At some point, one gets tired of hearing conservative intellectuals pronounce solemnly in their speeches, "Ideas have consequences." Well, yes, ideas do have consequences. But what ideas and what consequences? And where does the fequently incanted phrase come from? Seldom--almost never--is one told, as speakers rush on to declaim, say, for spending cuts or a strong defense.
In fact, the phrase is the title of a seminal work of modern traditional conservative thought, Richard Weaver's Ideas Have Consequences. First published in 1948, Ideas and subsequent Weaver books and essays, especially The Ethics of Rhetoric (1953), influenced the young Bill Buckley and inspired generations of still younger conservatives in such groups as the Intercollegiate Studies Institute.
These days Weaver's Ideas appears to be cited almost infinitely more often than it is read, and that's a pity. Likewise Weaver's other books and essays.
My colleague David Klinghoffer not only has read extensively in Weaver, but also has enlisted the philosopher's ghost in the battle against Darwinism. Weaver correctly saw Darwinism as an idea with profoundest consequences. How odd it is that he and some other notable conservatives fifty or so years ago (C.S. Lewis, Irving Kristol, Whittacker Chambers, Bill Buckley) could see the scientific flaws in Darwin's theory, and the philosophy of materialism behind the theory, while so many conservative public intellectuals today quietly seek appeasement.
Start with David's first post and work your way forward through the second, third, fourth, fifth and sixth entries. Then check-out Weaver yourself.
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