About this episode
Is it Narnia? Of course it isn't. But it's good. C. S. Lewis' The Abolition of Man has been called his most difficult work. It's a short but dense argument about how modern education and culture are removing our capacity for virtue and destroying what makes us human. "Abolition" is a must-read—especially in our cultural moment. And a new companion volume by Michael Ward called After Humanity can help you understand Lewis' message and its background. For instance, did you know that Lewis almost died in the trenches of World War I when he got hit with shrapnel? Ward notes how this near-death experience forever shaped the way Lewis thought about morality. And it left him with a haunting question: "Is it noble to die for your country?" Many in his day claimed moral judgments were just feelings. But Lewis knew that without morality, human beings act less than human. Now more than ever, it's a message we need to hear. Visit breakpoint.org and we'll tell you how you can get a copy of Michael Ward's outstanding new book, After Humanity .