Richard M. Weaver - Early Influences

Early Influences

Weaver strongly believed in preserving and defending what he considered to be traditional Southern principles (Young 8). These principles, such as anti-consumerism and chivalry, were the basis of Weaver's teaching, writing, and speaking.

Having been raised with strong moral values, Weaver saw religion as the foundation for family and civilization (Young 21). His appreciation for religion is evident in speeches he gave early while an undergraduate at the Christian Endeavour Society, as well as in his later writings (Young 22).

Influenced by his University of Kentucky professors, who were mostly of Midwestern origin and of social democratic inclinations, and by the crisis of the Great Depression, Weaver believed that industrial capitalism had led the United States to a general moral, economic, and intellectual failure. Initially hoping that socialism would afford an alternative to the prevailing industrialist culture (Young 3), he joined the Kentucky chapter of the American Socialist Party. In 1932 Weaver actively campaigned for Norman Thomas, the standard-bearer of that party. A few years later, he made a financial contribution to the Loyalist cause in the Spanish Civil War. Encounters with intellectuals in coming years would unsettle his early acceptance of socialist dogma.

While doing a master's degree in English at Vanderbilt University, Weaver discovered ideas related to the Southern Agrarians there (Young 69). Gradually he began a rejection of socialism and embrace of tradition. Over the remainder of his life, he arguably became the most eloquent and accomplished exponent that movement has ever had. He admired and sought to emulate its leader, the "doctor of culture" John Crowe Ransom (Young 5).

The Agrarians wrote passionately about the traditional values of community and the Old South. In 1930, a number of Vanderbilt University faculty and their students, led by Ransom, wrote an Agrarian manifesto, titled I'll Take My Stand (Young 38). Weaver agreed with the group's suspicion of the post-Civil War industrialization of the South (Young 47). He found more congenial Agrarianism's focus on traditionalism and regional cultures than socialism's egalitarian "romanticizing" of the welfare state (Scotchie 12). Yet Weaver abandoned socialism for Agrarianism only gradually over a number of years. For example, the thinking of his 1934 M.A. thesis was not Agrarian (Young 58).