Ideas Have Consequences

Not exactly what I thought it would be. Heard about this back in college and thought it would be more of an exposition on ideas, agency, morality, etc. Which it kind of was, but not in the way I thought.

Weaver's book was written just after WWII, so that needs to be taken into consideration. This book is focused mostly upon the author's ideas of "The decline of the West", which has been addressed by many others. I guess what disappointed me was that instead of focusing on the general theme that ideas have consequences, this book focused on what ideas (trends) the author feels contributed to the fall of western civilization.

Weaver's idea of the ideal society, seems to me anyway, to be a medieval monkish state of mind. Weird, huh? Probably a little too extreme. He seems to hate progress for progress's sake (which I agree with) but he also seems to hate progress in general. I'm not really sure how he determined what "should be" rather than embracing change and lobbying for a better take on it.

You can't just stop social change Mr. Weaver!

I did like the beginning of the book, that's why the three stars, but the end totally lost me and seemed to fall to disorganized pieces. Things that I agree with/found interesting in the beginning include:

1) Decay of culture/society is an "unintelligent choice" not a determined evolution

2) Modern man = a moral idiot. Mostly true.

3) Society now tends to enjoy the "obscene" (not meaning lewd, but rather as things that should remain hidden or censored in general) in the name of freedom, for sensationalism's sake

4) Specialization of various trades and jobs resulted in an increased desire for "facts" and less emphasis on "truth"

5) An undue emphasis in today's society for means rather than ends. Technology tends to say "because it can be done it should be done"

6)Modern man tends to think of consequences in terms of his "rights", not his "obligations".

7)Media strives to tell you what the answer is, aiming you at specific ideas, rather than presenting different sides, etc. Media creates controversy where none existed before.

These are all great points, but the author starts getting carried away. For example, he says that Jazz music is evil because it encourages egotism. Jazz is too "free" and is bad because it ignores structure (which I personally don't think it does) and encourages individual chaos. What? But then he contradicts himself by saying that the media is bad because it aims you at the means instead of the end. So Jazz is bad because it is too free, but media is bad because it's not? These concepts don't make much sense to me.

The author's reasoning for taking certain sides confused me for a long time. Eventually, I figured out that to the author, egotism is ALWAYS bad, no matter in what form. (Jazz solos encourage individual freedom from the structure of the music so they're bad because that's egotistic, etc.) But can't egotism be good sometimes? Isn't it okay to do some things for ourselves, for just the sake of wanting to do it? Rampant egotism is bad, I admit, but I think Ayn Rand would punch Mr. Weaver in the face if she ever got the chance.

Some good ideas, but the consequence of Weaver's particular ideas in this book would have to be confusion.

Mind blowing. He predicted a lot of things well. I could only absorb about 20 minutes a day, it was so dense. Months after reading it, I find myself thinking about some of what he said. There are so many interesting parts that I couldn't decide if I agreed with or not- but all great thoughts to entertain.

2024 Review

I originally read this ten years ago, along with Dostoyevsky’s “Demons”, and looking back I see these two books radically altered my outlook on the world. My previous review wasn’t bad, or least I don’t see anything that I seriously misread of Weaver; rather, I’m amused by how much I left out. Despite growing up Methodist, this book was probably the first real call to take our teleological ends seriously and that the continuation of civilization depends upon society at large taking those ends seriously. Yes, I read Plato much earlier, and I took much from it for my personal life, but I was in the “libertarian” mood at the time. I do not regret that, but their metaphysics leaves out much to be desired, and liberty is simply not sufficient to sustain human life. Neither is material wealth. What Weaver was saying was frankly brand new to me at the time, and while it jolted me into a different path, it was so alien at the time that I didn’t remember much of it later on. Rereading it, I’m seeing connections to MacIntrye, del Noce, Ortega y Gassett, Deneen, Guardini, Fulton Sheen, Fromm, Jung, Solzhenitsyn, and other writers who would not even have been on my radar at the time.

