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Title: Ideas Have Consequences by Richard M. Weaver ISBN: 0-226-87680-2 Publisher: University of Chicago Press Pub. Date: 01 May, 1984 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.64 (14 reviews)
Rating: 3
Summary: Slow Going But Worthwhile
Comment: In 'Ideas Have Consequences' Professor Richard M. Weaver exposes the many pitfalls of modern liberalism and moral relativism. The book was originally written in 1948, and clearly shows the influence of then recent World War 2. All of the chapters have powerful arguments, especially "The Great Stereopticon," which exposes the propagandistic humanistic left-wing bent of the media (print, film, radio, and television) and the destruction laden on contemporary society by the different media outlets. Other important chapters are "The Spoiled-Child Psychology" (a discourse on materialism and sloth), and "The Power of the Word," a chapter on changing word usage through time and foreshadowing the destructive effects of modern 'politically correct' terminology.
This is an extremely weighty, dense book. I generally liked the contentions found within it, but found the stilted language somewhat annoying. As an example, consider this passage from the opening of the chapter titled "Piety and Justice", which is all too typical: "I would maintain that modern man is a parricide. He has taken up arms against, and has effectually slain, what former men have regarded as filial veneration." Until going to the dictionary I was unaware that a parricide was "one that murders his or her father, mother, or a close relative." Perhaps I should have known that, but my complaint is clear, reading this otherwise wonderful and informative book can be extremely tedious.
Having said that, I do recommend this book with the reservation that passages will need to be read and reread several times, and you will need to be prepared to consult a dictionary for words in English, French, German, Latin and Greek that you may not know. There are several amusing portions of the book, my favorite being the chapter in which he assaults Jazz as the music that will oversee the downfall of civilization. I only wish he could have lived to see Rap. The book as a whole is an amazingly accurate predictor of societal ills, amazing in their scope considering that it was written nearly 55 years ago.
Rating: 5
Summary: The Great Stereopticon
Comment: The Great Stereopticon is not the latest in digital CD player technology, but the latter is a medium of the former. Prof. Weaver's book, written in the late 1940s, with a Muse of fire, is still current, because the crisis in our civilization continues, and of that he wrote. The 'Great Stereopticon' is the term that Richard Weaver uses to describe the prevading noise generated by our culture, which nearly drowns out the still, small voice of truth, goodness, and virtue. The main point of the book is that ideas, in this case bad ones, can start in motion a train of events, which as they emerge from the world of thought, produce nasty and often unintended consequences. The author traces the decline of the core vision of Western civilization to the progressive divorce of Man and Nature that began with Bacon, and which has continued, as Scientism replaced Science. The momentum of the centuries has given this set of ideas great power and unthought acceptance that is prevasive in our society. The result is the rising tide of barbarism that is engulfing us. Technological progress has done great good, but has not made us better. Without wanting to summarize the author's arguments further, this is one of the seminal works in the Conservative canon, in the Southern Agrarian tradition. The book is not long, and is arranged in stand-alone chapters, which advance Prof. Weaver's argument and form a coherent whole. It is also a quick read, and is done in a superb, flowing style that does the treasurehouse of ideas contained in it justice.
Rating: 4
Summary: Weaver is right about many things but wrong too.
Comment: I admire the conviction of Mr. Weaver for attempting to diagnose what he considers to be the social ills affecting the west in the 20th century. It is often stated that history is simply progressive and that we should welcome reform for its inevitability. But principled conservatives have been arguing for generations that the reformist impulse is exactly that, an impulse. Perhaps we should be content to allow society to function without so many legal prescriptions and enable man to function as best he can, without the coercive influence of governmental fiat. Edmund Burke argued that the best things cannot be told, that constitutions may attempt to distill natural law and reflect the will of the divine; yet words and jurisprudence limit the universality of what is divine. Weaver follows this line of thinking and injects many of his own insights that help one understand so abstract a concept.
But Weaver is also, in my purview, mistaken. He criticizes jazz as an artform apparently lacking "a harmonious equilibrium between reason and sentiment." He draws this from an admonishment by one of jazz's defenders who argues that "jazz has no need of intelligence; it needs only feeling." This seems to me to be a poor justification for his critique. I also believe he overlooks the reason for jazz. Sentiment, oppression, the desire for hope and optimism under the most trying of circumstances brought about the "spiritual," so common in churches both black and white throughout the south. Man's desire to be closer to God was expressed in song and relied heavily upon feeling, but to call it simply feeling is to deny the very divine impulse many are so loath to define. Weaver is offering us a contradiction. He condemns an artform that relies on sentiment but does not bother to ask what the roots of the sentiment are. Because jazz was nurtured in the "dives of New Orleans" does not an artform unmake. Protest literature, artistic inspiration, and the trials of the saints all emerged from adverse circumstances.
Weaver also must not have been very acquainted with the sophistication of jazz, how musicians examined how the rules of music could be extended to render new sounds and new tonal, modal, and chordal ideas. Had he lived beyond the early 1950's he could have become acquainted with men like John Coltrane who choose to fuse many different musical traditions, both western and non, to use jazz as a means of pursuing a very personal spiritual quest. Coltrane himself linked jazz to atomic theory and theology, searching for a universal principle linking all things in nature. Thus, I would argue, Mr. Weaver never really understood jazz: his descriptions of it fall flat.
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Title: Visions of Order: The Cultural Crisis of Our Times by Richard Weaver ISBN: 1882926072 Publisher: Intercollegiate Studies Institute Pub. Date: 01 April, 1995 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
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Title: The Ethics of Rhetoric by Richard M. Weaver ISBN: 0961180021 Publisher: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Pub. Date: 01 July, 1985 List Price(USD): $22.50 |
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Title: The Road to Serfdom by F. A. Hayek ISBN: 0226320618 Publisher: University of Chicago Press Pub. Date: 01 September, 1994 List Price(USD): $9.48 |
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Title: In Defense of Tradition: Collected Shorter Writings of Richard M. Weaver, 1929-1963 by Richard M. Weaver, Ted J. Smith ISBN: 0865972834 Publisher: Liberty Fund Pub. Date: 01 March, 2001 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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Title: The Quest for Community: A Study in the Ethics of Order and Freedom (ICS Series in Self-Governance) by Robert Nisbet ISBN: 1558150587 Publisher: ICS Press Pub. Date: 01 May, 1990 List Price(USD): $21.95 |
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