ABSTRACT
An honest view of man and the quest for civilized communities are themes that appear consistently throughout Weaver’s work. To Richard Weaver, one of the great tragedies of modernism was its perverse—and dangerous—view of man. Whereas philosophers and poets throughout the ages viewed man as “a creature somewhat below angels” who was engaged “in a monumental struggle for his soul,” twentieth-century man was considered a “naturally good” being who could be perfected by social engineering. Weaver was especially alarmed by the acceptance of man as simply a “naturally good” creature. The dual view of man also offered hope even in civilization’s darkest hours. Man is an angel, he is a monster. He is imbedded with original sin, a condition that he must constantly struggle to resist. The contrast between the last days of the agrarian South as dramatized in The Southern Tradition at Bay and the chaos of urban life as portrayed in Ideas Have Consequences is vivid enough.
