“Ideas Have Consequences,”^[1] authored by Richard Weaver, investigates the etiology of modern man and attempts to alleviate his condition, requiring the reclamation of what constitutes his essence.

He does this in the context of the West’s dissolution, but the disruptiveness imposed by the heresies against objective truth—one recognizing a hierarchy of truth and an orderly address in case of an issue—accords itself to a ubiquitous expanse.

If one is looking for a quick overview, I request that they check out other resources available online. This is because I aim to present a commentary on this work such that it emphasizes certain issues in the context of society, accounting for contemporary developments. Weaver’s work centers around abstract inquiry and is something that can be given its tribute by making sure to engage with it on such a basis as opposed to a static interpretation.

Actions have consequences, but not all are instinctual. Therefore, it is true that man’s actions are predicated on an idea, whether it originates within the mind, an external entity, or an amalgamation of both. The genesis of an idea may well be followed by its leveling, but many others, with their proclivity, demand to be expressed.

What do we call those who renounce such mental faculty and its application? It would certainly not be hyperbole to state that one descends to an animal-like disposition, surviving off primitive impulses—constituting instinct and “learned” behaviors.

In his introduction, Weaver states, “The practical result of nominalist philosophy is to banish the reality that is perceived by the intellect and to posit as reality that which is perceived by the senses.”

He specifically traces the decline of the West to the nominalist philosophy propounded by William of Occam, and by indicating one such point in history, he has become subject to criticism. Here it should be noted that his work is not undermined even if he is found guilty of oversimplification; this is because modern man and the “mass” that exists in place of society have swerved from transcendental ideals that have in recent times been abandoned in favor of relativism, reductionism, and individualism, among others.

It is for this reason that he states, “One may be accused here of oversimplifying the historical process, but I take the view that the conscious policies of men and governments are not mere rationalizations of what has been brought about by unaccountable forces. They are rather deductions from our most basic ideas of human destiny, and they have a great, though not unobstructed, power to determine our course.” It is due to this philosophical assertion that the crux of his assessment maintains its basis, reinforced with:

“For four centuries, every man has been not only his own priest but his own professor of ethics, and the consequence is an anarchy that threatens even that minimum consensus of value necessary to the political state.”

A quote worthy of promotion with red beaming from his eyes serves as the anchor of the work, which may otherwise be slandered as unkempt.

Even if William of Occam cannot be held entirely accountable, it would not damage Weaver’s position simply because man being subject to perverse thought and reasoning is not avant-garde; rather, the issue lies with the operation of man and its organized form being subverted with the adoption of gross relativism; this was observed in the case of the French Revolution as well, so temporal objections by themselves hold no ground.

The shift is expressed in C.S. Lewis’s “Abolition of Man,” ^[2] where he states,

“A theorist about language may approach his native tongue as if it were from outside, regarding its genius as something that has no claim on him and advocating wholesale alterations of its idiom and spelling in the interests of commercial convenience or scientific accuracy. That is one thing. A great poet who has ‘loved and been well nurtured in his mother tongue’, may also make great alterations in it, but his changes of the language are made in the spirit of the language itself: he works from within. It is the difference between alteration from within and alteration from without, between the organic and the surgical. From the Confucian ‘Do not do to others what you would not like them to do to you’ to the Christian ‘Do as you would be done by’ is a real advance. The morality of Nietzsche is a mere innovation.”

This “Nietzschean ethic”—one where value judgments are rendered groundless—is critiqued in his book, divided into the following chapters:

1. The Unsentimental Sentiment
2. Distinction and Hierarchy
3. Fragmentation and Obsession
4. Egotism in Work and Art
5. The Great Stereopticon
6. The Spoiled-Child Psychology
7. The Last Metaphysical Right
8. The Power of the Word
9. Piety and justice

The transition to the first chapter is based on:

“The denial of universals carries with it the denial of everything transcending experience.”

This, according to him, consecutively led to or implied:

1. Scientific insights into nature
2. Abandonment of the unintelligibility of nature
3. Abandonment of original sin
4. Adoption of rationalism
5. Rationalism is dependent on nature-associated evidence.
6. Undermining of religion
7. Materialism
8. Psychological behaviorism

If we are to assess the above, point one is not wrong, and insights from such aren’t inherently opposed to the traditional inclinations of man. However, owing to the admixture of points two and three, we have gotten an output such that man’s shortcomings are taken to be entirely a product of ignorance or anything within the limits of sense, prompting their solutions to be addressed accordingly.

Point 4 seems straightforward, but its place in sequence only contradicts what C.S. Lewis states: “No emotion is, in itself, a judgment; in that sense, all emotions and sentiments are alogical. But they can be reasonable or unreasonable as they conform to reason or fail to conform. The heart never takes the place of the head, but it can and should obey it.”

Point five makes the question of anything beyond nature preposterous. This ironical implication is that it demarcates man to make in theory only empirical observations but never to express anything on what that observation entails for his experience.

The last three particularly subvert society because one could still have a society and standards if the first five stayed within their private domains, but that is impossible when “as Bacon declared in the New Atlantis, a means to dominion.” With such an approach, it was not long before God became bound with the personal and nature through deism, producing an offspring—” spiritual but not religious” (not mentioned by Weaver) nonsense, which ultimately destroys standards and therefore accountability. For those who are irreligious and are cringing, one could replace that term with abstract inquiry outside the bounds of the empirical domain.

This defenestration of abstract inquiry makes one closer to an animal, which some people take pride in, but I digress. This sets in motion the concept of the economic man, whose sole purpose is to accumulate wealth and consume. Following the dialectic of the previous seven points, one must take psychological behaviorism and conclude that man is nothing more than a product of his environment—one shaped by mere stimuli.

The Unsentimental Sentiment

All these serve to destroy what Weaver calls in his first chapter: The Unsentimental Sentiment, the metaphysical dream.  A person who participates in culture has what he calls, “three levels of conscious reflection: his specific ideas about things, his general beliefs or convictions, and his metaphysical dream of the world.”

The first two cannot result in social cohesion because he considers intuition to give sanction to ideas and beliefs. Such intuition or wonder is before anything constituting reason as dialectic alone does not tend to move a person. As if corroborating what Lewis said earlier, it is precisely why Weaver also proclaims that sentiment is anterior to reason. Without such a consideration, it only serves to amplify a vulgar disposition multifold through its reasoning. The mere recognition that the world is to be cherished cannot be the basis of cohesion in a developed society rather it requires abstract fine-tuning such that the culture serves to promulgate dignity, and restraint and to interpret empirical facts to apply it. Restraint is cultivated in the individual setting the attitude with which he approaches any issue serving as a check against gross pragmatism which is inherently prone to animal appetites.

This is what is referred to as the “Unsentimental Sentiment” expressed best in recent times by the former Chief of Army Staff of the Indian Army. In the context ^[3] of an Indian soldier killing his four fellow soldiers owing to abuse, controversy erupted on homosexuality and sodomy concerning the army. General Bipin Rawat Ji mentioned that homosexuality was “unacceptable” and that the army was “conservative”. What’s more pertinent is that one can be prosecuted according to the Army Act where, “any act ‘with a manner unbecoming’ of an officer’s position and the ‘character expected of him’ can result in him being recalled from service, according to Section 45 of the Army Act, 1950.”

