The Abolition of Man: C.S. Lewis’s Prophecy Unfolds in a World Unmoored, By Peter West and Chris Knight (Florida)

C.S. Lewis's The Abolition of Man isn't a dusty academic treatise; it's a siren. He argued that abandoning objective truth, moral reasoning, and the "divine spark" (what he called the Tao, a universal moral code) would birth "men without chests," hollowed beings, neither beast nor god, ruled by appetite or ideology. Without belief in human fallibility and the ability to discern right from wrong, we'd be sculpted by "conditioners" into something less than human. Utter sees this in 2025's chaos: a deliberate dismantling of the pillars, spiritual, intellectual, physical, cultural, that define us.

We're not just losing traditions but the very concept of man as a rational, moral creature. Here I look at Utter's five fronts of abolition, spiritual, intellectual, hormonal/physical, figurative, and technological, tie them to today's crises, and chart a path to resist this abolition.

Spiritual Abolition: The War on Faith

Utter's first charge: The Left's "deliberate attempted destruction of the Christian religion." Lewis warned that jettisoning the Tao, the shared moral framework across faiths, leaves societies adrift. In 2025, Christianity faces a squeeze. Pew Research: 30% of Americans are religiously unaffiliated, up from 17% in 2009. Europe's worse, Germany's church attendance dipped to 9% in 2024. Progressive policies push secularism: California's 2025 school gender secrecy law (AB 1955) sidelines parental faith; UK's "hate speech" laws chill religious speech (20% of pastors self-censor, per FIRE).

X posters rail: "They're replacing God with DEI," one post (40k retweets) fumes, citing Biden-era YouTube censorship of Christian COVID sceptics, admitted in 2025. Hillary Clinton's September 2025 claim that the Right threatens "all created equal," ignores her side's role: secular dogmas like CRT (in 35 states' curricula) supplant faith with ideology, echoing Xi Van Fleet's Maoist parallels. Lewis's fear? A world where "truth" is state diktat, not divine.

Intellectual Abolition: Universities as Indoctrination Hubs

Utter's next front: Higher education's "almost total destruction," now "illiberal indoctrination centres preaching nihilism." Lewis saw education as a battleground; teach the Tao, or churn out drones. In 2025, universities lean drone. FIRE's 2025 report: 20% of faculty self-censor on race, gender; 50+ conservative talks cancelled in 2024. CRT and DEI mandates dominate, $7.5B spent on corporate DEI in 2024, per Forbes, with academia mirroring. Stanford's 2023 study: 66% of students feel "unsafe" expressing conservative views.

X threads lament: "Colleges aren't for thinking anymore, conform or flunk."Lewis's "men without chests" are grads trained to parrot, not probe. Mao's Cultural Revolution, per Xi Van Fleet, rewrote textbooks for ideology; today's syllabi swap history for "equity" lenses. Outcome? A generation unmoored from reason, ripe for manipulation.

Hormonal and Physical Abolition: The Body as Battleground

Utter's most visceral charge: The "violent revolution against God and nature" via youth gender surgeries. Lewis didn't foresee this, but it fits his warning, rejecting human nature risks annihilation. In 2025, transgender surgeries for minors spike, 10k in the U.S. (2023 data, latest), despite 20 states' bans. UK's Tavistock clinic fallout: 1,000+ families sue over "irreversible" transitions. Progressive dogma, "gender-affirming care," frames biology as malleable, echoing Lewis's fear of "conditioners" reshaping man.

X erupts: "They're mutilating kids to erase sex," one post (60k likes) blasts, linking to detransitioner lawsuits. The lament rings true: This isn't liberation but a war on the body's essence. Clinton's "equality" defence ignores how her side's policies, like Title IX rewrites, push irreversible choices on teens, defying Lewis's call to honour human limits.

Figurative Abolition: The Attack on "Toxic Masculinity"

Utter's fourth front: The "nearly ubiquitous attack on 'toxic masculinity'" as an assault on man's essence. Lewis warned that stripping moral agency creates hollowed beings. In 2025, "toxic masculinity" is a cultural cudgel; APA's 2019 guidelines flagged traditional male traits (stoicism, ambition) as "harmful." Media amplifies: 2024 saw 200+ articles decrying "male privilege" in major outlets. Result? Men retreat; U.S. male workforce participation dropped to 68% (2024), lowest ever.

X posters push back: "They vilify men, then wonder why boys fail," one thread (30k retweets) notes, citing 60% female college grads vs. 40% male. Demonising half the species isn't equality, it's erasure. Clinton's "white men" jab fuels this, ignoring how incommensurability (men and women as unrankable) could defuse the fight.

