The G.A.P. Pilgrim: Ideas Have Consequences: Chap. 6

Mystie provides a great overview of what Weaver means by the "Spoiled Child" in this chapter. It is truly frightening how well he traces the paths to our cultural undoing.

I will just highlight a few parts that rang true with me.

Weaver rails against the "softness" in our society and explains that with this softening,

the masculine virtue of heroism becomes, like the sentiments of which Burke spoke, " absurd and antiquated"

This is because,

hardness is a condition of heroism. Exertion, self-denial, endurance, these make the hero, but to the spoiled child they connote the evil of nature and the malice of man.

Honestly, I don't think we are supposed to have "masculine virtues" at all anymore - because that would mean that there is a difference between men and women and the roles they play. I guess that is one reason why I am pursuing a more classical curriculum because I want my sons to hear stories about heroes and to be challenged to be bold, daring and protective of those around them. To have a purpose spurred on by duty and love. This article from Memoria Press explains why modern literature doesn't appeal to boys; because, it doesn't call them to action or provide them with people worth modeling. Unfortunately, instead of providing appealing heroes and ideals for our boys, most authors (and teachers) seem to think that we need to play to their baseness with books like "Captain Underpants".

If you are looking for good books for boys - I recommend checking out the lists for younger and older boys at Ordo Amoris. I am going to trust her 25 years of homeschooling 8 boys and follow her lead in reading to nurture my boys vision of what a man should be - in the best sense possible. .

Okay, back to Weaver. He begins by talking about the development of the "soft" individual and then shows how this mentality can undermine society - especially in the face of a strong counter ideology (like Communism - at the time).

Even if we could assume pacific intentions on both sides (Soviet Union and United States at this writing), the future would not be safe for Western Liberalism. Its fundamental incapacity to think, arising from an inability to see contradictions, deprives it of the power to propagate.

From the Youngbloods popular song

Come on people now

Smile on your brother

Everybody get together

Try to love one another

Right now

Aren't we all just the same? Well, NO. It is not a matter of education or just understanding each other better. We don't all believe the same things, want the same ends and agree on a similar vision of life. As I learned from Schall, peace requires order (that's not the only requirement, but there isn't peace in disorder); but, if your "orders" are not the same there will not be peace. However, if we can't hold on to the things that makes us distinct as a nation and culture then we will not propogate and will fall apart from the inside out - just as Weaver predicts.

I am not a huge fan of extended quotes but he describes our present situation so well (remember written in 1948) that I just have to include it (bold is mine).

. . . it seems likely that the Western people are destined not for the happiness which they have promised themselves, but for something like Peguy's "socialist poverty". In an effort to secure themselves against the challenge of dynamism they will divert more of their substance and strength into armies and bureaucracies, the former to afford them protection from attack, the latter to effect internal order. In this event, personality will hardly survive. The individual will be told that the state is moving to guarantee his freedom, as in a sense it will be; but, to do so, it must inhibit the individual indulgence and even responsibility. To give strength to its will, the state restricts the wills of its citizens. This is a general formula of political organization.

As one of my favorite talk show hosts says "The bigger the government, the smaller the citizen." For me, this quote highlights how both strengthening the military and social programming, in some ways, are different responses to the same problem. Interesting. So maybe, one of the key differences is whether you are more afraid of the military or the bureaucracy taking away your freedoms.

One more - I just can't say it nearly as well as he does:

speaking of the "modern man" (italics mine)

he marks inequalities of condition and, forbidden by his dogmas to admit inequalities of merit, moves to obliterate them. The outcry comes masked as an assertion that property rights should not be allowed to stand in the way of human rights, which would be well enough if human rights had not been divorced from duties. But as it is, the mass simply decides that it can get something without submitting to the discipline of work and proceeds to dispossess.

So, I will end as Weaver does