“Repudiation of sentiment in favor of immediacy” serves to undermine it. This is observed in the case of journalism where obscenity (not in the dressing sense) takes prominence where it serves to stimulate sensation making excuses in the name of facts or providing the bitter extract of life. What happens in the process is that the individual is left fragmented because he has no vision and therefore becoming prey to populist ideologies.

If we look back into history, Joseph De Maistre^[4] considered the French revolution to have begun with the reformation where authority and tradition, even legitimate ones were rebuked for the sake of elevating the individual. This points to a proto-immediacy where temporal developments alone were enough to discard the means of viewing the world without the slightest thought for a safety net.

The metastasis of immediacy leaves no human relationship intact as sentiment alone can bind one toward the old or the future. Weaver paraphrases Burke:

“those who have no concern for their ancestors will, by simple application of the same rule, have none for their descendants.”

It is therefore not a wonder to see that with the decline of honor, duty, and authority, we see unprecedented neglect of elders, and children and the proliferation of hyper-individualism.

I would like to take this further by utilizing the concept of shock and outrage and I urge those that would be disturbed to skip this paragraph. Weaver states that the man of commerce is a relativist but we are too desensitized to show any appropriate response so I must take something that still invokes disgust.

Peter Singer on November 9th, 2023, promoted^[5] an article from the journal of controversial ideas on X that essentially condones man-animal relationships (check the work for specifics-facepalm). Now how would the individual who has given up the intuition and all that which follows make an argument against it? If it’s based on consent, then that’s foolish because we don’t seek consent to butcher animals for food consumption nor do we ask for their permission when subject to torture in the name of experimentation. Then we are left with the harm principle which is equally inane because one has to define on what basis harm is defined and its relation to consent. Animals don’t have verbal communication on par with humans so they may not perhaps be going around saying “I do” unless prophets of technology have their way. An animal bringing the ball back to you when throwing it at a distance can also be considered consent to play so there is no basis for object relations along the lines mentioned above.

If you thought that it couldn’t get even more disgusting, the article in the comments/notes section mentions that in case people have such relationships above that with children, this is apparently a “controversy” in the empirical literature because some have contested that any demonstration of harm has relation to societal conditioning. So, let’s go with the assumption that against the current evidence, someday in the future it is shown with significant empirical backing that these relationships can be vindicated by taking certain measures or technological advancement can somehow prevent harm from arising, should we permit it?

It is not a matter of a slippery slope alone but one where the foundation of society presents itself to be annihilated. It’s no wonder why Puri Shankaracharya Ji deduced the logical implication of inter-caste marriage as having to debauch oneself to such a state.

Distinction and Hierarchy

Society can be created when people come together for a common end. This alone cannot be sufficient because species have an evolutionary propensity for coordination whether within or outside their group. However, this demarcated outlook provides no basis for why a notion of truth and rights takes precedence in our lives. Coordination alone grants us the status of organized units no different from a plague of locusts devouring a season’s harvest and in the absence of the abstract, the masses prevail.

If the masses see through inebriation goggles, society is what Weaver calls, “a mirror of the logos, and this means that it has a formal structure which enables apprehension.” His dialectic is that understanding entails structure which entails hierarchy. He then states, “After man evolves his metaphysical dream and becomes capable of rational sentiment, he recognizes two grounds of elevation, knowledge and virtue – if these are not one, which problem need not be decided here. The good man, the man with proved allegiance to correct sentiment, has been the natural trustee of authority; the man of knowledge has been necessary for such duties as require system and foresight.”

This is important because hierarchy rests not on material accumulation despite significant shortcomings witnessed in the past but on transcendental ideals. It is here we should consider the Varnashrama system in light of contemporary objections^[6].

It has been held by the harbingers of equality, freedom, and justice that man has been deprived of such fundamentals inherent to man. He rests his case on the notion that people were accorded certain positions which destroyed their dignity and therefore the old system should be eradicated. It is pertinent to note that like the heretical Jacobins, the “spiritual” offspring of theirs have been consumed by appetite.  When asked further about what dignity means, they deflect by stating how everyone was accorded some drainage cleaning duty. This follows perfectly with Weaver’s statement,” If we attach more significance to feeling than to thinking, we shall soon, by a simple extension, attach more to wanting than to deserving.”

We shall not engage with such petty nonsense but rather address the issue head-on. It is clear that dignity has been equated with consumerism. One might object and state that profession should be appropriate yet this is false because they claim to speak for the Shudras and Antyajas who were accorded the means to earn and to maintain society having no restrictions to secular learning. Though genuine upliftment of downtrodden people is completely the objective of the orthodox Hindu brethren and others, the reformists exploit the shortcomings of individuals and communities and instead of working towards the return to noble ideals, they seek to destroy. That is why, the demands never stop with, “give us dignity, give us education, give us resources to make a decent living” and instead extend to slurs against castes, Gods, and especially women.

In The Lost Confucian Philosopher: Gu Hongming and the Chinese Religion of Good Citizenship^[7], a Chinese conservative, Gu Hong Ming defines the essence of Confucian philosophy, “true justification for social divisions and distributions cannot be the rule of force or free competition for rights and interests, but the rule of ritual and decorum.” Many are quick to dismiss any defense of traditional values as “cope” for the failure to accumulate wealth but the above example and the scholastic view indicate without a doubt the universal conception of values man held and is not something idiosyncratic to India.

If “ritual and decorum” are the basis of hierarchy and therefore society, the judgment should also be passed along those lines. It was 1982^[8] the year when Karpatri Ji Maharaj relinquished his body. He was to be entombed in the Ganga(ji) at Kedarghat by the 144th Shankaracharya of Puri, HH Swami Niranjan Dev Tirthji Maharaj when a boat approaching him revealed a man who stated, “Shankaracharya! Be cautious for you should not act contrary to scripture.”

The Shankaracharya and the surrounding people wondered who said this followed by a response from an individual stating that he was the chief of the Antyaja (referred to by many as Dalits but scripture calls them younger Brother). The Acharya saw the chief and at once with fondness asked him what he wanted for which the chief requested remuneration before the burial was done.

All devotees on Acharya’s request proceeded to give money before being interrupted by the Chief who spoke loudly, “Keep these papers with yourselves. I do not want these bundles of notes” and instead asked for the rosary of Karpatri Ji Maharaj.  Acharya Ji requested him to ask for something else as the rosary may serve as an object of contention among the devotees; the Chief asked for his rosary instead for which he obliged and placed it affectionately on his neck.

How would the materialist or the reformist respond to this? We are constantly told that accumulation is the goal of man, yet an individual of the ”subjugated” class instead of being an opportunist and a true capitalist decides to take a rosary? This could have been his moment to get back at the same Brahmins and communities who have “deprived” him yet he doesn’t. Why? The response goes along the lines of: “He was conditioned for thousands of years” as if modern man is impervious to ideology and that his sentiments are rational. This is not the case as we have seen in Chapter 1 and the way to alleviate our situation is to ascend; just as the feet accord themselves to the thighs, the thighs accord themselves to the body, the body to the head, and the head towards heaven.

