, Gaius and Titius espouse the latter view.
(As an aside, it seems to me that, by imputing some meaning, rather than no meaning, to statements of value judgment, emotivism represents an attempt to 'season' logical positivism into something more palatable to the everyman's taste, which would ordinarily be repelled, rightly or wrongly, by the assertion that one's value judgments mean precisely zilch.)
Lewis begins his critique of Gaius and Titius by observing that they have confused the feelings with the object of those feelings. In particular, he states that, even if one accepts the doctrine of emotivism, the statement This is sublime translates to I have humble feelings rather than I have sublime feelings. This is not necessarily incorrect, but it is nevertheless problematic. The criticism is not, as Lewis assumes, the pons asinorum of his subject. Rather, it is a criticism of the language which Gaius and Titius use. The reason should become clear if we merely apply the same criticism to their representation of the lady's statement. What feeling corresponds to the statement This is pretty? Delight? But delight can come from many sources other than beauty or mere prettiness. Since there is no proper description of the feeling inspired by prettiness, other than prettiness itself, it would be much clearer to represent the statement as My feeling is that this is pretty. Thus is the problem revealed to be a linguistic rather than philosophical one.
Now this would not be an issue, except that Lewis in a later passage criticises Gaius and Titius for feeding the schoolboy philosophy when they should be concerned with English, and here he is offering his reader an argument about language when philosophy ought to be the main concern. To his credit, however, he does not dwell on this distraction for long.
The more endemic issue with the Green Book, as Lewis proceeds to point out, is that the authors' strong bias towards emotivism has leaked out into their textbook, and thence into the minds of their young readers. He is quick to qualify this by making the assumption that this is not a deliberate move on the part of the authors, and commenting that they do not outright state that position, or claim the universality thereof.
Of course, the fact that they do not outright state that position is problematic in and of itself. It camouflages the position, whether deliberately or not, such that a young reader could unconsciously nod his head, could accept it as Received Truth and universalize it without the authors' explicit action.
And this is true not only of books, but of all parts of the educational enterprise. It is especially true of video and computer games, whether educational or otherwise, because so many games embody philosophical positions without outright stating them or claiming their universality. To consider two textbook examples: Monopoly embodies a particular outlook on economics, one which claims that capitalistic competition must inevitably end in the absorption of the weaker into the stronger. SimCity embodies a particular outlook on urban planning, one which assumes implicitly that transportation by means of private automobiles is the most important factor in the success of a city, that austerity measures are ultimately self-defeating, and that environmental factors can be "fudged" by outsourcing them to Foreign Parts where people aren't afraid to get their hands dirty.
One lesson we can learn here is that the surface bent of a game or text is seldom the most significant thing, and can indeed camouflage or lead the eye away from that thing. The Green Book's bland assertions about Coleridge and his interlocutors are unlikely to influence the reader's opinions on waterfalls or Coleridge, unless the reader is extraordinarily simple even by the standards of Upper Form schoolchildren. Likewise, violent shooting games do not necessarily influence one towards real-world violence, but they do plant in the player's mind the idea that he (it's usually a "he") is able, on his own, to decisively influence the outcome of any situation - as long as he is "strong enough", "skilled enough". Massively multiplayer role-playing games don't necessarily encourage the player, in real life, to ambush and kill people of an opposing ideology when they're out for a walk, but they do sell the contrasting ideas that with enough invested time you can rise to any level of achievement, irrespective of your starting point, and that one can only go so high before there is nothing more to be achieved, full stop. Whether these are desirable ends or not is out of the scope of this article, but it seems to be that they merit some thought.
[1] http://www.friendsofcoleridge.com/MembersOnly/PerryColsScotland.htm
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