The past is a foreign country . . .
Deogolwulf at Joy of Curmudgeonry comments on the modern "progressive" tendency to dismiss tradition out of hand. I'm reminded of a bit of dialogue in Whit Stillman's Metropolitan, in which the "hero" Tom complains to the "heroine" Audrey about Jane Austen's Mansfield Park. He finds it ridiculous, from the perspective of modern society, for Austen to get so worked up about a bunch of young people putting on a play. Audrey asks him whether he has ever considered how ridiculous modern society would look from the perspective of Jane Austen's society.
That's the essence of a reasonable traditionalism, I think; that is, it requires simply that one bother to consider the present from the perspective of the past.
That's the essence of a reasonable traditionalism, I think; that is, it requires simply that one bother to consider the present from the perspective of the past.
posted by Kate Marie | 10:03 AM | Permalink
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4 comments
4 Comments:
An interesting comment, Kate Marie, but I wish you would flesh it out. Its fairly easy to see why someone would distrust tradition: at one point slavery, racism, the oppression of women, and autocracy were part of "tradition" - and in many parts of the world some of the above still are. A natural response is to discount tradition entirely, and instead try to find some fundamental principles of justice to base decisions on.
Many people, however, want to preserve all of the backwards gazing in some form. However, I never see any coherent articulation of the role tradition ought to play. When exactly do we decide that the traditional way of doing things is unjust? I haven't seen any convincing answer in theory, but in practice the answer seems to be "never," which has led me to discount the whole line of argument as more or less unserious.
Hi Alex,
I wished I'd fleshed it out more, too, but it seems the hit and run blogging is all I have time for these days.
All I can do is offer some disjointed thoughts (and maybe eventually follow up with some quotes from Chesterton, just for the heck of it):
1) My post, and the post of Deogolwulf's that I linked to, were really less full-fledged defenses of tradtion than criticisms of a reflexive and unthinking rejection of tradition. I agree that it's a pathetic kind of traditionalism that would insist on retaining an unjust and immoral institution because "it's tradition." But I think it's just as silly to argue for abolishing or rejecting or even suspecting an institution simply because it's traditional -- and I agree with Deogolwulf that that's the kind of attitude that some "progressives" seem to take toward tradition.
2) To discount tradition entirely may be a natural response to the horrors which have been defended in the name of tradition, but I would caution that a wholesale razing of tradition may accompany and give rise to horrors, too.
3) "Backward gazing" -- or looking backward -- is also a natural human activity. In fact, I would argue it's one of the most natural and "human" of all human impulses. Isn't it human to wonder, "What came before me? And why?" The kind of traditionalism I would argue for, is ultimately a matter of asking those two questions. It's not that we must constantly defer to tradition, but that we should make an effort to understand it, before we reject traditional instituions.
4) I'll admit that some traditional institutions (slavery chief among them) seem easier to reject than others, but I would also suggest that slavery was rejected and abolished in the West by people and groups who fought under the banner of a different tradition (Western, Christian, "individualist" in some respects, etc.) -- and that it was precisely the appeal to that different tradition that prompted so many to rally 'round the cause.
5) This may seem like a facile point, but the appeal to reason and to "some fundamental principles of justice" is *also* traditional, and we should remember that there are those on both the left and the right who would reject *that* tradition as eagerly as the abolitionists rejected salvery.
6) Let me return to the land of pop culture to make this last point. The kind of traditionalism I would argue for is the kind that would, at the very least, understand the conflict/tension between tradition and innovation that occurs in Fiddler on the Roof. If you can understand why Tevye struggles with with each decision regarding his daughter's marriages -- and if you can understand why each successive break with tradition is more serious -- then you have some modicum of respect for tradition. The people who can't understand, or who refuse to consider, that tension are the ones I don't trust -- partly because I don't trust such people to lead the way to "the future," and partly because I don't trust people who can't appreciate Fiddler on the Roof. :)
Hi, Kate Marie
An interesting response. I only have a couple of brief comments:
- I think a few times in your comment you use the word "tradition" too vaguely, in the sense that it could be argued that almost any belief is traditional. After all, beliefs rarely just pop into existence out of nowhere, rather they are preceded by similar beliefs which evolve and so on. For the discussion to have meaning, I think tradition needs to be very concretely and narrowly defined.
- Does anyone ever criticize anything simply because its traditional? This seems difficult for me to imagine - "don't eat food because its what your ancestors did" sounds laughable. Perhaps you are capable of digging up examples in response to this, but I think such examples would be pretty rare.
- Here is my pet peeve. Its fine to wax poetic about the many things that tradition can offer us. But attacking others for ignoring tradition is another thing entirely. Until defenders of tradition can point to a concrete theory which allows us to value tradition without deferring to it, they should cease attacking people for ignoring tradition on this or that issue.
Hi Alex,
-- But I think part of my point is that the definition of tradition is necessarily broad, if not necessarily vague. Here's what I got from an online dictionary:
"tra·di·tion
n.
1. The passing down of elements of a culture from generation to generation, especially by oral communication.
2.
a. A mode of thought or behavior followed by a people continuously from generation to generation; a custom or usage.
b. A set of such customs and usages viewed as a coherent body of precedents influencing the present: followed family tradition in dress and manners. See Synonyms at heritage.
3. A body of unwritten religious precepts.
4. A time-honored practice or set of such practices.
[snip]"
I don't see how one could narrow that. That's why when I argue for tradition, I'm arguing, not for a concrete policy which spells out exactly when tradition should be followed and when it should be rejected, but for a habit of mind which has at least a healthy respect for the role of tradition in our culture/civilization.
-- No time to search for quotes (maybe later) but I disagree about how often people and groups will suggest that an institution's or idea's traditionalism *per se* makes it suspect. There are whole strains of thought in America, for instance, which are predicated on the idea of rejecting "the past" and its traditions (Emerson comes to mind here, and maybe even William James).
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