It is only the day when we purge the notion that death is the end that we will truly be able to provide the lower classes marred by the scar of the generative organ dignity; for they have been cursed not because of ritual nor by duty but only through vainglory.

This is precisely why Weaver states, “The program of social democracy would take away this “ladder to all high designs.” It would do so because high design is an extremely unsettling conception; it may involve arduous effort, self-denial, sleepless nights, all of which are repugnant to the bourgeoisie.”

In A Platonic Passage in Shakespeare’s “Troilus and Cressida”, ^[9] James Holly Hanford notes Shakespeare’s correspondence to the ancient greek thinkers on the idea of hierarchy and duty:

“O, when degree is shak’d,

Which is the ladder to all high designs,

Then enterprise is sick! How could communities,

Degrees in schools and brotherhoods in cities,

Peaceful commerce from dividable shores,

The primogenity and due of birth,

Prerogative of age, crowns, sceptres, laurels,

But by degree stand in authentic place?

Take but degree away, untune that string,

And hark what discord follows! Each thing meets

In mere oppugnancy. The bounded waters Should lift their bosoms higher than the shores And make a sop of all this solid globe;

Strength should be lord of imbecility,

And the rude son should strike his father dead;

Force should be right; or rather, right and wrong (Between whose endless jar justice resides)

Should lose their names, and so should justice too.

Then everything includes itself in power,

Power into will, will into appetite;

And appetite, an universal wolf,

So doubly seconded with will and power,

Must make perforce an universal prey,

And last eat up himself”

In Plato’s Republic, Socrates observes that:

“Most truly do we describe temperance as the natural agreement of superior and inferior, both in states and individuals, about which of the two elements shall rule”

In the absence of natural hierarchy built on a notion of restraint, society is maintained by an artificial bureaucracy blinded by appetite and the farce of equality.

Weaver proceeds to critique equality by differentiating it with fraternity which is inherently paternalistic and therefore contradictory to the petty notion of equality. He states that if equality before the law is presumed then even the societies of old are acceptable as justice applied to all (one could argue the extent but not to its universality).

Fragmentation and Obsession

Any attempt to rectify our condition from the delusions of modernity is hindered by a rather irritable comment, “You can’t turn the clock back.” The problem with the reduction of man’s operations to time presents us with a predicament. On one hand, we promulgate the subjugation of nature as we falsely assume it a panacea for our ailments; this is observed when C.S Lewis states (ABM 24), “In reality, of course, if any one age really attains, by eugenics and scientific education, the power to make its descendants what it pleases, all men who live after it is the patients of that power. They are weaker, not stronger: for though we may have put wonderful machines in their hands we have pre-ordained how they are to use them.” The self-identified pragmatist is not able to comprehend that nothing can endure if only the present circumstance is taken into consideration and serves to catalyze his action. Even in our lifetime, we have witnessed countless lives murdered in the womb with the excuse of rights. We have successfully impeded their existence with the technology we pride ourselves in for aiding our conquest of nature. The question then arises as to what the purpose of man is in the first place. If values and their promulgation or restoration are attacked on the basis of being antiquated or irrelevant, where does the feeling of posterity come from and why is it inviolable? When the present is everything, we cannot operate consistently except for gross hedonism.

This attack on memory ultimately creates a state of flux as there is no order that doesn’t demand discipline. Lacking precedence, he becomes a child and without composure, senile. Though one ails, both converge in action.

This indicates a movement from the center what Weaver calls the “centrifugal impulse of our culture”. This idea of center is comprehended when we account for the “Philosophic Doctor”. He occupies the center from which society and all of its specializations are given direction which is why Weaver states, “This is why, for example, the faculty of theology at the Sorbonne could be appealed to on matters of financial operation.” Today in the absence of such centripetal tendencies, everyone is the king of his own dominion, a sovereign that yields to none. This fragmentation as we shall see soon absolves such individuals of assessing the consequences of their actions.

This fragmentation occurs through specialization, one taken to its extreme through empiricism where it focuses on the minute while sacrificing the whole in the process. Weaver cites Nietchze’s figure of the scientist who spent his life studying the brain structure of the leech. Some people unsurprisingly will be upset and state that these discoveries develop man’s domain and may even cite Morgan’s experiments on supposedly insignificant flies but Weaver merely points to the tendency of such people to lose focus on that which orients them in an appropriate worldview.

He then states, “The modern knower may be compared to an inebriate who, as he senses his loss of balance, endeavors to save himself by fixing tenaciously upon certain details and thus affords the familiar exhibition of positiveness and arbitrariness. With the world around him beginning to heave, he grasps at something that will come within a limited perception. So, the scientist, having lost hold upon organic reality, clings more firmly to his discovered facts, hoping that salvation lies in what can be objectively verified.”

This explains the substitution of the word “truth” for “fact” and entails quite a disastrous precedent. What happens is that it becomes impossible to make a simple judgment on the basis of logic as it doesn’t pass the test of verification. Obsession with particulars is hence the individual’s recourse.

Despite this, people then complain, albeit superficially, about woke propaganda filling the void they themselves have created.

The erasure of truth or even the potential means of recognizing it entails that integrity is lost. Weaver gives the example of an 1850’s Vermont farmer who despite being poor, was independent, had a strict routine of conduct, engaged with the community and provided his reasoning on a code of values. The industrial state considers integrity a burden and effectively employs a mass of individuals placed in their domain to contribute to something they may not always be aware of and even if they are, all that has been mentioned till now makes them stone.

How often have you heard people attempting to absolve their actions by simply stating, “I’m just doing my job”? It doesn’t matter if this work involves the creation of WMD, brain chips, or AI. The irony of this is that he will not feel the consequence of his actions until he receives it from another and at that moment, he would need to ground himself on what he shamelessly discarded.

Egotism in Work and Art

When the individual loses sight of what constitutes the center in society whether it be certain values or the noblemen oriented around it, the implication is that he should break from his own center. Weaver calls the egotism that arises from the deviation of the self’s center as another form of fragmentation; the individual now rests on the periphery making him incapable of directing any of his actions to some ordered ends adopting particulars instead. This decadence is visible in modern man’s obsession with rights that obfuscate the spiritually integrating component of obligation. Spiritual here can refer to both the transcendental development that the individual can achieve and the fraternal amicability necessary for a society to exist.

The narcissism that arises from this egotistical fragmentation amplifies a distorted vision summarized by Plato, “the excessive love of self is in reality the source to each man of all offenses; for the lover is blinded about the beloved, so that he judges wrongly of the just, the good, and the honorable, and thinks that he ought always prefer his own interest to the truth.”

Here we are reminded of the Hindu Varnashram system. It is often stated by our detractors that the caste system should be annihilated because it has and continues to perpetuate atrocities. Despite the clarification of this in the commentary of the second chapter, the individual has not been examined.

The problem with the position of these people is that it is antithetical to the conception of the community. Since they have discarded obligation for rights and freedom, this follows with the amplification of selfishness which would only replace caste with class. The two don’t have to exist mutually exclusive because India is a good example of many worlds existing in one. To think that one person will stop looking down or oppressing one another would happen with the eradication of caste means that these reformists don’t live in reality.

