In Ideas Have Consequences (1948), Richard Weaver described comfort as the god of modern man.  Even in our post-modern times, mass man continues to kneel at the altar of comfort though he occasionally does obeisance to lesser gods such as equality and wokeness.  Weaver’s writings challenged man to exchange the ease promised by technological advancement for a strenuous and romantic life that existed in non-materialist societies of days gone by.  Specifically, Weaver pointed to the Old South as “the last non-materialist civilization in the Western World” and touted its virtues.

Mass man has shown little inclination to heed Weaver’s advice, but the coronavirus panic of 2020 is shaking people. Indeed, the god of comfort does not look so vigorous today. Comfort resembles the Philistine fertility god Dagon who had the Ark of the Covenant placed at his feet in the temple located in Ashdod. (1 Samuel 5:1-5) The Philistines had captured the Ark after the Israelites, without consulting Jehovah, impiously attempted to use it as some sort of magic box to give them victory in battle. Dagon did not fare well when alone at night with the Ark and was found by his priests toppled from his throne and later decapitated. One can assume the look on the faces of the pagan priests who found the mistreated Dagon to be akin to that of so many Westerners confined to high-rise apartments and surrounded by supplies of toilet paper and packaged meals snatched up as shelter-in-place orders issued.

Ideas Have Consequence... Richard M. Weaver, Rog... Best Price: $6.84 Buy New $13.31 (as of 03:40 UTC - Details) The appropriate response of the remnant to mass man and his shaken faith in the god of comfort should be one of compassion. As Weaver noted, mass man has been taught from the cradle a false interpretation of life in which he is promised that “progress is automatic.” Consequently, “he is not prepared to understand impediments” arising and blocking his manicured path. Liberalism long ago rejected the Christian Faith and its pledge of trials in this world. What is left of the Church often embraces the so-called prosperity Gospel and its promise of earthly mansions and high-end automobiles if one simply has enough faith. Liberalism defies any outside force to interrupt the march of progress on which society has come to depend and expect. “[Mass man] has been told in substance that the world is conditioned, and when unconditioned forces enter to put an end to his idyl,” Weaver observed, “he naturally suffers frustration.”

Weaver pointed to the “Great Stereopticon” as shielding man from truth in the world. By this he meant the mass media, which in his day was radio, Hollywood, and newspapers. Much like a white noise machine for an insomniac, the Great Stereopticon drowns out the sound of reality and puts its charge to sleep with the artificial. In our time, the Great Stereopticon has only grown stronger with the internet and multiple 24-hour cable news networks. Events are “refracted through a medium which colors them as effectively as the cosmology of the medieval scientist determined his view of the starry heavens.” Our night sky, through coordinated efforts that Weaver could not imagine, is cloudless with satellites crisscrossing and guaranteeing instantaneous communications, video gaming, and mindless entertainment.

Man’s dalliance with the god of comfort, Weaver postulated, began when urban living eclipsed rural life. “After man has left the countryside to shut himself up in vast piles of stone, after he has lost what Sir Thomas Browne called pudor rusticus, after he has come to depend on a complicated system of human exchange for survival, he becomes forgetful of the overriding mystery of creation.” Living in such an artificial environment of the city encourages man to believe that nothing is beyond his control. Such an environment, amplified by the noise of the Great Stereopticon, gives a false sense of assurance.

The Ethics of Rhetoric Weaver, Richard M. Best Price: $16.96 Buy New $19.95 (as of 06:30 UTC - Details) Assurance of continual comfort and the promise of ever increasing technology have been shattered by COVID-19.  Mass man, much like the Philistine priests, is presented with a choice: Acknowledge that his trusted god is nothing more than a deaf and mute idol, or send the evidence of his god’s weakness away and continue life as usual.  The Philistines chose the latter course. They placed the Ark in a cart drawn by two cows and sent it back to the people of Israel. Afterwards, they continued with their false religion as if nothing had happened.

According to Weaver, mass man must rediscover piety if he is to diverge from the course of the Philistines. “I would define piety,” Weaver wrote, “as an attitude of reverence or acceptance toward some overruling order or some deeply founded institution which the mere individual is not to tamper with.” In other words, man must rediscover the transcendent and its place in a healthy society.

Piety for Weaver was a matter of discipline and encompassed three points: nature, neighbors, and the past. With nature, Weaver encouraged man to stop trying to mold creation into something at odds with the Creator’s work.  Man should be a good steward of creation and its resources, but he must not confuse stewardship with regimentation, the latter allowing him to alter natural purposes and uses of creation for the fancy of his own mind. The urbanite, according to Weaver, is the most likely to be at enmity with nature inasmuch as he tried to abandon her “by taking flight from country to city.”  We can find great value in conforming our lives to the rhythm of nature, Weaver averred, rather than fighting with nature to bring compliance with our notions of comfort.

Read the Whole Article

Crossroads for Liberty... William J. Watkins Jr. Best Price: $17.60 Buy New $24.50 (as of 08:30 UTC - Details)