Currently, the world faces many problems involving education. Including, expensive college tuition, lack of math and science but more importantly unequal global education. For example, women in the Middle East have minimal education and the enormous lack of modern education in third world countries. But in his novel The Abolition of Man C.S. Lewis points out that our modern education system is not flawless. Lewis presents an argument about how the modern education is inferior to the postmodern education. The Abolition of Man by C.S. Lewis successfully employs rhetoric to prove that the Tao is no longer a part of modern education which is leading to the abolition of human nature. In the novel Lewis argues that modern education is no longer …show more content…
He believes that not teaching the Tao causes individuals to base their lives on instinct and work rather than the Tao. This creates Men without Chests. Lewis describes Men without Chests as losing your heart and humanity. As a society, students learn to depend on their instinct and intelligence rather than the Tao. Lewis describes this as “In a sort of ghastly simplicity we remove the organ and demand the function. We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise.” (26). Simply put, society still expect citizens to distinguish right from wrong, despite not teaching students the Tao. Since intellects are not teaching the Tao, students do not contemplate the actual truth that is the Tao. Therefore they do not know to base their life on morals and emotion. Instead our education conditions us to live our life according to our instinct and own beliefs. No longer are we emotional beings, but rather animals of reason and instinct. Thankfully, Lewis provides a solution to the problem. As a society we need to reestablish the educational system to include teaching the Tao. If education includes the Tao, once again students will follow the Tao as it was in postmodern education. If citizens follow the Tao then Men without Chests will not exist. Meaning that society will once again have citizens basing their lives around the …show more content…
Also, I agree that the modern tendency to base our lives on knowledge and instinct is leading society away from heart and humanity. Unfortunately, I find his argument slightly offensive. His argument causes me to feel that my education is useless because I do not study the Tao. And I am hopeful that my student debt is not accumulating for nothing. Lewis should be careful as to not offend his readers who are individuals in the modern education system. These people most likely read his book and can change the system, so he should provide a positive observation too. More importantly, larger educational problems exist in the world. For example, in the Middle East women still do not receive a decent education by any standards. And in poverty stricken countries, countless illiterate children never step inside a classroom. Why should the world care about perfecting the modern education system if the whole world in does not have access to modern education? The Tao centers around common morals found around the world, but global access to modern education is not universal. If access to modern education is not worldwide then is the not learning the Tao actually our biggest problem in
For even when man talks of intrinsic values and emotions, there is validity in these things simply because they are experienced by someone. To say these things have been experienced gives them substance, whether they can be perceived by the senses or not. It seems as though Lewis is arguing that because the Tao is a qualitative substance inherent to man, to strip that would be the reduction of him into nothing.
This “flawed” concept in education today is the oppressive “depositing” of information (banking education) by teachers to students. “Banking education (for obvious reasons) attempts, by mythicizing reality, to conceal certain facts which explain the way people exist in the world…” (p.224) The “banking concept” is an act that hinders the intellectual growth of students by turning them into “receptors” and “collectors” of information that have no true connection to their lives. The “banking concept” is essentially turning humans into objects. “Banking education inhibits creativity and domesticates (although it cannot completely destroy) the intentionality of consciousness by isolating consciousness from the world, thereby denying people their ontological and historical vocation of becoming more fully human.” (p.224) This type of education
While the ideals of Taoism are fun and if you make them a life style they can be a life style but I don’t understand how you maintain this mind-set. That could be because deep down everyone that’s not completely at peace with themselves in one form or another is a Bisy Backson. Whether they try to avoid it or not it comes back in forms of problems, or annoyance or whatever. When those nuisances come back into someone’s life they will probably will not turn to those values but begins with tasks between tasks between tasks in order to avoid their
In his speech, pathos is the tool that Robinson was using to persuaded his audience about the education system need to be change. Robinson (2010) claimed that one of the major reasons education has been changing is because of the economic issues. Robinson (2010) stated that most of the developed and developing countries are out looking for a better way to educate their children to comfortably engage in the current economic system. As people can see that Robinson was using successfully the tool of pathos in his speech; because education is one of the most important issue that people always concern for their children. Agreeably, it is quite a reasonable fact since no one can anticipate the turn of the economy in the coming days or weeks. The second reason that Robinson gave for the changes taking place in education is for cultural reasons. Robinson (2010) explained that people need to know their origins and backgrounds and figure out a way that they can teach their children to have the sense of cultural identity and pass that to the coming generations. The only challenge that can be said and society would agree with Robinson, is that people are trying to do what they did in the past. As it has been in the
In C.S Lewis “Abolition of Man” Lewis begins by saying that many man are devoted to their conquest over nature. The power of humans to do exactly what they want seems to be growing over the times. However, while the advance of technology has benefited mankind, Lewis says that is not man controlling nature. In reality, is man controlling other man, using technology. Lewis stresses that this is not a good or bad thing, it is just what is happening in our world.
