Myth
and the Imagination
Before
his conversion, Lewis was divided into two selves: one that was committed to
reason and a materialist view of life. The other self was in love with myth. He
had difficulty in reconciling these two aspects of his life. Though Lewis loved
myth, he did not believe it was true, “even if they were beautiful,” “breathed
through silver” (Jacobs, 143). Lewis believed myth was only fantasy; not real.
However, he thought myth and story were important for the development of the
learner. Lewis’s view of myth was a hindrance to his coming to faith in Christ.
Two of his friends, Tolkien and Dyson, helped him to see Christianity as a True
Myth. After his conversion, Lewis was able to integrate his reason and his
imagination. He believed that imagination connects us with reality. Lewis
observed, “It is only while receiving the myth as a story that you experience
the principle concretely… What flows into you from the myth is not truth but
reality (truth is always about something, but reality is that about which truth
is)… myth is the isthmus which connects the peninsula world of thought with
that vast reality we really belong to” (Lewis, Myth Became Fact, 265). Lewis believed reason to be the “organ of
truth” and imagination the “organ of meaning.”
“The
importance of myth to education,” Hudson observes, “ is inseparably linked to
Lewis’s understanding of the overarching importance of story” (Hudson). In An Experiment in Criticism, Lewis asks,
“What then is the good of---what is even the defense for---occupying our hearts
with stories of what never happened and entering vicariously into feelings
which we should try to avoid having in our own person?” (137). Lewis answered
that myth enhances our vision. It helps us to become more than we are. It
expands our sight. Lewis wrote:
“My own eyes are
not enough for me, I will see through the eyes of others. Reality, even seen
through the eyes of many, is not enough… Literary experience heals the wound,
without undermining the privilege of individuality… But in reading great literature
I become a thousand men and yet remain myself. Like the night sky in the Greek
poem, I see with myriad eyes, but it is still I who see. Here, as in worship,
in love, in moral action, and in knowing, I transcend myself; and I am never
more myself than when I do” (140-141).
The
Abolition of Man
Lewis’s
philosophy of education is clearly articulated in The Abolition of Man. This book was a response to a grammar book
for children. Lewis attacked this book because it taught that truth and values
are subjective. Lewis called this book the Green Book because he did not want
to humiliate its authors. Lewis believed that the education encouraged in the
Green Book would lead to the abolition of humans. It would create “men without
chests.” What did Lewis mean by this idea? He was referring to the training of
the emotions. Unlike the authors of the Green Book, Lewis believed truth and
values to be objective. Trained emotions will help the student to affirm the
good and to reject evil. The training of the chest was taught by both Plato and
Aristotle. Lewis wrote, “The little human animal will not at first have the
right responses. It must be trained to feel pleasure, liking, disgust, and
hatred at those things which are really pleasant, likable, disgusting, and
hateful” (Lewis, Abolition, 16).
Lewis quoted Plato approvingly:
The
well-nurtured youth is one … who would see most clearly whatever was amiss in
ill-made works of man or ill-grown works of nature and with a just distaste would
blame and hate the ugly even from the earliest years and would give delighted
praise to beauty, receiving it into his soul and being nourished by it, so he
becomes a man of gentle heart. All this is before he is of an age to reason; so
that when reason at length comes to him, then, bred as he has been, he will hold
out his hand in welcome and recognize her because of the affinity he bears to
her” (Lewis, Abolition, 16-17).
A
true education affirms the objectivity of truth and values. It helps the
student to affirm the truth, the good in his own heart. Not only must the mind
be developed, but the will and the emotions too must be properly trained to
such an extent that they delight in truth, goodness, and beauty. Lewis states,
“The head rules the belly through the chest… of emotions organized by trained
habit into stable sentiment” (Lewis, Abolition,
24-25). Without the training of the chest, we will be caught in the flood
of the passions. Without ultimate truth and values, we have no guidance for
decision making. Without objective truth and values, there is no meaning to our
existence (Hudson).
Lewis
thought the teaching of relativism would lead to destruction. Much of modern education
ridicules the idea of ultimate truth and values. Instead, they teach all values
are culturally bound. There are no universal standards to guide us. As the book
of Judges describes, each is to do what is right in his own eyes.
Lewis
referred to objective values and truth as the Tao. Other people refer to it as
the natural law or eternal law. He believed the Tao was universal, present in
all cultures. He also thought there was no standard for judging between right
and wrong without the Tao. Lewis wrote, “Outside the Tao there is no ground for
criticizing either the Tao or anything else” (Lewis, Abolition, 48). In addition, Lewis noted, “without the Tao, and the
values it promotes, society must jettison it completely and create its own
system” (Hudson). Lewis believed this would lead to a few people controlling
the rest of the population.
The
Aims of Education
What
should be the aims of education according to Lewis? Lewis thought of education in
hierarchical terms. At the highest level was learning; the next level was
education and at the lowest level was training. He believed that the chief business of the
student was learning. He thought learning was the search for knowledge for its
own sake. Lewis also believed education was at a level below learning. He did
not think learning and education were the same thing. Education was something
done within a institution and was directed by that institution. Training was at
the lowest level. Vocational training, Lewis wrote, “aims at not making a good
man but a good banker, a good electrician … or a good surgeon.” Lewis
definitely thought we have a need for these people and the services they
provide. But the problem, as he saw it, is that learning will suffer in the
emphasis on training. “If education,” observed Lewis, is beaten by training,
civilization dies [for] the lesson of history [is that] civilization is a
rarity, attained with difficulty and easily lost” (Lewis, quoted by Dunn).
Lewis noted that the aim of education was for humans to grow in their humanity.
This required the pursuit of truth, goodness, and beauty. Lewis thought the aim
of education was truth. Lewis did not think Christian scholars should make the
search for truth to come out to edifying conclusions. In other words, he did
not think they should doctor the truth. Lewis quoted Bacon affirmatively where
he says that we are not to “offer the unclean sacrifice of a lie” to the author
of truth. Lewis also accepted and argued for the objectivity of truth and values.
He argued for this brilliantly in The
Abolition of Man. Lewis believed learning and teaching was a Christian
calling. At first, Lewis saw a conflict between the life of reason and the life
of imagination. After his conversion, he reconciled them. An example of this
reconciliation is The Chronicles of
Narnia. He created a new world that agreed with the great truths of
Christianity. Liberal Arts education can be renewed today, if like Lewis, we
commit ourselves to the pursuit of truth, goodness, and beauty.
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