Order from a Major Online Bookstore
Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine
Save Your Time And Money
| AnyBook4Less.com | Order from a Major Online Bookstore |
|
| Home | Store List | FAQ | Contact Us | | ||
| Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine Save Your Time And Money |
||
 |
Title: Visions of Order: The Cultural Crisis of Our Times by Richard Weaver ISBN: 1-882926-07-2 Publisher: Intercollegiate Studies Institute Pub. Date: 01 April, 1995 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4 (3 reviews)
Rating: 3
Summary: Know Thyself
Comment: Weaver began Ideas Have Consequences with "This is another book about the dissolution of the west," but the line could just as easily have introduced Visions of Order, his take on cultural crisis. For Weaver, what was at stake in civilization was intellect, specifically an idea system called a world view. Because he saw intellect as the driving force, he directed his efforts at defining what ideas sustained a civilization and what ideas set it on decline.
In this book, Weaver set up polar opposites that often resulted in oversimplification and false dichotomy. He preferred "either-or" to "both-and" thinking. Thus he divided the world into two competing world views -- spiritual versus material -- and as he approached a topic, he placed it under the appropriate column. That kind of thinking may work for the accountant or lawyer but for the "doctor of culture" that he imagined himself to be it meant all kinds of omissions.
After defining culture, Weaver outlined some of its enemies: overemphasis of function over status, immanentizing of social forms, total war, public education, and evolution. The real enemy, though, appears to be science, which Weaver believed diminished man and his sense of himself as a spiritual being. A proponent of mind over matter, he feared science put limits on man's free will, and on his spreadsheet of values free will was a purely spiritual attribute. This sounds like the libertarian fallacy that freedom is absolute and ought never to be circumscribed. Perhaps there exists a utopia where one can do and say whatever one pleases, but I have not seen such a place.
Weaver the English professor was wrong to oppose literature to science because science is as much a part of the classical quest "to know thyself" as Pope's statement that the proper study of mankind is man. While genetics determines that there will be only one Michael Jordan, it still leaves one free to become a decent basketball player. While astronomy has judged that man is no longer the center of the universe, it has left untouched the notion that life on Earth is unique and mysterious. While neurobiology has uncovered the influence of brain chemistry on behavior, it has by no means relegated man to the status of pawn; man remains free to seek treatment and to live according to the knowledge of his limitations. Science (but not only science) could have proved to Weaver the narrowness of his entire approach: Man is not merely the sum of his ideas. Even rarer is that person who holds a rational and coherent world view.
Anyone who thinks that mystery and complexity have been diminished by science needs to take a look at the discoveries made during the past several decades in both the micro- and macro scale. Astronomy, quantum physics, and neurobiology have re-affirmed a pluralistic, mysterious universe. Rather than signal decline, these affirmations of variety could just as easily encourage prudence and humility -- and cultural invigoration. Yet Weaver remained pessimistic, convinced that every gain in science meant a corresponding loss in religion.
Weaver's dread of "machine culture" overlooked environmentalism, which existed since the turn of the century as a measured response to industrialization. Theodore Roosevelt created the national park system, Eisenhower created ANWR, Nixon created the EPA, Russell Kirk praised Rachel Carson's Silent Spring and lamented the loss of countryside ("what an age without veneration does to itself"). These were acts by conservative Republicans, but Weaver missed them too.
There is much to admire in this book: the need for equilibrium between rhetoric and dialectic; his dislike of war without limitation; and his description of the role that memory and sense of place play in identity and culture. He would have benefitted from applying the conservative's sense of proportion to his superficial critique of science.
Rating: 4
Summary: Still about ideas
Comment: The previous reviewer writes that Weaver overlooks the fact that there are other factors besides ideas that influence culture. However, when the reviewer goes on the list these other things, it appears that they are just aspects or even synonyms of what "ideas" mean. His review, therefore, overlooks the fact that ideas have various aspects, but they are still ideas, and thus although his review betrays a lack of understanding in this area, it does not challenge Weaver's book at all.
Rating: 5
Summary: Weaver's clearest argumentation on conservatism
Comment: This book marks the third in Weaver's series, following Ideas Have Consequences and The Ethics of Rhetoric. Some of his arguments here are similar, but he communicates them much more clearly in this volume. Visions of Order also contains some of his best writing. His essays The Cultural Role of Rhetoric and Gnostics of Education both eloquently expound an orginal insight that complements his work very well. Weaver writes about the problem of modern liberalism. He sites areas where liberal thought rejects the notions of culture and form, and he defends the order in conservative communities which he feels best provide a home for man.
 |
Title: Ideas Have Consequences by Richard M. Weaver ISBN: 0226876802 Publisher: University of Chicago Press Pub. Date: 01 May, 1984 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
 |
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 |
 |
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 |
 |
Title: Language Is Sermonic: Richard M. Weaver on the Nature of Rhetoric by Richard M. Weaver, Richard L. Johannesen, Rennard Strickland ISBN: 0807112216 Publisher: Louisiana State University Press Pub. Date: 01 August, 1985 List Price(USD): $17.95 |
 |
Title: Christianity and Culture by T. S. Eliot ISBN: 0156177358 Publisher: Harvest Books Pub. Date: 01 June, 1960 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
Thank you for visiting www.AnyBook4Less.com and enjoy your savings!
Copyright� 2001-2021 Send your comments
