David Thornton - Space Trilogy and Axiology

After finishing the Space Trilogy, I have been thinking a lot about what people fundamentally value and how that affects their interpretation and appreciation of different things that happen to them. Axiology, the study of value and what has worth, though normally associated with ethics and aesthetics, brings Lewis’ conception of Myth to its most vivid display of the power of myth in the everyday lives of human beings. There remains a tendency for people to try to control everything going on in their life and outside of it. In response to this human attitude, Chesterton writes, “It is not earth that judges heaven, but heaven that judges earth; so for me at least it was not earth that criticized elfland, but elfland that criticized earth” (Chesterton 87). Chesterton conveys the message that humans find it all too easy to fall into their egoistical subcreation and try to control and judge things they shouldn’t, due to the fact they are created. In terms of value, people fall into their egoistical subcreations because they value their own mind and its views instead of something outside themselves.