After Humanity Quotes

“In his essay “Equality” (1943), Lewis advises: “Watch the faces, mark well the accents, of the debunkers.” In other words, those who debunk tend not to be straightforwardly critical, but usually have “an agenda” (as we now say); the opposition that debunkers have to things is not honest and reasonable but tainted by an inferiority complex, or small-mindedness, or some other intellectual defect.”
― Michael Ward, After Humanity: A Guide to C.S. Lewis’s The Abolition of Man

“According to Lewis, imagination was “the organ of meaning,” while reason was “the natural organ of truth,” and it was always his aim in his writing to combine the two organs as fully and naturally as possible, whatever the communicative task in hand. Works of philosophy, no less than works of creative fiction, required the marriage of fertile imagination and penetrating reason.”
― Michael Ward, After Humanity: A Guide to C.S. Lewis’s The Abolition of Man

“In his essay “Is History Bunk?” (1957), Lewis writes, “There will always be those who, on discovering that history cannot really be turned to much practical account, will pronounce history to be Bunk. Aristotle would have called this servile or banausic; we, more civilly, may christen it Fordism.” In other words, Ford’s description of history as bunk betrays a utilitarian mindset that is unworthy of a person of liberal education; Ford does not know from the inside the thing he is disparaging. For more on this tendency to debunk things prematurely from an external perspective, see Lewis’s “Meditation in a Toolshed” (1945). ‡”
― Michael Ward, After Humanity: A Guide to C.S. Lewis’s The Abolition of Man

“power is better understood as an energy continually surging back and forth between two parties, not as a weapon brandished over the heads of underlings by a despotic ruler.”
― Michael Ward, After Humanity: A Guide to C.S. Lewis’s The Abolition of Man

“However, when value is recognised as objective, individual preference (though it need not be utterly eradicated) is relativised, one’s private perspective is shown to be relative to the real value of beautiful things, and therefore one’s appreciation of beauty can be more or less intelligent, more or less attuned to the structures that inhere in nature and that can even sometimes be mathematically discerned (revealing the presence of such measurables as Pi, the Golden Ratio, and the Fibonacci Sequence).”
― Michael Ward, After Humanity: A Guide to C.S. Lewis’s The Abolition of Man

“Religion comes from a Latin root meaning “to bind,” referring to the bond of obedience that characterizes the life of a member of a religious order. By extension, religion can be thought of as a bond of unity, as a process that “re-ligaments” or “re-ligatures,” tying disparate things back together into one, integrating diverse viewpoints.”
― Michael Ward, After Humanity: A Guide to C.S. Lewis’s The Abolition of Man