The original spirit manifesting itself in many particulars, which lose sight of their original source and decide to set up godheads in their own right

As One views modern man in his innumerable exhibitions of irresponsibility and defiance, one may discern, if he has the courage to see what he sees—which, as Charles Péguy reminded us, is the higher courage—a prodigious egotism. This egotism, which is another form of fragmentation, is a consequence of that fatal decision to make a separate self the measure of value. A figure from Neo-Platonism is suggested, and one may picture the original spirit manifesting itself in many particulars, which lose sight of their original source and decide to set up godheads in their own right. Since under conditions of modern freedom the individual thinks only of his rights, he does not refer his action to the external frame of obligation. His wish is enough. He cannot be disciplined on the theoretical level, and on the practical level he is disciplined  only by some hypostatized social whole whose methods become brutal as its authority turns out to be, on investigation, merely human.

The sin of egotism always takes the form of withdrawal. When personal advantage becomes paramount, the individual passes out of the community. We do not mean the state, with its apparatus of coercion, but the spiritual community, where men are related on the plane of sentiment and sympathy and where, conscious of their oneness, they maintain a unity not always commensurable with their external unification.

Richard Weaver
Ideas have consequences