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Friday, August 19, 2011

Recovering Tradition


 Another case in point: I took a group of students to a shooting range in the neighboring town.  In the introduction, they said it was a relatively modern shooting guild, dating back ONLY about 400 years.  Hello, that is how old our country is!  For us, that is recent but more on the ancient side of the timeline!
Inevitably, as students travel Europe and experience the awe and grandeur of its historic churches, architecture, folk customs and symbols, they are confronted with the meaning of tradition.  What is it?  What's in it for me?

When compared with today's global megapolis we can be tempted to think of tradition as a relic of the past, as a sad step backwards.  On the other hand, as Plinio CorrĂȘa de Oliveira (one of contributors to the blog Nobility and Analogous  Traditional Elites) wisely points out,

In the midst of the whirlwind that is overthrowing all hierarchies and blowing away all clothing, tradition feels like stifling yoke. But when the triumphant vulgarity of an increasingly egalitarian world, the noisy, frantic, and hurly-burly rhythm of daily life, and the instability threatening all institutions, all rights and all situations cause neurosis, anguish and stress in millions of our contemporaries, then tradition appears to them as an elevated rest for the soul, good sense, good breeding, good order and, in a word, the art of living wisely.

What then should we make of tradition, and what is it properly understood? 

To answer, I will again quote from de Oliveira's article on TraditionTrue tradition, in principle, is neither for the past as such nor for the present as such. It presupposes two principles: (a) that every authentic and living order of things has in itself a continuous impulse toward improvement and perfection; (b) that, therefore, true progress is not to break but to go on to the heights.  In short, tradition is the sum of the past plus a present that is akin to it. Today should not be the denial of yesterday, but rather its harmonious continuation.

He continues with a concrete example: our Christian tradition is an incomparable value that must rule the present. It acts, for example, so that equality may not be understood as the sweeping away of the elites and as an apotheosis of vulgarity; so that liberty may not serve as a pretext for chaos and depravity; so that dynamism does not become frenzy; so that technology does not enslave man. In a word, it aims to prevent progress from becoming inhuman, unbearable, and hateful.
Therefore, tradition does not mean to stifle progress, but to protect it from going absurdly far astray as to become organized barbarity.

Indeed as students travel Europe they are confronted with tradition and forced to grapple with its essence.  From my experience, this is one of the great "teachable moments" we have here in our study abroad program.  Through their travels, they directly experience the beauty of tradition in its positive sense.  They can inhale its continuity with the present and view the constant challenge it presents as they seek to live wisely and grabble with the impulse towards improvement and perfection. 

As we gear up to another semester, part of my hope and prayer is that the students will come to imbibe tradition and come away from this experience freer and more ennobled.