Weaver states that the medieval worldview of scholars discerned that the path to knowledge was a path to self-depreciation which constituted their basis for humility. Study and meditation made sure to give insight into the self and made way for all to contribute accordingly. In the case of our detractors, the individualism they promulgate leads to the same problem they are trying to efface; the supposed atrocities that came out of the caste hierarchy (even though OBCs are the greatest perpetrators of atrocities) are a result of the deviation from center i.e duty for particulars. It is for this reason that Puri Shankaracharya Ji (Vichitra Samvad pg 12) cites Manusmriti 2.162, “The Brāhmaṇa should ever shrink from reverence, as from poison; and he should always seek for disrespect, as for nectar.” indicating that true goodwill can exist through humility and piety.^[10]

So how does one respond to the misuse of privilege? One must utilize the same principle of transcendental ideals as propounded in our case by the shastras or simply unsentimental sentiments.

Huaiyu Wang gives insight into this in the case of Confucian conduct: “According to the Confucian rule of ritual, when a sovereign commits misconduct, it is the supreme duty of “the state secretary to record it, the court musicians to chant about it, the three chief officials to come forward and advise against it, and the chef to reduce the size of the royal meal,” so as to make sure that the sovereign stays on the right track.”

He mentions Gu Hongming’s critique of the Empress: “In 1902, likewise, at a grand banquet to celebrate the birthday of the Empress Dowager hosted by the Hubei Governor’s office, Gu extemporaneously composed and chanted an “anthem for caring for the people” to openly criticize the improper use of public funds for this event: ‘Long live the Son of Heaven, Lot of misfortunes for the average person’!” This followed his refusal to translate certain western newspapers for his supervisor owing to misleading content, and he stated that his position would remain the same even if it was a royal directive.

Weaver utilizes the concept of egotism to next delineate the fall of the sanctity of work. If capitalist and financial interests deluded the body, the acceptance of the labor to their schemes entailed a loss of the soul. The worker who previously had a conception of duty and honor in his work no longer sees anything other than the financial incentive behind his services and therefore “pride” towards their work is sacrificed. Weaver anticipates his views being labelled as idealistic: “This view will seem hopelessly unrealistic to those who do not admit that sentiment toward the whole is the only ultimate means of measuring value. Yet it will eventually appear that the greatest disservice done to our age-and it has been done by sentimental humanitarianism-was this denial of necessary connection between effort and reward.”

True to his conception of values being timeless, he states the desacralization of work is unsustainable because it requires one group to sabotage another in order to maintain their status (no reason that it shouldn’t result in a fallout). We are already aware of the results of such an implementation albeit in varying degrees seen throughout the world of which DEI hiring may be a first symptom though it’s being overturned just as quick as it was implemented. The South Korean class system^[11] is particularly interesting in this regard as no one can truly object to the accumulation of wealth in the hands of the conglomerates except through the use of dysphemisms like “Nepotism” using merit as an excuse. One wonders why such objections should be respected when the only maxim of man has become the social Darwinistic “survival of the fittest”? If one is not talented enough to showcase or ground his “merit” then can’t we simply say that it therefore he is of no use? Do ponder over it.

The evolutionary reductionist attempts to reduce man’s idiosyncrasy to mere animal instinct and stimuli-based behavior development. Even if we accept, it cannot be refuted on rational grounds that man is beyond compare in ritual organization. The contradictory predicament arises when the rituals that organize our entire lives are discarded while simultaneously attempting to maintain rigor in various fields. This is evident when people try to make the excuse of the working environment not conforming to ideals of honor and duty. However, for the reasons mentioned above, the “democratization” and utilitarian approach of work has been fully embraced and reflects our innate being.

This is given credence when we observe that any attempts to maintain tradition is met with the standard “it’s not practical today” or “I have no time”. What this translates to is: “I have embraced my 9-5 as my life”.  Brahmasri Vaddiparthi Padmakar Garu states that on account of temporal considerations of performing rituals etc, one should follow the analogy of bathing. It is recommended to bathe in the holy Ganga but if this is not possible then another river of repute. In their absence, a water body may suffice and next one’s home by remembering Ganga. If even this isn’t possible, one may simply say Ganga; yet the last one is allowed when all options have been exhausted and for some reason, we always choose the last one.

With the stench of the rotting soul let it smother art. Work among others may be put aside due to pragmatic concerns but the production and consumption of the various arts cannot hide our ailment. Weaver traces its decay from the French Revolution onwards to his day but his analysis of music is particularly insightful.

The broad stages of music’s decline follow the sequence: architectural, thematic, and textural which presents a transition from order to fragmented indulgence. His brief mention of jazz though controversial^[12] and despite my illiteracy in the subject I believe that it deserves serious attention beyond the selected example as his tools of critique bear fruit today.

Weaver states, “The driving impulse behind jazz is best grasped through its syncopation. What this can achieve technically we need not go into here; what it indicates spiritually is a restlessness, a desire to get on, to realize without going through the aesthetic ritual. Forward to the climax”. “Playing now becomes personal; the musician seizes a theme and improvises as he goes; he develops perhaps a personal idiom, for which he is admired. Instead of that strictness of form which had made the musician like the celebrant of a ceremony, we now have individualization.”

Notable philosophers like Edward Feser have accused his platonic thought of being Puritan and utopian but this is quite inane. Whether an individual performs a ritual or practices a tradition seeking a son or purification of consciousness isn’t deemed wrong though the latter is considered superior. In the case of a festival, enjoyment may be deemed appropriate but indulgence isn’t and emphasis is placed on the individual’s natural realization with the progression of time through a fabian erosion of desire. However, this is only the case when the established ritual or tradition grounds itself on transcendental notions but any pseudo-ritual or tradition say sports or club dancing that promulgates sensation precludes one from growth.

Their views inadvertently (at best) lead to the inversion of what the Gita says, O mighty-armed Arjuna, knowing the soul to be superior to the intelligence, control the mind with pure intelligence that relates to the true self, and destroy this formidable enemy in the form of lust (3.43).^[13] It extends upon the Upanishadic teaching where there is the chariot, horses, reins, charioteer, and the passenger. These represent the body, senses, mind, intellect and the soul. Instead of the passenger exercising control over the intellect and consequently the mind and senses, he now lets the horses take over.

Today we witness the effects of individuality in the case of rap or anything considered “pop”. Narcissism, drug use, illicit contact, and materialism and if anyone thinks that they may have an existence independent of subversion, one must simply observe their irreverence towards God or any binding principle. We see this in the case of Lil Nas X’s “J.Christ” or Bollywood’s appropriation of the sacred Rasa Lila. This need not be some conspiracy rather it’s a logical result of man’s “democratization”.

The Great Stereopticon

“The separation of education from religion, one of the proudest achievements of modernism, is but an extension of the separation of knowledge from metaphysics.” The entirety of this chapter can be summarized in such a profound statement. It is within the decency of every individual to call out the excesses the church has engaged in so that propriety of thought and action is maintained. However, the excesses committed must serve as a reminder that when the crystallization of man and his institutions occur, they prevent the exercise of what it was originally meant to teach, sustain and promote—a concept extended in his “Visions of Order”. This only necessitates a revision lest I dare say reform.

For some reason, reform has been consistently equated with subversion for which we continue to face the consequences. We have looked into fragmentation and the proliferation of ego but the machine accentuates its effects manifold. Technology has no independent nature for it is a mere extension of man’s desires. Weaver calls this machine “The Great Stereopticon”. It consists of a press, a motion picture, and the radio.

