Conservative Fusion Book Club: Ideas Have Consequences by Richard Weaver

by Gene Wisdom, organizer of Conservative Fusion

One of the mega-influences of the early post-war conservative movement, Weaver's book was considered by Frank Meyer (who developed the idea of the fusion of conservatism's strands) as "the fons et origo (source and origin) of the contemporary American conservative movement." As such, I don't know why it sat in my library unread for so many years! Powerful in its arguments, it set the tone for much of the development of conservative thinking. Its subject is "the dissolution of the West". I hope you'll find time to read it soon. You can find it at http://www.amazon.com/Ideas-Have-Consequenc.... Looking forward to seeing you there! 

There is still time to purchase and read the book, but not much This is a short book at only about 180 pages but it is not a quick easy read. You have to think about what you are reading and I have found my self rereading passages to make sure I understood the content.  

The Book Club will meet Wednesday, May 9, 2012, 7:00 PM
Location to be announced. For more information follow this link: http://www.meetup.com/ConservativeFusion

You are invited to join other conservatives and libertarians is civil discussion of serious books and an occasional debate.   Conservative Fusion meets once a month, meeting  in the home of one of the group members. The organizer and leader of this group is Gene Wisdom. Previous books read and discussed by this book club have included The Law by Frederic Bastiat, The Conservative Intellectual Movement in America Since 1945 by George Nash, Liberal Fascism by Jonah Goldberg,  In Defense of Freedom by Frank S. Meyer, The Road to Serfdom by F. A. Hayek, and Economics in One Lesson by Henry Hazlitt. 

Below is a review of Ideas Have Consequences:

John Caneday's review

 

This book is a marvel. It is an intrusion of a bygone era into the miasma of modernity. It is no wonder that the left loathes Weaver. His is a prophetic voice of denunciation against the tides of modernity assaulting human dignity and personhood.

Weaver argues that the Nominalism of William of Occam has opened the floodgates of relativism, egotism, and sentimentality upon the West, with little traction left for a revival of traditional values.

This is a remarkably dense book. His sentences are a mouthful, let alone a mindful. There is so much there. Take your time with this one and you'll be well rewarded. Just don't jump to the conclusion that he's a hopelessly irrelevant conservative and that our age knows better than the vision of tradition that Weaver so admires.

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