Down to the wire : confronting climate collapse / David - Index of

late-night thoughts about democracy S 77
Box 2.2. Postscript: A Note on the Shelf Life of
Economic Ideas
Those of us who have looked to the self-interest of lending institutions
to protect shareholder’s equity, myself included, are in a state of shocked
disbelief . . . Yes, I have found a fl aw. I don’t know how signifi cant or
permanent it is. But I’ve been very distressed by that fact.
—Alan Greenspan
The self-confi dence of learned people is the comic tragedy of civilization.
—Alfred North Whitehead
Conservative philosopher Richard Weaver once noted that “ideas
have consequences” (1984). And some really bad ideas of the
last half century are leaving a legacy of very bad consequences.
Weaver’s 1948 book was an extended argument for conservatism,
beginning with the recognition of knowledge higher than our
own and the importance of such things as virtue, character, craftsmanship,
enduring quality, civility, and, above all, piety. Applied
to nature, Weaver argued for a “degree of humility” such that we
might avoid meddling “with small parts of a machine of whose
total design and purpose we are ignorant” (p. 173). “Our planet,”
he wrote, is falling victim to a rigorism, so that what is done in
any remote corner affects—nay, menaces—the whole. Resiliency
and tolerance are lost” (p. 173). Weaver regarded the modern project
to reconstruct nature as an “adolescent infatuation.” One can
reasonably imagine the approbation he would have felt for the
creative exhibition of thievery and stupidity that has led to our
present circumstances.
Weaver’s idea that ideas have real consequences, alas, had less
consequence than one might wish. It is honored mostly among a
small band of true conservatives, the uncommon sort who actually
value the conservation of tradition, law, custom, nature, culture,
and religion, and who take ideas and their real-world implications
seriously. Other than the title of his book, however, Weaver
is presently unknown to the wider public, and probably not at
all to the faux conservatives who daily bloviate on FOX News.
Unfortunately, ideas, whatever their consequences, seldom “yield
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