Ideas have consequences

Modern man has become a moral idiot.

So says Richard Weaver, in his philosophical masterpiece, Ideas Have Consequences (1948). Starting with William of Occam, Weaver details the destructive influence of nominalism on Western Civilization.  Students of philosophy understand nominalism as the doctrine which states that universals or general ideas are mere names without any corresponding reality. Anathema to reality, nominalism denies objective truth.

Accordingly, Weaver argued that the defeat of logical realism by the likes of William of Occam was crucial in bringing about moral relativism and the belief of man as the measure of all things. As a result, Weaver claims that, "for four centuries every man has been not only his own priest but his own professor of ethics, and the consequence is an anarchy which threatens even that minimum consensus of value necessary to the political state."

"In our own day," Weaver continues, "we have seen cities obliterated and ancient faiths stricken... we have for many years moved with a brash confidence that man had achieved a position of independence which rendered the ancient faiths needless.

Thus, we are living in the age of the Philistine -- that is, "the barbarian living amid culture."

How, then, do we restore logical realism and morality? In his Laws, Plato advised: "Let the parents, then, bequeath to their children not riches, but the spirit of reverence." Piety, that is. According to Weaver, "Piety is a discipline of the will through respect. It admits the right to exist of things larger than the ego, of things different from the ego. And, before we can bring harmony back into a world where now everything seems to meet in 'mere oppugnancy,' we shall have to regard with the spirit of piety three things: nature, our neighbors, and the past."

Piety is duty to our Creator in all its forms; only with a sense of reverence can we embrace reality while keeping our hearts open to the transcendent.