Books in Brief: Ideas Have Consequences

Ideas Have Consequences, by Richard M. Weaver (Chicago, 190 pp., $6.95, paper)

In 1948 Richard M. Weaver examined the saturnalia that is Western civilization and concluded, “For four centuries every man has been not only his own priest but his own professor of ethics, and the consequence is an anarchy which threatens even that minimum of value necessary to the political state.” Through our own unintelligent choices we have abandoned our belief in transcendental values and thus fallen prey to “a falsified picture of the world” characterized by materialism, by “the steady obliteration of those distinctions which create society,” and by an egotism which assumes that “man’s destiny in the world is not to perfect himself but to lean back in sensual enjoyment.” Like spoiled children we suffer from an incapacity to think beyond the limits of our own sovereign wills. Nor was Mr. Weaver optimistic about our prospects for redemption; “restoration comes at a price,” which Western Man—who has been cut off from “ ‘real’ reality” by his self-absorption—may not be willing to pay. Fundamental to any reformation is a “driving afresh of the wedge between the material and the transcendental,” followed by the recognition that “comfort may be a seduction and that the fetish of material prosperity will have to be pushed aside in favor of some sterner ideal.” Finally we must “see the necessity of accepting duties before [we] begin to talk of freedoms.” These are hard words, not at all in keeping with the modern temper, but they are as true now as when they were first written. If Western Man can find within himself the humility to admit that his most fundamental assumptions about the world and his place in it have gone seriously wrong, there may still be hope for him. If he cannot, it may remain for him “to learn the truth along some via dolorosa,” at a cost we cannot begin to calculate. The University of Chicago Press, in reprinting this distinguished small book, has performed a great literary service.

CS

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Carl R. Schmahl

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Ideas Have Consequences, by Richard M. Weaver (Chicago, 190 pp., $6.95, paper)

In 1948 Richard M. Weaver examined the saturnalia that is Western civilization and concluded, “For four centuries every man has been not only his own priest but his own professor of ethics, and the consequence is an anarchy which threatens even that minimum of value necessary to the political state.” Through our own unintelligent choices we have abandoned our belief in transcendental values and thus fallen prey to “a falsified picture of the world” characterized by materialism, by “the steady obliteration of those distinctions which create society,” and by an egotism which assumes that “man’s destiny in the world is not to perfect himself but to lean back in sensual enjoyment.” Like spoiled children we suffer from an incapacity to think beyond the limits of our own sovereign wills. Nor was Mr. Weaver optimistic about our prospects for redemption; “restoration comes at a price,” which Western Man—who has been cut off from “ ‘real’ reality” by his self-absorption—may not be willing to pay. Fundamental to any reformation is a “driving afresh of the wedge between the material and the transcendental,” followed by the recognition that “comfort may be a seduction and that the fetish of material prosperity will have to be pushed aside in favor of some sterner ideal.” Finally we must “see the necessity of accepting duties before [we] begin to talk of freedoms.” These are hard words, not at all in keeping with the modern temper, but they are as true now as when they were first written. If Western Man can find within himself the humility to admit that his most fundamental assumptions about the world and his place in it have gone seriously wrong, there may still be hope for him. If he cannot, it may remain for him “to learn the truth along some via dolorosa,” at a cost we cannot begin to calculate. The University of Chicago Press, in reprinting this distinguished small book, has performed a great literary service.