Who is in control?
Clotho, the youngest of the Three Fates in ancient Greek mythology, was responsible for spinning the thread of human life which included deciding when and who was born and when and who would die, thus controlling people’s lives.
The Fates
After a brief sojourn we return this week to our discussion of what C. S. Lewis was attempting to elucidate in The Abolition of Man where we hear him expand on what he believed to be the inevitable outcome of man’s resolute pursuit of the conquest of nature. Lewis understood where man’s desire for mastery over nature would ultimately lead: the control of the many by the few.
Albert Einstein said as much when he wrote:
Lewis went even further, writing:
“Man’s conquest of Nature, if the dreams of some scientific planners are realized, means the rule of a few hundreds of men over billions upon billions of men. There neither is nor can be any simple increase of power on Man’s side. Each new power won by man is a power over man as well. Each advance leaves him weaker as well as stronger…
I am not yet considering whether the total result of such ambivalent victories is a good thing or a bad. I am only making clear what Man’s conquest of Nature really means and especially that final stage in the conquest, which, perhaps, is not far off. The final stage is come when Man by eugenics, by pre-natal conditioning, and by an education and propaganda based on a perfect applied psychology, has obtained full control over himself. Human nature will be the last part of Nature to surrender to man. The battle will then be won. We shall have ‘taken the thread of life out of the hands of Clotho’ and be henceforth free to make our species whatever we wish it to be. The battle will indeed be won. But who, precisely, will have won it?
For the power of Man to make himself what he pleases means, as we have seen, the power of some men to make other men what they please…
We reduce things to mere Nature in order that we may ‘conquer’ them. We are always conquering Nature, because ‘Nature’ is the name for what we have, to some extent, conquered. The price of conquest is to treat a thing as mere Nature. Every conquest over Nature increases her domain. The stars do not become Nature till we can weigh and measure them; the soul does not become Nature till we can psychoanalyze her.”
Lewis completes his objection through forceful argument which we will cover next week (unless of course before then you find yourself reading The Abolition of Man.)
[1] Michael Green, Quantum Physics and Ultimate Reality: Mystical Writings of Great Physicists, Random Press, October 18, 2015, (Also under the title: The Road to Ultimate Reality.)
Do you know the name of the artist who illustrated The Three Fates example you used?
Unfortunately, I have no idea. Search for “the three fates images” and you will find it.