A sense of timelessness is observed in his words even when they seem dated. He states,” We are told the time to laugh and the time to cry, and signs are not wanting that the audience grows ever more responsive to its cues.” Now such content may not be so ubiquitous but what remains is that the subversiveness propagated by the above can transform superficially but not its atomized form. We may have social media and consume its content rather than some comedy show (from a channel) but what does it say to us? Assuming you’re not a Logan Paul fan getting scammed like his kid audience, many of these “cues” are subtle; they manifest and state: “Feel how I feel, consume what I tell you to”.

We may state that by having the sense that the mainstream media compromises our thoughts, we have overcome such things by having democratized content creators on YouTube (put aside censorship for now) or some alternative platform. This is false because it assumes that the alternatives don’t promulgate the same nonsense. Most often we simply witness the same talking points especially pertinent in the case of the right wing which appears to be the general target of censorship. All that they do is rehash the same inane talking points deemed revolutionary for their viewers to eat up with a “fuzzy” feeling of realizing the truth.

Even philosophy channels can’t inculcate a sense of reflection. At best they may say “Read this for yourself” but Plato himself states why written study (alone) is not appropriate: “no reticence or proprieties toward different classes of persons” and because, if an individual goes to it with a question in his mind, it “always gives one unvarying answer.” When we take a society that ails like ours or even in the West, the culture now superficial in many aspects is precluded from the experience of the individual. When we are deprived of experience inculcated from generation to generation, the appeal to edifying change holds no ground because reflecting upon something requires precedent, which is why ritual and its consequent education were promoted in traditional societies including India.

The reformists, clouded not only in vision but in thought, argue for the mass dissemination of the Vedas or Bija Mantras for some Hindu Renaissance but even a secular glance presents us with insight; no matter what you read, the same Brahmin you revile for supposedly not knowing the mantra’s meaning, has preserved the communion of the nation despite the ages and only now we see it’s vain at a time where the machine becomes ever sophisticated and yet man “corrodes”.

Ironically, in our age of supposed open discussions, we are closed off more than we think. Besides the bickering that constitutes modern debates, discussions in general result in, as Weaver notes, approbation or disapprobation and at most can move the individual to absorb rather than reflect.

A brief comment on the motion picture gives us another perspective though converging with the above. The perversity of movies parallels the decline in literature. In Melpomene as Wallflower; or, The Reading of Tragedy, Robert Heilman discusses the transition of literature from tragedy to a novel. The former is predicated upon the inner turmoil of the hero always presenting us with notions transcending time as man’s nature is the theme. However, in recent times, there is an emphasis on the social setting to the detriment of the former. He mentions how certain critiques of Robert Penn Warren’s “All the Kings Men” centered around him not discussing more about social issues or being too historically precise even when his theme focused on tragedy with a social setting.^[14]

It is for this reason that Weaver states, “It has been said that tragedy is for aristocrats, comedy is for bourgeoisie, and farce is for peasants.” I wonder what he would consider woke marvel movies to be. Farce? Perhaps a new category, say lascivious, for the barbarian?

I found his comments on the radio, despite the latter’s diminished impact on our lives today, to be the most profound. He states, ”One skims through a newspaper, practicing a certain art of rejection; the movie he may stay away from, but the radio is insistently present; indeed the victims of this publicity are virtually hunted down. In few public places do we escape it, and our neighbour’s loud-speaker may penetrate the very sanctum of our privacy. In our listening, voluntary or not, we are made to grow accustomed to the weirdest of juxtapositions: the serious and the trivial, the comic and the tragic, follow one another in mechanical sequence without real transition.”

The radio no longer needs to play that role because all that has been discussed till now converges into man. “News”—represents all informative content— whether paper or digital, mainstream or democratic, political or philosophical has created a false duality. The motion picture is an extension of the neoteric ancient corruption of literature where the duality of approval and disapproval on the plane of assessment, descends into approval or disapproval of indulgence only to be made complete by the “radio”  with the approval or disapproval of conformity.

How often is the disinterested person forced to absorb and regurgitate the garbage that constitutes sports or music? We are slowly acclimatized to their songs, their vocabulary, and their idols whether it’s voluntary or not. One may try to rebel but cannot do so for fear of becoming a social outcast. A person need not be intentionally scorned for he is invisible simply because one cannot relate to the individual in any other manner. When communication is impaired despite sharing a language, the notion of transcendental ideals binding a people becomes impossible except populist filth—achieved at times by their demagogues with terrible pains.

The Spoiled-Child Psychology

“The scientists have given him the impression that there is nothing he cannot know, and false propagandists have told him that there is nothing he cannot have. Since the prime object of the latter is to appease, he has received concessions at enough points to think that he may obtain what he wishes through complaints and demands. This is but another phase of the rule of desire.”

Reductionist discourse and promises such as these have metastasized throughout man and served to obliterate his capacity to work and to understand the value behind what that work entails for his being. When desire takes precedence, it leads to a state where the individual thinks he can get what he wants by “complaints and demands”. We see this in many instances where the state in an attempt to woo its voter base merely introduces various narrow schemes. When the state builds your houses the toil for bread ceases. The problem is that with the increase in such a spoiled attitude, the second any of these schemes cease in operation, he is met with an excruciating blow to the head reminding him that he lived in delusion; this is assuming he doesn’t simply demand more owing to saturation.

I would like to go with the assumption that the scientists and demagogues do prevail and that their promise of ending toil is successful. What does it mean for us? Is there any parallel to take reference?

We can take the 1950’s American housewife^[15] who is now considered a “trad wife”. Despite Dr. Petra Buesken’s apt criticism of this archetype as being nothing more than an “artefact of modernity”, it gives us something to work with. They are accorded luxury in the sense of not having to go out to maintain their existence and have the benefit of having the most (potential) fruitful of relationships with one’s children and perhaps elders. However, they experienced a void where as Bueskin mentioned, “most mothers want to work”, but that “work is not the central or most meaningful life activity for most women”. This void is directly correlated with the destruction of the pre-industrial model of the family where all members worked but had varying duties.

Wendell Berry’s criticism of the “tradwife” is interesting: “a mostly decorative custodian of a degraded, consumptive modern household, preoccupied with clothes, shopping, gossip, and outwitting her husband.” This shows that this “artefact of modernity” has dived deep into the muddied waters of consumerism amplified by the “empowered” working women of today. They may be disgusted with the shell that constitutes the tradwife’s life but not the flesh of consumerism.

This shows that work attached to mere sensation and the absence of work with a desire for sensation are just superficial in their idiosyncrasies. They however converge to show that a meaningful life cannot be lived except through an integration of higher pursuits. This explains their dependence on substances such as valium and now SSRIs though nuance is important.^[16]

The Mahabharata exudes its pervading wisdom no matter the context hence the Nalopakhyana finds mention here. The noble Queen Damayanti, being royalty meant that she was not required to survive by working even in the pre-industrial sense. However, with the noble King Nala’s defeat in a game of dice, they were forced to leave their kingdom. The punishment was essentially Nala’s because Damayanti could have simply gone to Vidharba with her children.