If I had to summarize this book, it would be that mankind has lost the plot and has no idea what to do now. There is no Good or Evil with capital letters, no Heaven or Hell to put oomph behind those terms; there is no spirituality, no nothing beyond the matter we are and can hold. With those assumptions, about the best we can do is have freedom to do what we want with the stuff that is us and accumulate as much stuff outside of us. Any restriction of culture or rank is labeled an evil. But as Patrick Deneen has rightly pointed out, we’ve maximized personal freedom and material consumption about as far as is humanly possible. Rather than Utopia, the result has been a century long mental health crisis. Weaver analyzed this seventy something years ago in the immediate aftermath of World War II. We’re starting to teeter out of control again and for the same reasons.

2014 Review

This was definitely an interesting book. It made me think. The theme in general is that individualism, materialism, and pop culture in general are destroying the teleological ends that we psychologically require to really function in this world. The Introduction and the chapter on The Great Stereopticon are definitely worth reading in full; in fact, the Introduction was incredible.

The organization could be clearer; there were large segments where I knew I had lost the forest from the trees, but at least the trees themselves were intriguing, and the fruit worth sampling. The thought of the behavioral sink and John B. Calhoun's famous experiment with mice definitely came up towards the end. Thomas Jefferson also popped into my head, as did Rousseau, and it made me wonder if yeoman farmer society is the only virtuous society that can exist. Though of course, we moved beyond that. Though he rips on egoism, I can't help but wonder what Weaver thought of Ayn Rand's characters. They are egoists in a blatantly material world, but their defining characteristic is not their material wealth but their respect for their own labor and that of others. One of my favorite fruits was that reading garbage may be worse than reading nothing at all.

Let me share a sapling that has grown in my mind from a seed of one tree in this book:

If my grandfather were still alive today, he would be turning 89 this month. As it was, he died back in the late 1980's. By no means rich and by no means poor, he would have been a great example of middle class rural people of his day. That was less than thirty years ago, but if he could wake up and look about him, I can't help but wonder whether he would recognize the place. Looking around me, I see a printer, a Kindle Fire, a cell phone that is a relic by our standards, people walking with iPhones, a flat-screen TV, cars with heated seats and cd players and navigational devices, and I type this all on a laptop. My grandfather didn't have any of these things, and couldn't have even had he been the wealthiest man on the planet, yet now even our poorest have most of these things.

The question is, was his life any worse off for not having those things?

Weaver would answer that those things have not made our lives any better because materialism does not give us any real standard to judge by. Yes, having certain things may be better than not having certain things, but "having things" itself gives us no real teleological end in life. There is no finish line at which you can say, I have X number of things, and so life is complete and meaningful. Objectively, you can always have more; it is a race without a finish line. When life becomes defined by what you possess, the only standard is a subjective one: how do I compare to everyone else?

Unfortunately, our pop culture and our pop politics revolve around that idea. There is an entire political ideology based on hating the top 1 or 2 percent of income earners. But imagine for a second those ideologues got their way and the top 1% of earners lose everything, 100% of their wealth is taken from them. Guess what? The percentile under them is now the top 1%. Yes, let's imagine all of that money went to the poorest (not that it ever would, but best case scenario). As I already pointed out, objectively increasing their wealth doesn't move them nearer to a satisfied life, because again there is no objective quantity at which we say this is sufficient and my life now has meaning due to my material possessions. It's relative.

And so against this perpetual relativity we end up with a perpetual hatred that both poisons our politics and our ethics. Ironically, everyone's wealth has gone up, but just about everyone thinks they have less than my grandfather did. We have more, but feel poorer and less happy.

Notes (2024 reading)

1.tIntroduction
a.t“Another book about the dissolution of the West”
i.tThis is not a recent notion (jung, fromm, sheen, etc)
b.tAssumptions: the world is knowable and we are free to choose.
c.tModern man a moral idiot
i.tSimilar to MacIntrye
d.t“For four centuries every man has become his own priest, his own professor of ethics”…chaos followed
e.tFlows from the defeat of realism
f.tNominalism his great foe
g.tTo make man the measure of all things is to deny the existence of truth
h.tStudy of nature removed the forms; no original sin; all problems now a mechanical problem to be solved scientifically, included those of society.
i.tNo teleology remains
j.tBleeds over into words, which now lack any distinct meaning; up for grabs for redefinition
k.t“actors who have forgotten their roles”
l.tForgetting forms, we now assume multiplicity of facts = intelligence
i.tTwitter genius…
m.tForgetting duties and God, we have only consumption to live by, which by definition cannot be satisfied
n.tOur age is uniquely neurotic

