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| Aaron Vance Class of 2017 |
Returning to The Abolition of Man this semester to
refresh the memory of my initial encounter with C.S. Lewis, I am up taken with
the concept of the man without a chest. As well, I am taken back to my original
thoughts of the book, which to me seemed to be nothing more than a manuscript
of the indoctrination of the Christian faith as it propagated the ideas of
natural law and the works of Thomas Aquinas. This book was nothing more than an extension of the absolute philosophy that to me plagued the
McConnell Center in every reading, and in every regard. A young progressive
student in his first year of college, I sought to disparage these works, and to
continue to service my desire for equality, my want to catalog, and to
understand the natural working of the world. To understand why I cast my ballot
in the primary was to be nothing more than an action of the chemicals of my
mind, the reason religion existed was only to be an absence of science, and
that the work of apologetic writers need not be studied. I was wrong.
There is something
inherent in human being that must be left to mystery that is nothing more than
the power of the absolute truths that dictate our being.
“The most beautiful thing
we can experience is the Mysterious — the knowledge of the existence of
something unfathomable to us, the manifestation of the most profound reason
coupled with the most brilliant beauty.”
Stumbling across this
quote from Albert Einstein over the summer in my work with University
orientation, I began to understand what absolutism really was to myself. I
began to understand what I never understood; it’s ok not to know. If the man
that could deliver us to the understanding of how the universe was held together
could still take pleasure in this, then I could to. The mysterious is governed
by absolutism, and what better authority could I return to understand the
workings the unknown world than Lewis.
I returned to Lewis to
become more versed in the workings of absolute values and their impact on our
world and man, and was compelled after rereading the Abolition of Man by his concept of the Men without Chests. The men without chests would be the men who
have sacrificed their passions for only logic and science. Many speak of this
instance such as Orwell, Huxley, and Bradbury, and the terrors of it, while
some condone it, such as Rand. After having engaged myself in Atlas Shrugged this semester in an
economics seminar, I am unnerved by the idea of logic, reason, and only the
mind of man being the only tool crucial enough to deliver man to happiness. Success
must be driven by passion, through calculated logic to quench the appetite of
the soul. Values are sign of a life well lived because belief signals passion,
and a full chest. I have come to find this not only in the metaphorical sense,
but to be truthful of our wellbeing. Success is motivating, desire is
consuming, but passion is fulfilling.
"We make men
without chests and expect from them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honor
and are shocked to find traitors in our midst."
– C.S. Lewis,
The Abolition of Man
Aaron Vance is a sophomore McConnell Scholar studying political science and anthropology. He is from Vine Grove, Ky.