The 2025-2026 school year kicks off on Monday, 18 August 2025. That means it’s time for my annual reflection on the works of Richard Weaver, the legendary academic who did more than anyone (that I know of) to defend a more traditional, quasi-medieval way of life. He was also a major champion of the South.
Weaver catches a lot of flack from edgier fringes of the Right because his book Ideas Have Consequences (that’s an Amazon Affiliate link, as is the “South” link; I receive a portion of any purchases made through those links, at no additional cost to you) places a large emphasis on ideas as the source of our various social maladies, overlooking more fundamental influences like biology. While I do believe that genetics play a fairly significant role in how we interact with and perceive the world, I am not a biological determinist by any stretch of the imagination. Humans are animals to an extent, yes, but we are more. We have souls that endure beyond our body. We also have minds with which to think.
The HBD crowd among the online Right has some interesting insights to bring to the table, and their critiques of blank slatism are worth considering (for example, it is clear that black Americans and Africans are far more likely to develop sickle cell anemia than other races, as sickle cell anemia developed as an adaptation to resist malaria in sub-Saharan Africa), but plenty of people with the same genetic constitution believe and practice vastly different things. Ideas, experienced and encountered at the right times and/or under the right conditions, can have a massive influence on how an individual develops. Sure, we might see certain ideas taking hold more among a group of people, but that doesn’t mean every person in that group must come to believe those things. The HBD folks also downplay the importance of cultural reinforcement of certain ideas.
For example, do I think Southerners are more conservative and traditional and religious than other Americans because so many of our ancestors were part of the pro-monarchy Cavaliers in the English Civil War? Sure. But none of us are sitting around talking about the Cavaliers outside of University of Virginia football (and, honestly, we’re not talking about that much, either). Centuries of cultural reinforcement have played a huge role in keeping our institutions and our churches relatively traditional.
Dr. Fiancée’s family, for example, are of German Lutheran extraction from Michigan. She was raised in the Lutheran tradition. I can definitely see the German genetic influence in her family’s more taciturn, logical nature. But her family moved South when she was still a child, and she is very Southern. Her religious journey ultimately brought her to the Southern Baptist tradition. She speaks with a Southern accent. She is incredibly reflective and thoughtful, and came to her conclusions about religion through rigorous reading and reflection (and, of course, through the power of the Holy Spirit).
So, no, I don’t think Richard Weaver is the secret source of all of our modern ills, because he thought that ideas matter. That’s rather myopic. Indeed, Weaver’s work demonstrates how even the grain of idea can grow into a huge worldview. Christopher Nolan explored the very same concept in his film Inception (2010).
With that, here is 15 August 2024’s “TBT^256: Back to School with Richard Weaver“:
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The Portly Politico 