The Green Book

Lewis confronts the basis of the principals of the authors in what he calls the Green Book. In this schoolbook, the authors propose that all value statements made by man, in themselves, contain an emotional state and therefore are not important. This is because they hold that emotions are in fact contrary to reason and come from one’s inner associations rather than “pure reason”. The authors would agree that when a person attributes a quality to something they are really not saying what they feel, but rather what is deserving of that object. Traditional moral values all massed together (Lewis calls the Tao) deem though, that people have right and wrong assertions when they attribute qualities to something and it is impossible to be both right

The authors assertion is sunk from the start because their possibility of things being reasonable or unreasonable is only possible on a predicate of values which is based in emotion. Within the Tao the possibility to train a pupil to think according to what they as an individual contemplate as appropriate is a possibility, but without the Tao, all sediment must be taken from the mind making this impossible. While the authors say that emotions are bad, Lewis argues that in fact there is a need to train the emotions of students because they are in fact necessary for intellect. Lewis points out that it is not mere syllogisms that keep a man loyal to his country or stand him firm in the midst of a ragging battle, but only through emotions are these possible. Hence comes the title of the chapter, “Men Without Chests”. This is what the authors of the Green Book are, in essence, are trying to produce; men that lack emotion. Society, even in this present age, demands a need for more “drive”, or “self-sacrifice” or “creativity” but this is not possible in the first place without emotion! As Lewis says we are trying to demand the function when we have

At first it may seem that man indeed does have this power such as in the example of the wireless, but really wireless is obtained through money which is controlled by a provider, indicating one man’s power over another. Or take conception. Those who are conceived are really being subjected to the choice of the previous generations which nullifies the false concept of man having progressive freedom from tradition and ability to control more and more of the natural processes of the world. For example, suppose that the first generation was the supreme one. This would mean that the minority of a few hundred would have control over the billions of people in the future. Man’s attempt to conquer everything, with the human nature as last to depart, leads to value judgments becoming mere natural phenomena since the primal conditioners shape society as they choose. What is motivating them though? It cannot be the Tao because the conditioners must be controlling society without obeying any outside forces. They may propose themselves to have the duty to do good, but any number of ideas could be good outside the Tao. Or they may say that we all really possess the same desires, but this is apparently not true and they seem to have a motive, which cannot be possible. Anyway, duty can only be derived from the Tao and why should