Haley Baumeister's Reviews > The Abolition of Man

Somehow he manages (several decades in the past) to touch on the heart of our post-modern hollowing out of persons, of education, of ethics, of society.

This book indirectly supports the need for the virtue inherit in classical education, or at least something comparable that nourishes the whole person - and not the intellect devoid of virtue that we see the rotten fruit of.

I also see threads connected to the rigorously humane ethics required in our hell-bent drive toward "power over nature" (other people) in technological innovation and medical practice (currently with AI in all forms, artificial girlfriends, rampant pornography, discarding the most fragile of humans at the beginning and end of life, MAID, frozen IVF embryos, genetic selection, surrogacy, transgender surgery, not to mention the worst parts of the sexual revolution sparked by contraceptive technology, whatever your view of that.)

I find it *fascinating* that his Space Trilogy novels are the Abolition of Man in fictional form.

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“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. We laugh at honour and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful.”

“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.”