The Future of Tradition: Transmitting the Visceral Ethical Code of Civilization

In: Policy review: the journal of American citizenship, Heft 131, S. [np]

Abstract

In the context of the current US culture war, & in particular the gay marriage debate, the mutual exclusion of tradition & reason is acknowledged & the future of tradition in the face of an ever more rationalized world is contemplated. Various theories of tradition are looked at, along with the defense of tradition with reason & the link between "ethical obviousness of tradition" & cultural relativism. Three defenses of tradition as valuable in & of itself are then laid out: tradition as useful fiction; the argument from skepticism, & Friedrich Hayek's defense. Attention is also given to Karl Popper's fable of the harmless tigers tradition, the implications of Moses Maimonides's defense of tradition & the declarative-sentence paradigm, traditions as recipes, transformative customs & traditions, & the transgenerational stability of civilization. A theory of tradition is offered whereby tradition acts to maintain civilization & acts as a civilizing agent that fosters the construction of a social reality ethically superior to the one preceding it; the issue of deciding which ethical plane is higher than another is addressed in terms of childrearing. Ethical ideals are then considered in terms of Aristotle's telos, which manifests in the form of an individual referred to here as "the shining example"; this perspective is used to view the gay marriage debate. M. Ruben