The Chronicle Continues: Moral Orientation and Intellectual Immaturity

It takes more than the ability to create syllogistic arguments to understand the world.

In today’s world, extreme ideologies and polarized positions are becoming increasingly common, especially in politics, philosophy, and ethics. These rigid views promise simple solutions to complex problems, but why are they so prevalent? At the core of this trend is a loss of moral orientation and a lack of intellectual and emotional maturity. Without these, individuals struggle to navigate deeper questions of right and wrong, leading to shallow and potentially harmful conclusions.

Extreme positions often stem from a premature search for answers, without the necessary preparation to engage with life’s complexities. Many adopt ideologies before developing as a person oriented by moral virtue needed to truly understand. Instead of taking the time to reflect and grow, they latch onto views that offer the illusion of immediate certainty. This rush for knowledge traps people in narrow frameworks that stifle further growth and critical thinking.

The Loss of the Moral Framework: The Absence of the Tao

In The Abolition of Man, C.S. Lewis addresses the growing rejection of the “Tao,” the objective moral order or natural law that guides human behavior and decision-making. For Lewis, the Tao provides the necessary framework for discerning truth and cultivating virtue. Without this foundation, reason becomes unmoored from reality, leading individuals to distort the world according to their own desires and subjective preferences.

Today, many people reject the Tao in favor of either subjective moral systems or hyper-rationalistic frameworks that deny the need for virtue and experiential knowledge. This has led to a rise in extreme ideologies, where rigid, simplistic views are adopted to compensate for a lack of deeper moral grounding. When one strays from the Tao, they become more vulnerable to ideologies that offer clarity at the expense of wisdom, locking themselves into intellectual isolation.

The Complementary Insights of Lewis and Polanyi

C.S. Lewis’ emphasis on the Tao resonates deeply with philosopher Michael Polanyi's concept of "tacit knowledge." Both thinkers challenge the modern over-reliance on abstract reason and argue for the importance of grounding human thought in something deeper—be it moral law (Lewis) or the inarticulable, experiential knowledge that develops over time (Polanyi).

Polanyi’s key insight is that much of what we know cannot be explicitly articulated; it is "tacit," learned through direct experience and personal engagement with reality. In this way, his philosophy complements Lewis’ argument that the Tao offers a moral and spiritual foundation for human thought and action. For the “Tao” may very well be tacit knowledge. For Polanyi, knowledge is not merely intellectual facts out “there” like pellets to be consumed, but involves an ongoing process of living, learning, and refining one’s understanding through real-world encounters.

Where Lewis speaks of the moral law that orders human life, Polanyi emphasizes that knowledge is more than just propositions and discursive reasoning—it is deeply connected to how we live, act, and participate in the world. Both thinkers argue that knowledge requires a personal, lived engagement with reality, and without the proper orientation—whether through the Tao or the cultivation of tacit knowledge—one's ability to understand the world becomes severely limited.

The Role of Tacit Knowledge and Personal Responsibility

Polanyi’s concept of tacit knowledge highlights the limitations of purely intellectual reasoning and underscores the importance of subjective experience. Most knowledge, Polanyi argues, is not fully expressible in words—it is acquired over time, through practice and personal involvement. This knowledge, although inarticulable, supports and enriches discursive reasoning, providing the context in which intellectual analysis can take place. It is only through experience, combined with a sense of moral responsibility, that individuals can develop the wisdom needed to understand reality more fully avoiding the pit falls of relativism and pure subjectivism.

In contrast, those who adopt extreme positions often approach knowledge as an abstract pursuit, disconnected from the lived realities of human existence. They neglect the experiential, intuitive, and moral dimensions of knowledge, treating it as something that can be grasped purely by reason alone. This leads to a kind of intellectual pride, where people believe they can fully understand the world without the grounding of virtue, humility, or engagement with the subtleties of real life.

Polanyi and Lewis both caution against this disconnect. For Polanyi, knowledge without personal responsibility leads to relativism, where all views are seen as equally valid, or to dogmatism, where individuals cling to rigid ideologies in an attempt to replace the moral guidance they have lost. For Lewis, the rejection of the Tao similarly results in distorted worldviews that lack the moral foundation necessary to navigate reality responsibly. Both thinkers stress the need for humility, patience, and a willingness to learn through experience as essential to developing genuine understanding. Both argue for an objective virtue to guide us in our understanding to act as a prevention into absurdity.

