Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

This book is densely written and merits -- maybe requires -- multiple readings. Fortunately, it's also a compelling book, which will make you want to reread it. The idea whose consequences Weaver entails and deplores he identifies as nominalism or relativism -- the absence of belief in any source of truth outside man, the absence of universals, the reduction of all things to formless particulars. You might have thought that such an idea was too abstract to have any impact on your life, but Weaver argues persuasively that nominalism makes impossible the "metaphysical dream" of an organized universe, leading to social chaos, formless art, virtueless individuals suckered by newspapers, movies and radio (today I imagine he would have added television to the list) into believing that life consists only of chasing ever more creature comforts and a universal "spoiled-child psychology". He also prescribes remedies. The ownership of property, he argues, is the sole surviving "metaphysical right" our culture recognizes, and the starting point for anyone wishing to restore other metaphysical ideas. Because language is so closely tied to thought, Weaver argues for some language-oriented educational remedies (more emphasis on poetry in education, and on foreign languages, especially Latin and Greek). He also argues the case for the dying virtue of piety, which he defines as respect for nature, respect for the substance of others, and respect for the substance of the past. There's more than a little of the grouchy conservative in Weaver. For instance, he complains bitterly about jazz, "the clearest of all signs of our age's deep-seated predilection for barbarism." This reminds me, amusingly, of Robert Bork's similar complaints in _Slouching Towards Gomorrah_ -- except that Bork complains that rock and roll is the degenerate music of adolescence, in contrast to the serious and adult-themed music of... you guessed it... jazz. But this is a small flaw. Weaver's diagnosis of the ills of our age is insightful and thought-provoking. I, for one, am certainly willing to take a crack at his proposed remedies.