Every gain in our power over nature is also a gain in some people’s power over other people.
That’s the argument at the center of the final chapter of C.S. Lewis’s The Abolition of Man. Once human nature becomes one more thing to conquer, values stop being handed down and start being engineered. Teachers become conditioners.
Caleb and Michael close out the series. They cover what Lewis means by the conquest of nature, why he thinks explaining things can slide into explaining them away, and his picture of a science that could study the world without stripping it of meaning.
(03:00) The Foil: Conquering Human Nature
(06:35) Eugenics and Transhumanism
(08:10) Power Over Nature Is Power Over Other Men
(11:30) Who Really Conquered Gravity?
(12:50) Conditioners and the Old Way of Teaching
(15:35) Education as Conditioning
(19:55) Why Not Just Teach What People Like?
(27:05) Dryads, Body-Snatchers, and a Disenchanted World
(29:55) Lightning Is Not Zeus
(33:05) Is Science the Problem?
(37:55) Closing the Book on Human Nature
(40:35) A Regenerate Science
(43:50) The Clear Window
(45:05) Thinking From Within
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Thanks to Michael Levy for graciously letting us use his music in the conversations:
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