2.tUnsentimental Sentiment
a.tIf Philosophy begins with wonder, then sentiment precedes reason
b.tCulture has to be constantly reaffirmed and jealously guarded
i.tThere is no return
c.tTo recognize purpose is to be dignified; we suffer, but not in vain
d.tTragic element of life is real
i.tNot all philosophies can explain it, but it certainly exists
e.tNeed of poetry and symbols to decipher tragedy and purpose, to move beyond the mere matter in front of us at this particular moment in time
f.tTo do so makes us a part of eternity, something much larger than the mundane
g.tStyle- requires measure, which gives it structure- not just random noise
i.tSee Guardini on the Mass
h.tTo despiritualize things is the act of a barbarian; also, the “common midwestern American”
i.tObscenity- that which we should not witness, should be private. The extremes of life are not meant to be a breakfast entertainment (his example newspapers, ours Twitter)
i.tFar more than sex; death increasingly a public spectacle to our determent
j.tDecay of sentiments followed quickly by decay of relationships; he who abandons his ancestors will also abandon his descendants (quote on pg 28 is solid)
i.tAnd they did
k.tThe ultimo ratio not as a cannon, but as a man with a principle to life and die for, the last protector of reason
i.tOrtega y Gassett was similar; there comes a point when you cannot reason with someone who denies all that makes life possible; force has to be the answer then
l.tWithout the metaphysical background, “our intensities turn to senseless affection and drain us, or to hatreds and consume us.”
m.tThose who fight for the unintelligence of sentimentality will fight with the brutality of the unintelligent
n.tWe need reason and faith; our age does not even know what the latter is
i.tMacIntyre

3.tDistinction and Hierarchy
a.tLogos must be translated into society to even have a society; by nature hierarchical, rational ordering if different pieces. Equality is not mandatory here and likely destructive
b.tBourgeois capitalism the bastard child of socialism
i.tBeats Del Noce to the punch
c.tEquality does not satisfy the deep meaning for life; fraternity would require the duties of brotherhood, which we will not endure (we merely have the cheap name, not the reality)
d.tSuch duties impose standards, which in turn give us meaning. To fulfill your role (wherever on the ranking) is the path to fulfillment, not necessarily moving up the chain
e.tTeleology requires “freedom to” not merely freedom from
i.tContra Berlin
f.t“The mere notion of infinite progress is destructive”- there’s nothing to actually achieve with this
i.tSee St. Bonaventure and the fallacy of the infinite potentiality

4.tFragmentation and Obsession
a.tPhilosophers as guardians of civ- to know the deeper things
b.tReplaced by the gentleman- a secularized version, but without an actual foundation for his principles
c.tWithout the spiritual foundation, the virtues became a matter of inertia; impressive at first, but bound to fade over generations
d.tAgainst specialization: the need for a well rounded man to lead us
i.tSimilar to Deneen here
e.tWithout this foundation, nothing to base judgement; call to accept whatever cultural differences
i.tWeaver literally says this will emasculate the future; incredibly clearsighted call here
f.tSanity demands purpose, a teleological end
i.tCompare with Fromm
g.tA culture of becoming over being is a pointless race
h.tWe need to recenter, not necessarily “return”
i.tRejects to going back/going forward dichotomy entirely; probably a wise decision

5.tEgotism in Work and Art
a.tFragmented worldview denying absolute truths---egotism takes over as we are the only source of “truth”
b.tRights, but not responsibilities, becomes the only measure
i.tThe latter implies obligations upon us from a source other than us, which modernity denies
c.tEgotists with only rights and no duties cannot form a community
i.tDuties, obligations, roles are essential to a community; even the word communicate and commune indicate this interpersonal relationship beyond mere asserting rights
d.tEven good causes ruined by this egotism; labor movement can find nothing more to justify itself than wanting more material goods, the exact same thing management wants
e.tDefinitely not a defender of large businesses
f.tTo consume becomes one of the few measures left to us to define success, a measure that cannot be met and doomed to failure, with corresponding psychological problems manifesting in political problems
g.tIn Art- rejecting the intellect as that imposes obligations and style
h.tSentimental romanticism- we’re all good, just misled
i.tFalls apart very quickly when it hits reality
i.tPg 83: if egotism reigns, our political damnation must quickly follow. The empty promises cannot be met and wouldn’t matter even if they were.
i.tThe Suicide of the West. No amount of wealth or status is going to save us.