In today’s society, education has shifted the way in how one thinks, making a basis were they acquire everyone in a classroom to grasp the knowledge being presented to them at the same pace. Those that are unsuccessful to comprehend in the way that was instructed to them are viewed upon as the most needed and deficient. Having a structured way in how one should apprehend certain information, sets barriers in the process of thinking. It prevents the mind to think of other solutions, and to stick to the certain idea.
C.S. Lewis’s work The Abolition of Man offers insight into how the people of society are formed, and what is flawed in that process. He begins his argument in chapter one titled “Men Without Chests”, he examines an elementary school english book, which he refers to as “The Green Book” written by “Gaius” and “Titius”. Lewis disagrees with the lessons Gaius and Titius put into their book, from the way they word important phrase to the examples they use. One of his primary concerns is students falling into the belief that sentences with a predicate of value are about the speaker’s emotional state. His other concern is that the school children will find all of these sentences to be unimportant.
Taoism was one of the first major systems of beliefs in China, showing us that after an extended period of the focus on building a lucrative government, the people of China were changing and trying new ways of life. This shows a shift in the focus from the strictly governmental ways of Confucianism to the more mystical beliefs of Taoism. With this change of beliefs in China, Confucian ideas such as the need for strictly political knowledge, were partially taken down by Taoism, which cast politics to the side. This altogether allows us to begin to understand the change in period
Deity, there is thus perhaps no real Deity with the capital letter to be equated with the God of Western religion. We have seen that Heaven eventually becomes the term customarily used for the Supreme Ruler, but we now know that behind or beyond heaven, there are the workings of yang and yin which have their source in tao (Thompson, 6). There is nothing distinctively Chinese in the way whereby the forces of nature were personified or the heavenly bodies were believed to exercise a direct influence in human affairs, or the way in which otherwise inexplicable occurrences of disease and other misfortunes were attributed to malignant spirits. The deification of human beings characteristic of both family and folk religion is somewhat more exceptional, although not unique (Thompson, 7). The founder of Taoism is Lao Zi and Chuan Tze, the school advocates the doctrine that the Dao is the course, the principle, the substance, and the standard of all things, to which all of them must conform. Based on the Dao De Jing, Taoism promotes the belief that a person should live a simple life, not to strive for wealth, fame or power, which will only give one worries and trouble. The school favors the political principle of “achieving good government through
The first and most obvious flaw is that the author, Hoff, is trying to prove that in just about any situation the principles of Taoism will always guide you along the right path. However the stories he used to
The main focus of Tao Te Ching is non-action. For example, people do not need regulation and laws. According to Taoism, all human beings are naturally good but the laws and regulations have altered people’s belief
The Tao Te Ching can be helpful to all, and the reading of it may be enlightening. Reading the Tao can give much insight on the challenges and dangers that humans must face in this world, how a person should live his life, the dangers of a powerful ruler, how the state should rule, how citizens should serve the state, and the messages or forewarnings for us today.
Yet even with these realizations that delve into the deeper meaning of education, modern education is still calling for simple measurable outcomes and continues to be geared towards specific employment ideas. This model of education is blatantly inadequate though. Many students today will end up holding jobs not yet invented in fields not yet discovered, so the teaching of answers to today’s questions is utterly useless. Albert Einstein once said, “Education is not the learning of facts, but the training of the mind to think.” and this statement reigns true throughout time. To continue academic success, the education system needs to impart a mastery of one’s own mind that allows students to not only answer current questions but also to pose questions that will shape the future world.
In order to become a virtuous person an individual must become one with the Tao, an example of a good life is found in Chuang Tzu – Basic writings, “If you do good, stay away from fame. If you do evil, stay away from punishments. Follow the middle; go by what is constant, and you can stay in one piece, keep yourself alive, look after your parents, and live out your years.” (Section three, p46). In order to become one with the Tao and individual must understand the Way and example of the Way “…For this reason, whether you point to a little stalk or a great pillar, a leper or the beautiful Hsi-shih, things ribald and shady or things grotesque and strange, the Way makes them all into one.” (Section two, p. 36) The Way is having the ability to consider all things one. Looking at the creatures of the world without bias and treating everything and everyone as equal. In order to follow the Way one must gain enlightenment, to gain enlightenment one must heavy focus on meditation. Taoists believe that time is cyclical, not linear as many in the West believe, therefore time repeats itself, has no beginning and no end. Tao is considered to be the first cause of the universe, and is the force that
For many centuries, the principles of the classical education were in the spotlight. The good of the individual, realizing his/her own potential were the purposes of the learning process. Cultural development is the aim of the classical education. It stands above everything, including religion. (Nietzsche, n. p.). Referring to Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” to interpret the classical education in modern society, we can say that