Tradition is normative, traditionalism isn't
And that's a problem for the latter, it seems to me
This post is kind of an old hat topic in that many of you have talked about these things with me for years. I promise later I’ll write about Wallace Stegner or water law or why country swing dancing is the proper characteristic activity of man- you know, the important stuff. For now though, let’s talk about traditionalism. Two quotes:
The first from Steve Skojec’s much commented upon essay declaring his break from traditionalist Catholicism. Amidst a litany of not insignificant personal wounds, he makes a point that hits right at the heart of the traditionalist movement.
“Without a present-day Church that not only allows but actually lives the traditional Catholic ethos, traditionalism remains … a recreation out of place and time needing to justify its own existence in the present as a nostalgic aberration. It no longer has a context that gives it a place at the heart of the Church, which is the only place it could ever truly belong. It cannot exist as a “preferential option” and be still what it once was: essential.” (emphasis mine)
The second from the conclusion of Patrick Deneen’s Why Liberalism Failed1, in which he more or less endorses the Benedict Option for cultural restoration, but articulates one of its paradoxes more clearly than other advocates usually do.
“Ironically, given the default choice-based philosophy that liberalism has bequeathed to us, what might someday become a nonvoluntarist cultural landscape must be born out of voluntarist intentions, plans, and actions.”
In times and places where truly traditional societies flourished, supported by thick culture and strong mediating institutions, it doesn’t seem to me there would be much need for expressing and advocating traditionalism. After all, people grow into their traditions in quite a different way than people encounter traditionalism. The one comes simply from the activities of one’s life, the other from reading a lot of books and talking to Ryan Weiland. And modern traditionalism often has the effect of quite uprooting people from their origins. A trad convert born into a liberal Methodist family isn’t showing too much respect for place, custom, and family culture, but he can probably quote Martin Mosebach at you from memory. Such uprooting is of course expected in liberal society, indeed is even the mark of success, but isn’t it a little bit of an indictment that traditionalism operates the same way?
Traditionalism, even with its vociferous criticisms of modern, self-creating individualism, is inescapably a choice that is embraced inside the individualistic, self creating paradigm. This has led some to assert that the whole project of traditionalism or the Benedict Option is unavoidably hypocritical on the part of those who would found such intentional communities: “I’m going to use my radical free choice to opt into a set of customs that are personally attractive to me, then try my damnedest to make sure my kids won’t be able to imagine doing the same,” we might (uncharitably) characterize such a mindset. I think this charge of hypocrisy is unavoidably somewhat true, but I don’t think it necessarily follows, as some claim, that the project is therefore manifestly illegitimate. After all, Deneen is forthrightly acknowledging this paradox in the quotation above as an irony created by the extreme advance of liberalism, but one we just have to laugh a little at while carrying on about the work. And if our culture is truly rotten, an anticulture, as Deneen suggests, then of course traditionalism must be what tradition never is: countercultural.
For myself, I don’t love that traditionalism has to exist within such a paradox, but I’m highly suspicious of the idea that we should on those grounds alone dismiss it. It is, however, a problem that traditionalists should be cognizant of in a Matthew 7:3 kind of way. What do you think, is there a paradox here, and ought those of a traditionalist bent to worry about it?
I’ve just finished this for a political philosophy class, and come away feeling that I’ve read a far better book than the ‘discourse’ around it led me to expect. You should read it too.
Humanity is not a monolithic organism. People will always tribalize along one line or another, formally and/or informally, in secret or in the light, depending on the dominant cultural mileu. Broadly, humans do best when able to self sort accordingly. Problems tend to arise with the tension between invitation vs imposition. (Presuming all basic needs have been met and there is not competition for scarce resources to meet those basic needs. See Maslow.) Therefore, I see no hypocrisy unless imposition (very illiberal) is involved. If only, we could all learn to stay in our corner of the sandbox and learn to play nicely with others...sigh.
“I’m going to use my radical free choice to opt into a set of customs that are personally attractive to me, then try my damnedest to make sure my kids won’t be able to imagine doing the same" is the story of my life right now, it would seem...
I agree that keeping an eye on the mote is wise, but its existence shouldn't derail the project. This is getting into ends-justify-means territory, but the necessity of unrotting the culture (or at least getting away from it) is worth a mild hypocrisy.