Richard M. Weaver: Man (page 2)

“The man of frank and strong prejudices, far from being a political and social menace and an obstacle in the path of progress, is often a benign character and helpful citizen. The chance is far greater, furthermore, that he will be more creative than the man who can never come to more than a few gingerly held conclusions, or who thinks that all ideas should be received with equal hospitality. There is such a thing as being so broad you are flat.”

Richard M. Weaver

“Life without prejudice,” p. 11-12.
Life Without Prejudice (1965)

Idea , Thinking , Strong , Chance

“Fanaticism has been properly described as redoubling one’s effort after one’s aim has been forgotten, and this definition will serve as a good introduction to the fallacy of technology, which is the conclusion that because a thing can be done it must be done. The means absorb completely, and man becomes blind to the very concept of ends.”

Richard M. Weaver

Source: Ideas have Consequences (1948), p. 60.

Effort

“There is … a good deal of empirical evidence for saying that rationalistic men are more intolerant than “prejudiced” men. The former take the position that their judgments are reasoned conclusions, and why should one swerve or deflect from what can be proved to all reasonable men? Such are often the authors of persecutions, massacres, and liquidations. The man who frankly confesses to his prejudices is usually more human and more humane. He adjusts amicably to the idea of his limitations. A limitation once admitted is a kind of monition not to try acting like something superhuman. The person who admits his prejudices, which is to say, his unreasoned judgments, has perspective on himself. … When H. L. Mencken wrote his brilliant series of essays on men, life, and letters, he gave them a title as illuminating as it was honest—Prejudices. What he meant … was that these were views based on such part of experience as had passed under his observation. There was no apology because some figures were praised and others were roundly damned, and there was no canting claim to “objectivity.””

Richard M. Weaver

Mencken knew that life and action turn largely on convictions which rest upon imperfect inductions, or sampling of evidence, and he knew that feeling is often a positive factor.
“Life without prejudice,” p. 10.
Life Without Prejudice (1965)

Life , Men , Feeling , Idea

“Man … feels lost without the direction-finder provide by progress.”

Richard M. Weaver

“Ultimate Terms in Contemporary Rhetoric,” p. 93.
Language is Sermonic (1970)

Feeling

“The member of a culture … purposely avoids the relationship of intimacy; he wants the object somehow depicted and fictionalized. … He is embarrassed when this is taken out of its context of proper sentiments and presented bare, for he feels that this is a reintrusion of that world which his whole conscious effort has sought to banish. Forms and conventions are the ladder of ascent. And hence the speechlessness of the man of culture when he beholds the barbarian tearing aside some veil which is half adornment, half concealment.”

Richard M. Weaver

Source: Ideas have Consequences (1948), p. 26.

World , Feeling , Tear , Effort

“The man of culture finds the whole past relevant; the bourgeois and the barbarian find relevant only what has some pressing connection with their appetite.”

Richard M. Weaver

Ideas have Consequences (1948)

Past

“… contempt for the degradation of specialization and pedantry. Specialization develops only part of a man; a man partially developed is deformed.”

Richard M. Weaver

Source: Ideas have Consequences (1948), p. 56.

Parting

“Try to imagine a man setting out for the day without a single prejudice. … Inevitably he would be in a state of paralysis. He could not get up in the morning, or choose his necktie, or make his way to the office, … or, to come right down to the essence of the thing, even maintain his identity.”

Richard M. Weaver

“Life without prejudice,” p. 12.
Life Without Prejudice (1965)

Way , Imagination