However, she remained with him knowing that it was her duty to stay with her husband at such a time and sent her children to her birthplace. Despite all the struggles she remained steadfast for which she is hailed. Work in its absence has no meaning.

I can almost hear the screams (no I don’t have schizophrenia) of the pragmatists retorting about whether we need to be loyal to parasitic corporate groups siphoning off our energy from 9-5.  The problem with this is the assumption that work or labor of any sort is simply to acquire money. The consequences penetrate much deeper because no action serves to produce an effect beyond the body. The sun no longer needs to be worshipped but rather something you get Vitamin D from or some sense of refreshment at the beach (tan anyone?). The same goes for toning the body and the diet that follows.

This is why Weaver states,” With religion emasculated, it has remained for medical science in our age to revive the ancient truth that labor is therapeutic.”

He then goes on to mention that comfort is antagonistic to the growth of a civilization, a comment that cannot prevent itself the cry of the evolutionists. Harsh Kumar has delineated^[17] this reductionist attitude citing Dharma Samrat Swami Karpatri Ji Maharaj:

“The Evolutionists’ perspective on the relationship between God and the Self is unclear, incomplete, and laden with misconceptions. The assertion that ‘struggle and self-interest are the essence of life; altruism is ultimately driven by self-interest’ is a fallacious argument of the Evolutionists. It has been stated that only a few perceive altruism as self-interest. Even predatory creatures like tigers are observed sacrificing themselves for their offspring.”

“The assertion that ‘the feeble lack entitlement to societal existence’ exudes a severity that cannot be overstated. The analogy between humans and creatures such as ants, bears, and buffaloes underscores an irrefutable truth: in the realm of physical prowess, animals inevitably triumph. Nevertheless, the ascendancy of humanity emanates not from sheer physical might but from the ascendancy of human intellect. Within human society, it is the cognitively astute who ascend to the zenith of domination. But, it is ethical astuteness that holds greater importance than both intellectual and physical prowess. The obliteration of Sodom and Gomorrah serves as a stark reminder of the catastrophic consequences wrought by ethical transgressions. It is those who embody ethical rectitude, ataraxy, and abstention from bad inclinations that live longer. The Group that prioritizes svartha-buddhi (Temporal/selfish interests) over parāmartha-buddhi (Divine/transcendental interests) finds itself on the precipice of swift quietus. Even among animals, this parāmartha-buddhi is evident. Thus, it is imperative for human beings to exhibit ethical resilience and embrace selflessness. Henceforth, positing life as solely governed by the ‘Survival of the Fittest’ in this ceaseless struggle is an oversimplification and largely untrue.”

One should really ask if the individuals and groups engaged in gross hedonism are contributing their fullest even in terms of their reductionist definition of progress prompting Weaver’s response:

“When the Greek retired for the night, it was not to a beautyrest mattress; he wrapped himself up in his cloak and lay down on a bench like a third-class railway passenger, as Clive Bell has remarked. Nor had he learned to pity himself for a spare diet. Privations of the flesh were no obstacle to his marvelous world of imagination.”

The Last Metaphysical Right

Weaver deals from this chapter onwards what he considers to be solutions to our predicament. This will be more controversial than his section on Jazz but only if one considers that a solution is some journey to the past. No matter what virtue or lifestyle is propagated from the past, tradition is something that accounts for spatiotemporal developments and makes consistent amends as mentioned in Vaddiparthi Padmakar Garu’s analogy. This is in contrast to the deracinated individual or group who considers all forms of restraint to be a stain on his idea of progress.

The solutions are predicated on abstract notions that require the active participation of the individual who realizes what is at stake if he yields to the lure of degenerate living. To make this transition somewhat palatable, I have until this point tried addressing our situation by not simply advocating for a return to the past but as Evola would say to “Ride the Tiger”. Even if one is not aware of his works, the line indicates that a confrontation has not been possible to avoid, and to engage the tiger head-on stripped of any weapon is suicide. Of course, in such a situation one may try to run in vain or he may attempt to tire it out by exploiting its own energy. As we have seen till now, with the repudiation of transcendentals to its culmination in the opposition of work, the modern world stands on unstable ground, ready to sink under its own weight.

The last metaphysical right is private property, one that is essential to alleviate ourselves from the modern errors without which change is impossible. This however doesn’t translate to the financial interests of the conglomerates but towards the independence of the individual.

Weaver warns against attempts to teach anyone about developing ourselves as it commits the same error of those we are trying to counter: “Good will alone fails in the same way as does sentiment without the underpinning of metaphysic.” The way to “drive a wedge” between the material and transcendental requires us to exploit what still remains sacrosanct by those who drove the wedge against society and its foundations of religion and rootedness in general.

In such a circumstance, property despite its compromised state asserting itself as a self-serving monolith has to be focused on. It serves as the basis of reclamation of ideals because it has not fallen prey to the reductionist inanities of the empiricists. The idea of owning property is predicated upon the land according itself to a dogma of “hisness” vindicating itself from the clutches of pragmatism.

Adam J. Macleod in his Metaphysical Right and Obligations states:

“Rights arise out of and correlate with those duties. Here is the lesson to be learned from the success of the New Essentialists and from Justice Scalia’s Takings Clause jurisprudence: the nurture and revitalization of property requires sustained attention to the identifiable duties and obligations of owners and non-owners…The lesson of the last three decades is that property is the last metaphysical right because and insofar as property dominion is the last pre-political source of obligation. The priority of property rights is rooted in the common law of wrongs. Because we have pre-political duties, we have pre-political liberties. Liberty grows out of a million discrete legal duties, each of those duties correlating exactly with the right of a human being, a moral agent, a possessor of practical reason, and a bearer of the image of God.”^[18]

For clarification I will refer to J. Peter Byrne’s A Hobbesian Bundle of Lockean Sticks: The Property Rights Legacy of Justice Scalia. He quotes Dean Treanor who defines the Takings Clause of the 5th Amendment (USA) as originally understood: “required compensation when the federal government physically took private property, but not when government regulations limited the ways in which property could be used.” Despite the original understanding, Justice Scalia accounting for contemporary developments justified the extension of the clause so that it applied to regulations of use. His concern was: “the uses of private property were subject to unbridled, uncompensated qualification under the police power, ‘the natural tendency of human nature [would be] to extend the qualification more and more until at last private property disappear[ed].’”^[19]

He justified in Lucas v. South Carolina Coastal Council.”the persistence of a regulatory takings doctrine on the need to restrain government from overreaching into property rights.” This also provides a basis for his opposition of Kelo v. City of New London where the ruling favored the city to take private property if it constituted “public use”.

We have just seen how resistance on the basis of property is required to maintain some ground against governmental tyranny as well as the dogmatic assertion of “hisness”. They both converge in the case of private establishments which are the only recourse when ideology is promoted by the whims of the few. We observe liberal inanities propagated in school or at the very least, secular material aimed at producing the best machines for the industry that is now society. These private institutions have the ability to inculcate a conception of thought contrary to the pragmatists and empiricists alike while maintaining autonomy. Along with this, the individual who has the conception of a property belonging to him understands the idea of continuity and therefore serves to repudiate the false doctrine of presentism.