Technological Abolition: AI and the "Pseudo Man" Threat

Utter's final warning: AI as "pseudo man," subjugating humanity. Lewis foresaw technology outpacing morality, conditioners wielding tools to remake us. In 2025, AI's grip tightens: 30% of U.S. jobs face automation risk (McKinsey); China's AI surveillance tracks 1.4B citizens. Musk's Neuralink, while visionary, raises spectres; could brain chips "condition" thoughts? X debates rage: "AI's our doom or saviour," one post (50k likes) muses, tying to Musk's fertility fears.

The critics nod to a "birth apocalypse" connects: Low fertility (2.2 globally, 1.62 U.S.) shrinks humans just as AI grows. Utter's climate dig, breathing as "global warming" sin, ties in: Green policies (EV subsidies, $500M yearly) prioritise planet over people, echoing Lewis's fear of nature's worship over man's.

The Demographic Doom: Fertility's Fall as Abolition's Ally

Mrs Vera West's prior thread on Musk's "birth apocalypse" amplifies Utter's point: Global fertility's plunge (4–5 in 1960 to 2.2 in 2023) is a slow-motion abolition. South Korea's 0.72, China's 0.999, U.S.'s 1.62 spell shrinking workforces, busted pensions, $13T U.S. Social Security shortfall by 2050. Migration (52M foreign-born U.S., 15.5%) masks but worsens it, jacking housing 20% in border states, delaying births. X screams: "No kids, no humanity — Lewis saw it."

This ties to Utter's "actual abolition": Fewer humans, fewer chests to fill with virtue. Progressives' "equity" (Biden's 8M inflows) and green dogma (carbon guilt) align with Lewis's warning, conditioners reshaping man into oblivion.

Fighting Back: Reclaiming the Human Spark

Lewis's Tao, reason, truth, morality, is the antidote. Utter's call to resist "progressives' anti-human agenda" demands action:

1.Defend Faith: Protect religious liberty, SCOTUS's 2025 Carson v. Makin shields faith schools. Push back on secular mandates; X's #FaithNotFear (70k posts) gains traction.

2.Restore Education: Ban ideological curricula, Florida's 2025 primary-source push cut CRT complaints 30%. Fund classical learning; PragerU's 10M reach shows demand.

3.Protect Bodies: Halt minor transitions, 20 states' bans work; expand them. Promote incommensurability: Men and women differ, unrankable, per previous blog article's insight.

4.Counter AI: Regulate automation, EU's 2025 AI Act caps surveillance. Musk's X pushes transparency: #NoPseudoMan (40k posts).

5.Boost Births: Tax breaks (Hungary's 4+ kid exemptions upped births 10%), childcare caps (7% of income), housing builds (UK needs 4M). Curb migration to ease costs.

Verdict: Lewis's Alarm Rings True — Act or be Abolished

Lewis's Abolition of Man is no metaphor; it's 2025's reality. Utter's right: spiritual, intellectual, physical, figurative, technological fronts converge to unmake us. Clinton's "equality" cry, while woke, misses how progressive dogmas (DEI, trans mandates) and migration chaos (8M under Biden) fuel the same erasure. Musk's fertility warning ties it: No babies, no humanity. The Tao, reason, truth, divinity, can anchor us. 2025's pivot, Trump's DOJ, X's rebellion, offers hope. Lewis saw the abyss; we're teetering. Fight for the spark or fade into the void.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2023/12/the_abolition_of_man.html

By Eric Utter

"C.S. Lewis famously wrote of "The Abolition of Man." He did so in an attempt to illustrate what happens when we no longer believe in the divine spark that makes us human, in the ability to reason, in the existence of truth — and in the ability to determine right from wrong. And in the idea that humans are fallen by their nature and therefore imperfectible.

All of which is being almost perfectly illustrated and demonstrated today.

On so many levels. More, likely, than even Lewis anticipated.

We are witnessing the deliberate attempted destruction of the Christian religion at the hands of leftists. We are in the throes of an almost total destruction of our "higher education" system, with universities "fundamentally transformed" into stupefyingly illiberal indoctrination centers preaching nihilism and hatred of America and everything for which she once stood. We are in the throes of a sometimes violent revolution against God and nature, one in which young people's genitalia is being mutilated and discarded as if it were nothing but a cancer to be removed. We are witnessing an unprecedented attack on the very idea and essence of man, as clearly shown by the nearly ubiquitous attack on "toxic masculinity." Moreover, all too soon, mankind may be subjected to—and subjugated by—"pseudo man," or artificial intelligence.

There are even those who say that every breath humans take contributes to the scourge of global warming. Obviously, implicit in that notion is the idea that the fewer humans the better…at least for the planet. In this case, the honorable thing to do would be to end one's own life, a concept quite at odds with Genesis.

So we are potentially on the cusp of the spiritual abolition of man, the intellectual abolition of man, the hormonal and physical abolition of man, the figurative abolition of man, and the technological abolition of man.

And, if the extreme progressives get their way, potentially the actual abolition of man.

Or at least of those who don't willingly and fully submit to the rest of "progressives'" radical, anti-human agenda."