6.tThe Great Stereopticon
a.tA society that has lost its common goal and replaced it with a hundred million “self-realizations” is in serious trouble.
i.tThe self realization of even a few almost certain excludes it for the rest; the answer ends up being eliminating those people, and that is not a few people, even percentage wise. Politically it ends up with factions lining up to destroy each other literally for that very purpose; if they could actually achieve it, they would be disappointed and have to do it again. Orwell saw this, so did the fellow who wrote War Against the West.
b.tLacking any actual values, we end up having to be force fed it through propaganda.
c.tThe undeserved deification of authors
d.tNewspapers thrive on conflict; that is what they will report and try to generate with their reporting
i.tTwitter is exactly this; it does not reflect reality, but tries to manipulate reality to keep people coming back to the site.
e.tMovies were just as destructive to morals as they are today; if anything, they were more clever about it
f.tRadio; the cheery report after the slaughter of millions. Emotional whiplash followed by numbness
i.tExactly so with the Internet; one can see and hear ungodly things and then go to supper with the family. Everyday. Hard to keep a moral center like that.
g.tJournalists and experts determine their status by the number of facts they know, not by reference to Truth
i.tAgain, fake sense of knowledge coming off seeing many things on news/Twitter
h.tPg 99-100: Totalitarianism as the end result of the madness sprung from Romanticism and Humanism (a great paragraph)

7.tThe Spoiled Child Psychology
a.tFocus on nature makes us expect spatial/temporal paradise; Stereopticon convinced us achieving it should be easy
i.tHere is the root of the problem from Jung and Fromm, also Sheen
b.t“he [man] is being prepared for that disillusionment and resentment which lay behind the mass psychosis of fascism.”
c.t“Extinction of the idea of a mission” ****
d.tBeing a hero is difficult, hard.
i.tWe can cheapen the title but not the fact

8.tThe Last Metaphysical Right
a.t“driving a wedge between the material and the transcendental”
i.tDangerous ground here; Gnosticism
b.tPrivate property as the last remaining right
i.tUgh
c.tNot a mere mouthpiece of capitalism; absolutely blasts finance capitalism as dividing ownership from individuals
i.tHe is right about this; stocks and bonds are not the same thing as the land one works or the material one shapes.
d.tHe sees private property as our last refuge against an omnipotent state
i.tSolzhenitsyn would disagree; see A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, “by being rid of property you are truly free”
e.tProperty, real property, as a necessary cure to the “mass” man.
i.tI’m on board with him here. Small communities provide both things, space (and limits), and roles for people. Cities don’t.
f.t“It is likely…that human society cannot exist without some resource of sacredness. Those states which have sought openly to remove it have tended in the end to assume divinity themselves.” ***
g.tAttack on religion is an attack on the mind; no moral certitude leads to lack of moral clarity. Goodness and truth are linked; to deny one is to abandon the other.

9.tThe Power of the Word
a.tMetaphysical community requires intelligible communication between men
b.tInstead of words indicating what things are, nominalism replaced it with words are signs. Ideas lack reality now outside of our psychology.
c.tThe ability to make judgement is important.
d.tPositivism can neither provide an “ought” to decide moral issues nor provide charity towards opponents
e.tSymbolism a powerful force built up over generations; not “logical” but not wrong, either. Against mere experientialism
f.tMan needs both the poetic and the logical, and understand how to apply both
g.t“Poetry offers us the best hope of restoring our lost unity of mind.”

