A Man Without a Chest is Not A Man // Haylee Lynd

     C.S. Lewis in the first chapter of "The Abolition of Man" describes "men without chests." He tells us that the chest is "the seat, as Alanus tells us, of Magnanimity, of emotions organized by trained habit into stable sentiments" (24-25). Furthermore, it is through the chest that the head rules the belly. According to Lewis, the chest may be the very thing by which man is man because "by his intellect he is mere spirit and by his appetite mere animal" (25). To Lewis, for men to have chests, for men to have trained, reasonable emotions, is so important that he decides he must argue against "the Green Book" even though he was given it for free and, thus, is expected to give it praise. Therefore, we must encourage education that teaches men to have chests rather than the type of education of "the Green Book." Emotional states can be in harmony with reason, but in our modern age, most individuals for not observe an objective truth. Therefore, the emotions of most individuals in our modern age have emotions that are out of harmony with reason. They, or maybe even I (I am still doing reflection on this topic), do not often respond in the way they should, with stable sentiments. The people of our modern age allow facts to lay waste to their feelings, which is exactly what Lewis wants us to move away from. If there is no objective truth - if all truth is subjective - the slippery slope leads to each and every individual having different morals. Therefore, if you believe stealing is wrong, but I and the judge leading your trial against me do not, then you will not get justice. You cannot. Justice is subjective in this way. This is an extreme example, but it can be applied to many things, some of which are highly controversial. At the end of the day, no matter the example, I agree with Lewis that there should be objective truth, and objective truth should be taught. We should aim to have appropriate responses to things - for our emotions to be in harmony with reason. We need to know what is right and what is wrong to guide our emotions as our emotions guide our actions (our head rules the belly through the chest). 


P.S. I commented on Josh's and Lily's posts.

Comments

  1. Emory CooperMarch 15, 2022 at 7:27 AM

    Hey Haylee! I like how you said that emotional states can be in harmony with reason, but lack of objective truth leads to them being out of harmony with reason. Certainly, one should be base one's knowledge of right and wrong, of truth and falsehood, and so forth on reason; but usually it is one's emotional expressions and actions that reveal to the world what he feels is right and wrong, is true and false. So, if one's actions and expressions are out of tune with rationality, his emotions probably are, too. Good post!

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