Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Unavailable
    Ideas Have Consequences: Expanded Edition
    Unavailable
    Ideas Have Consequences: Expanded Edition
    Unavailable
    Ideas Have Consequences: Expanded Edition
    Ebook265 pages5 hours

    Ideas Have Consequences: Expanded Edition

    By Richard M. Weaver, Roger Kimball and Ted J. Smith

    4.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    Originally published in 1948, at the height of post–World War II optimism and confidence in collective security, Ideas Have Consequences uses “words hard as cannonballs” to present an unsparing diagnosis of the ills of the modern age. Widely read and debated at the time of its first publication,the book is now seen asone of the foundational texts of the modern conservative movement.

    In its pages, Richard M. Weaver argues that the decline of Western civilization resulted from the rising acceptance of relativism over absolute reality. In spite of increased knowledge, this retreat from the realist intellectual tradition has weakened the Western capacity to reason, with catastrophic consequences for social order and individual rights. But Weaver also offers a realistic remedy. These difficulties are the product not of necessity, but of intelligent choice. And, today, as decades ago, the remedy lies in the renewed acceptance of absolute reality and the recognition that ideas—like actions—have consequences.

    This expanded edition of the classic work contains a foreword by New Criterion editor Roger Kimball that offers insight into the rich intellectual and historical contexts of Weaver and his work and an afterword by Ted J. Smith III that relates the remarkable story of the book’s writing and publication.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherUniversity of Chicago Press
    Release dateNov 4, 2013
    ISBN9780226090238
    Unavailable
    Ideas Have Consequences: Expanded Edition
    Author

    Richard M. Weaver

    Richard M. Weaver taught for nearly two decades at the University of Chicago before his death in 1963. A student under both John Crowe Ransom and Cleanth Brooks, Weaver was a well-known adherent of the Southern Agrarian school of social criticism. His books and essays have established him as one of the most important and influential philosophers of the twentieth century.

    Read more from Richard M. Weaver

    Related to Ideas Have Consequences

    Related ebooks

    Philosophy For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Wokefornia

      Oct 23, 2020

      Wokefornia
      3 min read

    • Article

      To Destroy America

      Sep 1, 2020

      To Destroy America
      6 min read

    • Article

      Sinclair Lewis, American Prophet

      Mar 6, 2017

      It Can’t Happen Here, a 1935 novel about the rise of a fascist government in America has been garnering plenty of attention post-election, but even as it muscles its way onto bestseller lists and inspires think pieces in publications like the New Yor

      8 min read

    • Article

      An Archaeological Inquest

      Sep 1, 2022

      An Archaeological Inquest
      7 min read

    • Article

      Thought Experimenters

      Sep 1, 2023

      We tend to think of philosophers as solitary creatures. Whether it be Diogenes or Socrates, Spinoza or Rousseau, Thoreau or Nietzsche, the philosopher is by necessity a loner. Several recent books, however, remind us that philosophers can also travel

      4 min read

    • Article

      Forward Thinkers

      Oct 9, 2023

      by Wolfram Eilenberger (Allen Lane, $65 hb) is out now in ebook and in hardback on October 10. Every era has its defining questions that animate the self and the world, and in the 20th century, such questions of philosophy in the Western world were f

      4 min read

    • Article

      Freedom of Thought

      Mar 4, 2019

      Oxford University Press, 220 pp., $18.95 REAL PRESIDENTS READ BOOKS. When the Library of Congress was destroyed in the War of 1812, the former president Thomas Jefferson offered his collection to replace it, commenting that “I do not know that it co

      4 min read

    • Article

      Credo

      Apr 26, 2019

      Credo
      2 min read

    • Article

      Literary Deaths of 2022

      Dec 29, 2022

      In 2022, we mourned the deaths of many literary giants who remained under-celebrated in their lifetimes. These are some of them. With his eye patch and no-bullshit demeanor, Andrew Vachss was a man on a mission. He was an author of hard-boiled fictio

      13 min read

    • Article

      How We Came Together

      Jun 1, 2020

      How We Came Together
      5 min read

    • Article

      Letters

      Feb 24, 2022

      I’m a fan of Jonathan Meades, but his piece on Welsh and Wales was a nasty mix of cliché, minority-bashing, cultural snobbery and factual inaccuracy. He knows neither the country nor anything of the past and present life of the Welsh language. He doe

      3 min read

    Reviews for Ideas Have Consequences

    4.5/5

    67 ratings5 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 5/5
      As meaningful, insightful and brilliant as it was in 1948. After experiencing a year of 2020 that saw a pandemic, lockdowns, social distancing, zooming, riots, media manipulation, bureaucratic mandates, the collapse of a reality tv celebrity president and other delights, Weaver’s essay feels more prophetic than ever.
    • 5/5
      Of all the books I've read in my life, this one has radicalized my view of western culture and America in every way possible. Weaver's writing style is fervent and raging with the obvious intent of assisting the minds of his readers in the hopes true progress be made. This book has influenced my thinking profoundly, and I highly recommend that everyone, Americans in particular, spend the time to read and ponder the points Weaver makes.
    • 3/5
      Tightly-written short book on the philosophical origins of the postwar traditionalist conservative movement in the United States. Weaver opens by stating in a matter-of-fact tone that "this is another book about the dissolution of the West." Weaver attacks moral relativism insistently, suggesting that the "denial of everything transcending experience means inevitably…the denial of truth. With the denial of objective truth there is no escape from the relativism of ‘man is the measure of all things.'"
    • 5/5
      For a long time I was looking to read this book. I received a lecture on it about twenty years ago and since then the motto "ideas have consequences" have influenced my worldview. It is an amazing book and deserve our reading!

      1 person found this helpful

    • 1/5
      This is, quite simply, a dreadful book to read. It's philosophical in nature; Weaver asserts a cause for the evils in society (back in the 40's or so), attempts to prove his assertion, and then offers a solution. It's full of terms and word meanings that are not common to those not already immersed in philosophy, and he makes no attempt to accommodate the new reader. And his solution doesn't really match his stated problem, so the book is even of questionable value. I really can't recommend it, except to those who are diehard fans of philosophy.