10.tPiety and Justice
a.tThe great offense of modern man: impiety
b.tPiety: discipline of the will to respect, in particular nature, neighbors, and the past
c.tTo be a member of a community, have to be able to empathize with others; requires a measure of imagination and compassion
d.tThis is the key to checking totalitarianism and fanaticism: a respect for something beyond oneself
e.tWithout obligations (which we forgot), rights become meaningless, too.
f.tPersonality: an individual substance tied into a community. Individualism has the former, not the latter, but the latter is vital
g.t“Now that we have unchained forces of unpredictable magnitude, all that keeps the world from chaos are certain patterns, ill understood and surviving through force of inertia. Once these disappear, and we lack even and adventitious basis for unity, nothing separates us from the fifth century A.D.”
h.t“It may be that we are awaiting a great change, that the sins of the fathers are going to be visited upon the generations until the reality of evil is again brought home and there comes some passionate reaction, like that which flowered in the chivalry and spirituality of the Middle Ages. If such is the most we can hope for, something toward that revival may be prepared by acts of thought and volition in this waning day of the West.”

"As ideias têm consequências" de Weaver foi publicado em 1948 e é considerado uma das principais obras do pensamento conservador americano da segunda metade do século XX.
Weaver busca apresentar as causas da desintegração moderna da cultura ocidental. Essa desintegração se deve, para o autor, a escolhas arbitrárias e à decadência moral.
O autor entende que o início da desintegração se deu com o nominalismo de Ockham e sua negação dos universais. A realidade passou a ser percebida pelos sentidos e concebeu-se que não havia verdades objetivas ou universais. Surgiu, em seguida, um racionalismo sobre fatos e negaram-se valores universais.
Na modernidade, o materialismo e o planejamento social aboliram a liberdade humana. O homem foi lançado no abismo enquanto buscava luz por meio de medidas pontuais e pela força do Estado. A linguagem e a educação foram desvirtuadas e o homem se tornou cada vez mais amoral. A ênfase nos particulares levou à perda da dimensão dos universais e da objetividade da moralidade.
Esse livro figura, em termos de influência, ao lado de "A mentalidade conservadora" de Kirk, a "Nova Ciência Política" de Voegelin, dentre outros, que influenciaram profundamente o conservadorismo americano.
Ainda assim, o livro tem muitas generalizações filosóficas, tem uma visão ultrapassada sobre a relação entre indivíduos e meios de comunicação (não havia redes sociais) e uma visão significativamente antiquada sobre o papel das mulheres na sociedade.
A preocupação de restaurar a ordem, entretanto, é notável à medida que mostra as consequências de uma era secular sem transcendência.

I was drawn into this audiobook from the very beginning. I actually listened to it it twice to let Weaver's ideas sink in a little deeper, as it is a short book that runs through a lot of material very quickly. Weaver censures the moral decay of modern man, citing technology, urbanization, and media journalism as the primary culprits of modern man's fall from grace. This idea is incredibly relevant to today's times, despite the fact that the book was written shortly after World War II. Technology and urbanization has created an artificial barrier between man and nature - we are quick to assume that humans are conquerers of the natural world due to the tools we have forged to manipulate it. But we forget that we are born from the natural world, a part of it, and cannot supersede it, in spite of our gadgets. The media, or as Weaver puts it, the great Stereopticon, has narrowed our focus on facts, insulating us from our ancestor's spiritual pursuit of truth.

The rise of gargantuan cities and metropolises have shortened our memories of the past, and lead to a heightened culture of self-obsession and egotism. Weaver's book is ominous, as these shifts in our attitudes towards ourselves and each other may weigh gravely on the future of Western civilization.

This remains provocative and erudite to modern readers. It's a pithy indictment of adverse (for the human condition) developments in Western thought, tracing the original sin all the way back to nominalism. I think Weaver is profoundly wrong on many points yet his dissent raises important contradictions that Western consciousness has yet to resolve. Of course, Western civilization has demonstrated that it can progress and thrive under this shared cognitive dissonance so it's unclear exactly how impactful ideas actually are.

I also agree with Weaver's position that the title forced upon the book is "hopelessly banal" though as a punchy cliche it captures the intellectual spirit that animates its social critique.

Is it possible for a book to be incredibly insightful and dreadfully boring? Weaver answers the question with a forceful proof that an insightful-bore is fully possible.

Where do we go from here? I guess I'll never know; if there is a sequel, it will not be on my reading list.

Excellent. Will definitely read it again.