In the case of India, this becomes somewhat tricky. The concept of property is not well ingrained and we are quite aware of individuals willing to sell their land so that they can educate their children. I will not comment on this apart from the fact that in the long run, only the few successful can manage to afford enclosures called apartments. However, contrary to the western decline of religion, India despite severe setbacks accords significant pertinence to the divine. In hopes of a metaphysical “Dharma sthapana”, we must uphold the rights of the Deity.

Extending the logic of Citizen’s United Versus Federal Election Commission, which held that free speech is applicable for “non-natural persons” such as corporate bodies. My intention is not to delve in the nuances of various rulings^[20] but to promulgate the notion that the Hindu deity is an “entity” with rights to maintain its property and therefore its practices. This would allow for the simultaneous repudiation of inane notions of equality as it requires the temple to run on the Deity’s terms served by his servants i.e by the hereditary Pujari and trustees. Justice Chandrachud:

“Merely because a Deity has been granted limited rights as juristic person under statutory law does not mean that the Deity necessarily has constitutional rights.”

Statements like these indicate that the struggle for Dharma won’t happen in a day compounded with the governmental control of temples but reclamation can happen only through effort.

The Power of the Word

“knowledge of the prime reality comes to man through the word; the word is a sort of deliverance from the shifting world of appearances.”

Language in its very essence serves as a check against presentism and reductionism. However, attacks from the semanticists and logical positivists serve to undermine its lasting nature and thereby the transcendental.

Weaver mentions that the semanticists aim to cleanse language of its emotional base as it has the tendency of inclination and that it must reflect perception as opposed to verities. Let us take the example of abortion to ponder over the idea of objectivity. Technically speaking we can use the term “Medically Terminated Pregnancy” as a means of being “neutral” as opposed to the polarizing term “Abortion” or “Murder”. The problem with this is that the former is narrow i.e it is defined according to temporal demarcations and not on teleology.

One cannot say that MTP is neutral simply because its use is limited to a setting. The medical establishment wanting to define it scientifically may accord it such a term but in the context of society that cannot be the case. When the promulgator of the term MTP uses it to deny the personhood of a being, it is already indicative that he does so on an inclination of extolling the mother’s freedom or choice. The use of the term mother itself denotes inclination and they would have to salvage that error through the use of “pregnant woman” which cannot escape prejudice either.

The logical positivists can undeniably be considered the extreme in terms of reduction. For them propositions that center around truth or falsity are divided into three:

1. Factual Propositions or Empirical Hypothesis
2. Tautologies or Definitions
3. Metaphysical forms

 

A.D. Ritchie in his Errors of Logical Positivism provides insight into A.J Ayer’s views and provides a thorough critique.^[21]

The first statement is based on the notion that “a proposition is said to be verified by experience when it refers to or describes correctly actual or possible contents of somebody’s sense experience. ”The second are tautologies where contradictions have no place because there is only definition say “All bachelors are unmarried” or mathematical propositions like 2+2=4. The third is the metaphysical considered meaningless because they cannot be experienced.

Ritchie takes a scientific proposition that “the boiling point of benzene is 80.4° C”. He states, “It has behind it a vast structure of human effort and experience, a co-operative effort, and the experience of many generations. Countless men of science from Galileo on have worked out the knowledge needed for it. Cinnabar miners in Spain, coal miners in Yorkshire, and workers in Czechoslovakia have sweated for it. If the verification of this law really depended upon translating it into terms of a single man’s sense experience, it would have to go by default; at the best his task would be insuperably complex and difficult, at the worst impossible. Can co-operative human effort be translated into sense data; and if so, whose?”

So, if science cannot be reduced simply to sense experience observed in the case of physics where it assumes there to be certain causal processes, ethics and morality are more nuanced. He quotes Ayer who states that “you acted wrong in stealing that money” doesn’t add to “you stole money” and instead serves to describe the person’s emotions. The problem rightly pointed out is that even the term “stole” represents a particular notion where our detractors may try to obfuscate using terms such as expropriation.

Next is the issue of change. The attempts to modify language such that it accounts for contemporary ideas severs an individual or society from tradition and culture and thereby identity. Edmund Burke has assessed the semantic subversion observed in the case of the French revolution pointing towards the implications that language has.

Steven Blakemore notes Burke’s views,” Their belief that human language is arbitrary and transient is reflected in their belief that kings, queens, societies, and laws are arbitrary and transient. Thus, their effort to destroy old meanings and old societies by creating new meanings and new societies involved a language theory masking an ideology which justified radical change or any change at all.” This is seen in the case of the term “protestant” which shifted from a religious significance to that which resembled “persecuting faction”.^[22]

One has to understand that this conception of change albeit less extreme than the semanticists or positivists is promulgated by both the liberals and those who profess to be conservatives. The liberal side hardly needs explanation but the so-called conservatives reek of contradiction. In the absence of traditional precedent not merely built on economic right, there cannot be a conservation of values in its entirety. For example, the conservatives commonly critique gender transition and various practices on the basis of it being “unnatural” stating that their actions are in opposition to biology; the individual who holds this notion errs due to the fact that he unconsciously accedes that birth entails restriction thereby according biology to determine one’s duty. If the pragmatic approach alone is taken, one can easily object by stating how an individual need not be subservient or follow a code of conduct in the industrial or post-industrial era where one can achieve a position of prominence economically and socially through education or industriousness. This makes their arguments obsolete. If birth entails that one abides by certain demarcations it entails duty, then birth-based titles are given credence on the same lines for which the individual is expected to live up to. The repudiation of rank for accumulation of wealth and transient notions of right opposed to duty places him in Kodiak Island where he’s the game.

We are left with evolutionary reductionism and Harsh quotes Dorothy Nelkins and Michael Ruse respectively,

“Though concerned about genes, evolutionary psychologists are no longer addressing the old debate about the relative influence of nature or nurture on human behaviour: they are firmly convinced of the biological basis of human nature and culture as well. They are rather seeking universal explanations — the cosmic truth that underlies life, death, culture and faith. This truth lies in natural selection as ‘the consistent guiding force.’ The need to maximise ‘evolutionary fitness’ governs the world, controls destiny, intervenes in history and guides the conduct of human behaviour.”

“The position of the modern evolutionist is that humans have an awareness of morality because such an awareness is of biological worth. Morality is a biological adaptation no less than our hands and feet and teeth. Considered as a rationally justifiable set of claims about an objective something, ethics is illusory. I appreciate that when somebody says ‘Love thy neighbor as thyself, they think they are referring above and beyond themselves. Nevertheless, such a reference is truly without foundation. Morality is just an aid to survival and reproduction, and any deeper meaning is illusory.”

Perhaps we don’t see eugenics programs for the time-being but the deracinated have instituted an extremely perverse thought in reducing man’s functionalities to the animal’s. By using the idea of fitness as a counter to the workings of religion and culture in general they serve to undermine what constitutes (if we allow them such a term) “fitness”. Their fallacy is akin to saying that a bat is unfit for it doesn’t run like the tiger. By making the concept of self-interest as a means of success for the individual, all that he serves to do is extirpate what made man successful. It is our recognition that all individuals have an intrinsic right to exist and exhaust their karma that we accord an individual or community their domain without the aim to domineer. The entire purpose of the Hindu King is to overcome the maxim of the fish whereby the large eat the small.

