In his book The Abolition of Man, C.S. Lewis warned against the teaching of value-skepticism in the schools. This new teaching (which has spread throughout the western world) subtly disparages traditional moral concepts. The new educators, wrote Lewis, "claim to be cutting away the parasitic growth of emotion, religious sanction, and inherited taboos, in order that 'real' or 'basic' values may emerge." But men do not typically choose what is good by reason. Men do not become good citizens and adopt new values because of skepticism. Something else is needed in education - something that modern educators have neglected and modern instruction has excluded. Those who are good are good because their sentiments have been trained to goodness. They are good by habit and upbringing. "It still remains true," wrote Lewis, "that no justification of virtue will enable a man to be virtuous. Without the aid of trained emotions the intellect is powerless against the animal organism. I had sooner play cards against a man who was quite skeptical about ethics, but bred to believe that 'a gentleman does not cheat,' than against an irreproachable moral philosopher who had been brought up among sharpers."
To what is man reduced when sentiments of duty and honor have been removed for want of scientific validation? According to Lewis: "The impulse to scratch when I itch or to pull to pieces when I am inquisitive is immune from the solvent which is fatal to my justice, or honor, or care for posterity. When all that says 'it is good' has been debunked, what says 'I want' remains."
While pundits and media "analysts" argue about the occupation of Iraq and the "war against terror," the fundamental problem of our time is ignored. Whether the West defeats the terrorists or fails miserably, the significance of victory depends entirely upon the moral quality of the people who triumph. If Western institutions are in the process of deconstructing themselves, there can be no meaningful victory for America. If we fail to transmit traditional values to our children: the anti-Western, totalitarian, despotic, dehumanizing type of regime must inevitably triumph - regardless of who wins on the battlefield. Lewis warned: "The process which, if not checked, will abolish Man goes on apace among Communists and Democrats no less than among Fascists. The methods may differ in brutality. But many a mild-eyed scientist in pince-nez, many a popular dramatist, many an amateur philosopher in our midst, means in the long run just the same as the Nazi rulers of Germany."
Consider an article written by Alison Schneider in The Chronicle of Higher Education. According to Schneider, insubordination and intimidation are on the rise in America's college classrooms. We are reminded that the parent is the child's first teacher, the first authority. The university professor comes later. But this last and final figure of authority and respect is not respected. Today's professors are increasingly stalked, threatened, cursed and assaulted. The reason? Some observers have noted that bad behavior is no longer punished. Schools will not expel a student who curses a teacher, calling her a "withered hump" in retaliation for low marks. Now that educators have cut away the "parasitic growth of emotion, religious sanction, and inherited taboos" the only real value that has emerged is a grotesque selfishness. Since our educators have unwittingly undermined the very basis for their own authority, it is no wonder they are helpless against this rising tide of barbarism. "Most students aren't ill-mannered brats," wrote Schneider, "but it takes only a few bad apples to spoil the pie." But we're not talking about a few bad apples. We are talking about a growing epidemic - a contagion of incivility and disrespect. Some university professors say that student misbehavior has doubled or tripled in the last ten years. A professor from the Yale Law School told Schneider, "If you haven't civilized young people by the time they get to college, I don't think you're going to civilize them at all."
While the talking heads yammer about U.S. overseas involvements, moral decline is eating them up from below. This decline is real, with global ramifications. Those who pretend to understand what is happening in the world have understood nothing if they do not see the decline in standards, the decline in morals, the decline in civility, gratitude and subordination. Men have always been bad, but badness is a matter of degree. There is a crossing point between civilized order and chaos: here freedom is used to undermine freedom, wealth is used to undermine wealth and authority is used to undermine authority. And wherever authority limps, death is not far off.
The ultimate personification of authority in our country is the President of the United States. When he is attacked, trivialized, mocked, betrayed and undermined, no successor is likely to put the broken office together again. The greatness of the Ronald Reagan (who we are presently remembering) was that he glued the presidency back together in the wake of the disastrous Nixon and Carter years. But the Cult of Presidential Disrespect remains an ever-growing octopus. It was nourished during the Clinton scandals; and now, at a time of war, it throttles the commander-in-chief.
The malicious anti-Bush web site, Capitol Hill Blue, has advanced the rumor that CIA director George Tenet was forced to resign last week because the president thought Tenet had been disloyal. Does this signify Bush's mental deterioration under pressure, as the Bush-haters would love to assume? Does it signify a divided government? When we look back we find that President Reagan also struggled with disloyal lieutenants. There were those who whispered that Reagan had mentally deteriorated during his second term. There was the Iran-Contra affair. There were dirty deals and bad men in high places. And all of this can be traced back to the same issue that troubled C. S. Lewis. Since the administrative staff of the Executive Branch is university-educated, they are caught up in the value-skeptical orientation that C. S. Lewis warned against. We know - as a matter of public record - that Reagan's presidency was undermined from within (see Constantine Menges' Inside the National Security Council). Bush's presidency is not immune from this same disease.
One thinks back to the logic of Nixon's final days as president, when he allegedly roamed the White House drunk, talking to the portraits of his predecessors. Here we catch a glimpse of the disintegrating world of King Lear, the senile personification of authority in decline. When civilization hovers on the brink, whoever occupies the place of Lear must face the madness of Lear.
When civility cracks, when loyalty is no more, the levers and gears of state are compromised. The executive finds himself besieged by secret enemies. What good can come of this? Such men as exist are either misled by false ideology or sink into the rationalization of bad behavior. When Friedrich Nietzsche was in the first stages of his madness, having debunked good and evil, he imagined he had unleashed a universal political cataclysm. He knew that "cutting away the parasitic growth of emotion, religious sanction, and inherited taboos" would not pave the way to "real" or "basic" values. "The concept of politics," wrote Nietzsche, "will have merged entirely with a war of spirits; all power structures of the old society will have been exploded ... there will be wars the like of which have never been seen on earth." In his notebooks, posthumously published under the title The Will to Power, Nietzsche wrote: "Skepticism regarding morality is what is decisive."
Weapons of mass destruction are next to nothing. The perversion of man's will - now that is something. The tool is not decisive. The toolmaker's values are decisive. These determine whether man becomes a builder or destroyer. These determine whether man will enjoy political freedom or suffer under tyrants. The passing scandals, the backbiting and gossip of Washington do not determine our fate. Our fate is determined in grade school classrooms and by Sunday school teachers and mothers and fathers who honor something greater than the latest intellectual fad of the counter-culture. And their success is our only hope.
