Embracing the Conservative: Richard Weaver

What appeals to me the most about the Richard Weaver article is that the author includes a lot of Weaver's own words, rather than merely summarizing his life and works. Weaver claims he became socialist because "I had no defenses whatever against their doctrine" (156), then eventually dropped socialism because he "could not like the members of the movement as persons" (156). When Weaver became conservative it wasn't entirely because he agreed with everything they said - he just really liked them a lot. And that is what I see as the major driving force in Weaver's life - his perception of people.

It is obvious that Richard Weaver was an extremely intelligent human being; he received honor and awards that would make most of us jealous, and yet he chose to spend his classroom time with the freshmen and his free summer time in near-seclusion with his mother. He went where he felt he could make a difference, I think, and tended to avoid crowds. The decision he made from the beginning to keep his life simple is what gave him the clarity of mind to do what he really wanted to do: use "his energies for the reading and writing that mattered to him as a scholar."

Weaver's approach is an adaptation of what most major religions would agree with, that the human being is a complex compilation of body, mind and soul - or emotion, ethic, religion, and rationality. Where Weaver deviates from most religions is where he separates religion from ethics - other than this, though, his concepts are focused around that ancient diagram. He then divides these components into smaller subcomponents, the rational, for example, being divided into ideas, beliefs, and a metaphysical dream - that is separate from emotion, ethic and religion.

Where Weaver addresses rhetoric is when he discusses language: in order to communicate any sort of truth, we use either the dialectic or rhetoric. Because dialectic doesn't move the human being emotionally, it is incomplete; rhetoric, he argues, is essential because it addresses more than just the rational aspect of the human being.

Weaver took the time to formulate his theories and write them down; I'm curious - do professors today have the time to do what he did, or are they kept too busy with their classes and research? Maybe Weaver had to fight the scholastic system the whole time - but (this question is directed towards Professor Fishman) do you think universities encourage the kind of lifestyle Weaver led, or no?