RE: Is traditionalism bullshit?
September 13, 2014 at 10:06 pm
(This post was last modified: September 13, 2014 at 10:21 pm by genkaus.)
(September 13, 2014 at 11:39 am)MusicLovingAtheist Wrote: Can you think of any more bullshit traditions and things that conservatives will get pissy about?
You talking just US or around the world?
(September 13, 2014 at 11:53 am)Chuck Wrote: The main argument for traditionalism, and it is not an argument that can be trivially dismissed, is in essence this: a working society is a supreme good. A traditional society clearly works, otherwise it wouldn't have lived long enough for its views to become customary and its institutions to become traditions. Since societies and human behaviors are highly complex and often difficult to thoroughly analyze and predict, breaking with what works could never be guaranteed to result in things that would work as well as before, nor could the unforeseen cost of the change be guaranteed to be less than the alleged benefit of the change.
Without going into the details about the basis of society and other possible foundational objections, the counter-argument to this would be:
The idea that "a working society is a supreme good" is too simplistic. A society should not just work, it should have a reasonable expectation that it'd keep working. And from examining different societies, we see that the work to different degrees. For example, if a military society decides to wipe out a peaceful one, the idea that "the peaceful society's current traditions work" doesn't indicate a supreme good. Another measure would be whether the society works for just a few of its members or most of them would also indicate a graded level of how "good" it is.
Given we have ample samples available, past and present, we can make judgments about what works, what doesn't work and what would work better. The idea of sticking to a current tradition by saying "it works", without judging whether it is actually beneficial or detrimental to the society is repulsive.