Human Action: Navigating the Objective World with Subjective Insight

Both Lewis and Polanyi emphasize that human action is where subjective experience meets objective reality. Lewis views the Tao as the moral framework that allows individuals to align their actions with the objective order of the world, while Polanyi insists that true knowledge emerges through an active, responsible engagement with that world. Human beings, as subjects, are constantly interpreting, interacting with, and learning from the objective environment. This interplay between the subjective and the objective is where true knowledge takes root. Human action provides the context for knowledge to have meaning. And its the objective moral orientation that allows us to see reality for what it is.

Polanyi’s emphasis on the tacit, inarticulable dimensions of knowledge parallels Lewis’ argument that the virtues required for navigating reality cannot merely be learned through intellectual means; they must be cultivated through lived experience. In this sense, the “Tao” guides individuals toward true knowledge. This objective moral orientation, partially tacit and beyond full articulation, may be transmitted through tradition and ritual—from parents and society to children. However, the prideful pursuit of autonomous reasoning seeks to dismantle tradition as a pathway to wisdom. In both frameworks, knowledge is not something that can be prematurely seized; it demands time, effort, and a gradual maturation, both intellectually and morally.

C.S. Lewis and Michael Polanyi provide complementary insights into the challenges of modern thought. Both stress the importance of moral orientation and experiential knowledge as essential to navigating life’s complexities. Lewis’ Tao and Polanyi’s tacit knowledge point to the same truth: that human understanding is not merely intellectual but deeply tied to the virtues, responsibilities, and experiences that shape us. Without these, individuals are prone to extreme, simplistic views that offer certainty at the expense of real wisdom.

The Cultural Devaluation of Age and Experience

One of the key factors in this crisis of intellectual and spiritual maturity is the modern cultural devaluation of age and experience. In almost every other time in human history, the wisdom of the elderly was revered. Older generations, having lived through the challenges and complexities of life, were seen as the ones most qualified to offer guidance. But today, we live in a culture that places a premium on youth, often dismissing the insights of the older generations as irrelevant.

This dismissal of age and experience has profound consequences for how people approach knowledge. Many today, especially younger people, are quick to reject the wisdom of their elders, believing that intellectual reasoning alone can lead them to truth. They fail to see that true wisdom is often bound up with time, experience, and the slow process of spiritual and moral growth. In conversations with those who hold extreme views, it’s common to hear the argument that age doesn’t determine whether someone is right or wrong—it’s the argument that matters. But while this is true in one sense, it misses the deeper point: lived experience, particularly when informed by virtue and spiritual orientation, plays a critical role in discernment.

The rejection of this truth is itself a mark of intellectual immaturity. The hasty dismissal of the wisdom of older generations reflects an arrogance reminiscent of the original sin of Adam and Eve. Rather than working in "God’s time" and aligning their wills with His, they succumbed to pride and impatience, seeking to grasp knowledge without the humility and discipline necessary for growth and maturation.

Conclusion

In a world increasingly dominated by extreme philosophical positions, the need for a return to virtue, spiritual orientation, and intellectual maturity has never been more pressing. Without these, individuals will continue to adopt rigid, polarized views that lack the depth and nuance necessary to navigate the complexities of life. To regain a proper orientation, we must re-embrace the law that is written on our hearts—the moral framework that grounds us in truth—and cultivate the patience and humility required for true growth in wisdom.

It is only through the slow, steady process of spiritual and intellectual formation, rooted in virtue and guided by lived experience, that we can hope to overcome the cultural forces that drive people toward extremes. This is not a process reserved for the elite or the "enlightened"; it is accessible to everyone—from children to the elderly, from the uneducated to the highly educated. But it requires a reorientation of our values and a recognition that true knowledge can never be separated from the moral and spiritual virtues that make it possible to receive. Only then can we hope to recover the deeper understanding that our modern world has lost.