This stands in stark contrast to the colluding interests of evolutionism, historicism, marxism, capitalism among others where their emphasis on varying degrees of struggle serve to dethrone the regulator of change.

Weaver’s solution involves a twofold training i.e of literature and rhetoric along with logic and dialectic. The former involves the inculcation of correct sentiment as well the development of the individual to perceive the nature of the thing he assesses. This can only be done when he is made to read literature. One may immediately object and state that today the education system teaches us deluding ideals but for the person who develops the above, the deluding ideals also serve his purpose because understands through apophatic sense the modern error. The next one is dialectic which helps translates the literature and rhetoric to the practical where after understanding the potential for words to affect us and how they affect us, they need to be understood for what they actually are. Materialism or flimsy boyfriend-girlfriend relationships are not wrong because a father or mother said so rather it is something that constitutes deviancy and only if the parent develops such a mindset, will we be able to safeguard the individual especially in his teen years. The lapses of children with strict parents indicate that strictness without rhetoric or dialectic only compels his innate desires to manifest violently akin to a pressure cooker demarcated from releasing its steam.

Piety and Justice

This final chapter as Weaver puts is: “a crowning concept which governs his attitude toward the totality of the world.” I see the progression from property, communication and finally piety as the four purusharthas acted out. The individual ignorant of the true meaning of ritual does so in order to fulfil his desire but on account of understanding its underlying meaning purifies his consciousness (Chitta Shuddhi). The process of purification is compounded with the practice of other noble activities in all spheres of life culminating in liberation. One is liberated only when he sees the totality of this world converging into his own being radiating the eternal wisdom of “Aham Brahmasmi”.

In the absence of this visualization of totality we observe the claims by the reformists who want to be accorded a certain status based on their specialization in the field of work. Weaver in his “The Southern Tradition at Bay” states,

“Those who seek to evade this dilemma by declaring that ability alone should count, a natural plea in our age of specialization, are often disingenuous, for they narrow down “ability” to mean some special skill, aptitude, or ingenuity at an isolated task. But in the political community ability must take account of the whole man: his special competences plus his personality and his moral disposition, even his history. It is well that people are not ranked for measurable efficiency as engines are for horsepower, but rather for the total idea we have of them. Thus, again we face the topic of the whole man and the evil of reducing him to an abstraction to insure his political qualification.”

Weaver extends upon Plato’s Euthyphro where a son tries to prosecute his father for murder. He takes the son to be science and technology and the father as nature. The modern heresy rests upon the notion that nature is something to be conquered in the name of progress. He states that this development resonates with “egotism”: “Now this attitude is impious, for, as has been noted, it violates the belief that creation or nature is fundamentally good.’

Piety is in contrast orderly because it accords respect to those beyond the self-expressing discipline. It’s spirit according to Weaver consists of nature, neighbor and the past.

These three build off each other because an individual must recognize that there is value beyond the self first seen in nature which then concentrates into an individual and with it the observation of continuity.

When these three are compromised for narrow ends, restraint is consequently sacrificed and this manifests rather terribly. With nature rebuked, no distinction can be recognized and with it anarchy prevails as observed in the case of gender ideology. Next, we see the attack on personality which implies a certain area of privacy for the individual while having commune with society.  Ironically modern societies with their pompous proclamations of freedom and individuality descend to aping frivolous trends both socially and politically. This creates the need to conform in the sense of lower pursuits which only impede an individual from realizing anything beyond the material or from even asking basic questions regarding who he is and what his role he has to play in society. The final decadence is achieved when the past is repudiated.

History therefore cannot be inherited by the ordinary man but is appropriated by the historian. He tells him that the man uninitiated in his sophistries of jargon is unfit to use history as he sees fit. This is why we observe the attempts to elevate heroes (not talking about manipulation of facts) on the basis of certain values to be considered biased or revisionist as if history is simply meant to regurgitate dates and number of skulls.

“Suppose we get an affirmative answer to our first question; people tell us they do want to go on living – and not just biologically as rats in the corners of wrecked cities but in communities of civilization. Then we must ask the question whether they are willing to pay the price. For possibly their attitude toward this is like their attitude toward peace: they want it, but not at the expense of giving up this and that thing which they have come to think of as the warp and woof of their existence.”

Conclusion

Weaver’s concluding remarks may seem to accord the slothful individual some merit owing to the latter’s pathetic nihilism against attempts at reform. He has been quite vocal about being a person not of specialization rather one who understands the entirety or the root of a problem and in this light does justice by placing the basis of a reclamation. True change in an environment festered with technical constraints seem impossible and is not something that can be solved with a few legislations.

In a rapidly changing society headed towards its own annihilation, the only attempt at reversal would first require one to understand what he has lost in quest for progress.  When this is not done, everything will appear as a mere red herring or intentional incoherency because the battle has already been lost and these abstract positions only serve as desperate whispers attempting to move the deaf. However, a person who takes this position builds on the assumption that no society at any point in time was made to attune itself to the blaze of time, incinerating even that which was considered “good”.

Despite the changes whether it was from the time of Adi Shankaracharya or to that of Karpatri Maharaj, tradition develops in accordance with spatio-temporal developments but it never eschews the lens with which it perceives the world. Will the ailment be addressed simply by promulgating subversion as seen in the case of the French revolution? A monarch was slaughtered, authority was squandered and base tendencies empowered and yet we think quite foolishly that in order to address this primeval question of what man and his duty is, a few simple points may be presented for it to be solved.

We are now faced with a two-fold problem where the first constitutes the addressal of the question and the second being the demarcation we have been subject to as a result of a few miscreants setting ablaze all that has been achieved. The reason why Weaver is misunderstood is because people still can’t think beyond the zeitgeist and contemporary developments. The future holds that man must be eradicated because he is biased in terms of language therefore thought and deed yet this is patently false. For let us envision a society in which all that troubled man materially hunger, thirst, pleasure etc have been duly been fulfilled. We no longer need to work because man has been replaced by a perverse knockoff and are continuously entertained in our virtual world. Now does this answer the primeval question of man? Does it have an answer in the first place? If it does, then does have to be in the form of “truth” or “fact” which he vehemently criticizes? A statement is not enough for it is not mere sensation that affords an idea its worth.

In a world sheathed in noise, even a moment of silence is liberating, but only to those who value it; for the fool inverts it to gain pleasure from that which debilitates and riles against that which consoles.

Bibliography:

1.https://archive.org/details/richard-m-weaver-ideas-have-consequences/mode/1up?view=theater

2.https://archive.org/details/TheAbolitionOfMan_229/mode/1up?view=theater

3.“‘Indian Army Is Conservative, Homosexuality Unacceptable’: How Gen. Rawat Showed Army Hasn’t Caught up with Time.” Outlook India, 18 Jan. 2024, www.outlookindia.com/national/indian-army-is-conservative-homosexuality-unacceptable-how-gen-rawat-showed-army-has-not-caught-up-with-time-news-280719.

4.Sanders, Nathaniel. “Joseph de Maistre: A Molinist Responds to the French Revolution.” Gregorianum, 22 Dec. 2022, www.academia.edu/93490748/Joseph_de_Maistre_A_Molinist_Responds_to_the_French_Revolution.

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