The Importance of TAO

The Importance of TAO

The Abolition of Man, by C.S. Lewis

Mr. Lewis opens his book stating that people are not particularly attentive to books being published, especially if it is a school textbook. We trust the institutions around us to choose wisely without ever opening the book ourselves. He specifically refers to a grammar book about which he has little good to say neither about the text nor its authors. Using two old Roman names to hide the identity of the writers of the ‘Green Book’.  The book was intended for the upper form in the British school system, probably comparable to a U.S. high school. The authors quibble about the use of the word ‘sublime’ to describe an object. One argues that it’s an emotional description while the other asserts that it is a more philosophical interpretation.

C.S, Lewis is more concerned about the effect it will have on the reader. Is it just a word or more about emotion, philosophy, facts, rationalization or didactics? He belabors and defines these distinctions until he finally reaches the concept of the TAO. It is an ancient Chinese idea which is” the abyss that preceded creation itself”. It is Nature, the Natural, The WAY in which the universe progresses in the natural order of things. It contains the belief that certain things are JUST true, and others are just false.  In other words, there is objective truth. Interestingly ‘The Way’ is the term used by early Christians described Jesus’ message and teaching about living contrary to the wisdom of this world.

In times past to die in battle was heroic and honorable. They were “men with chests”! This tradition of manliness was passed down from Father to son for generations. Those without chests, so to speak, were not pursuing Truth and Honor but were chasing their own truths. Lewis refers to it as castrating a gelding, then telling it to be fruitful! Truth cannot be changed at will. But opinions often change.

Textbooks are written to shape society in the Truth as the author sees fit. An example would be the way earlier generations were taught history. Indians were savage and had no morals or people color were deemed subhuman.  And Catholics were shunned and feared because the unenlightened believed that if Catholics rose to power, the Pope would rule the country.  These ignorant suppositions were held by the general population for 250 years. Even as recently as the badgering of Catholic candidates for public office.

It is instinctual to protect one’s life, the species and to work toward the betterment of the future for the next generation. It is not instinctive to keep your word or respect all life at every stage of its existence.  To live with such negative beliefs is to sweep away the TAO along with all the old taboos. The advent of contraception paved the way for free love, adultery, and abortion without thinking of its potential to make the human species extinct. Now we face the acceptance of gender reassignment. Playing with nature as if humans are the author of life, playing God.

Ethics based on feelings gives a person what he/she wants but not what is good for the future of the species. Instinct says that man should follow the rules, use good judgement and stand for the preservation of the species for posterity. It is more than simply living in the present moment. If the
TAO falls, all concepts of value fall. Modern innovation has placed a higher value on productivity, sensual pleasures, setting aside justice and good faith (TAO).  Natural law is the only source of true morality. When the natural law is rejected, all values are rejected. Rebellion against TAO is rebellion against nature, reducing themselves to animal instincts. Thus, destroying themselves as humans and introducing a ‘New World Order’, which is based purely on economics and man becomes chattel under its social control.

The TAO allows development and growth within the individual. There is a major difference between moral advancement in thinking (ie. Admitting slavery is evil) versus innovations that replace the human worker with robotic technologies that think what their creators have programmed them to think. Legitimate reformers demonstrate how his proposal conflicts with other precepts or principles. For example, self-rule in a republic versus the divine right of kings or dictatorships. This is not the way of the’ Conditioners’.

So, in what sense is man the possessor of increasing power over nature? Technological advancements may be one area such contraceptives and suicide pods. The so-called advancements affect the future of the race. In 1944 Lewis could not have predicted the situation of zero growth population and the subsequent loss of workers, teachers, and  leaders that plague current society. Future generations are profoundly impacted by the living. We are creating nothing for the future! Present philosophies of selective eugenics and breeding only selected skills they assume a destructive power over the future. Sixty years of contraception and abortion have left us with a diminished workforce and an entitled mindset. Someday, sooner than we think, the human race will become extinct! For a time, humanity will be a race of ‘Conditioners’ who will create the posterity it desires to do its bidding. Robotics, artificial Intelligences and clones will replace human workers. Technology has the potential for wonders as well as becoming the instrument of destruction. This will lead to poverty and dependence on the State for handouts. This dependence leaves people vulnerable to State control of individual lives. The purpose of ‘Conditioners’ is to demand obedience and conformity to their version of ‘conscience’. This sounds like an Apocalypse in the making.

Such people have not just moved away from the TAO but have fallen into a void. These subjects are not happy. They are not real men with ‘chests’. They are not real but mere artifacts of the past! It appears that man’s final conquest is the abolition of man as a creation of the TAO, just a scientific aberration of the original man. China’s people are subservient to the state.

The universe was once an object of awe and amazement, often worshipped as a wonder of creation. Once Astronomy appeared, the wonder of the stars lost their divinity, to become something to be weighed and measured. The human soul lost its nature to psychoanalysis. Much has been reduced to what man thinks he knows and can control. Those who give up their soul gain power or become slaves of the ‘Conditioner’. This kind of power does not, by right belong to man. We are beings of a rational nature created to obey the absolute power and will of our Creator (TAO) or to become merely a subject to the powers of the ‘Conditioners’. Dogmatic belief (faith) is essential to combat tyrannical laws. The path of communists, fascists, nazis is to establish just that kind of society. Degenerate science has done to humans what would never be done to plants or animals. In the TAO man is master of himself. 180 years ago, C.S, Lewis, in the midst of godless regimes, seemed to prophecy what has become our reality.