Traditionalism in a Changing World
27th February 2011
I feel that holiday traditions may, and often do, play a role of some determinative, even normative importance in our lives, whether we realize it or not. Thus there is value in being able conceive of and respond to them distinctly. I feel that way because traditions are deeply associated with many other things I take seriously: local engagement, cultural identity, historical memory, familial attachment, and other “communitarian” goods. These don’t constitute a perfectly indivisible bundle, of course, but “traditionalism” is a thread that runs through them and to a degree connects them. Speaking up for tradition in our economically globalized and hyper-mobile world may be essential to making a case for the communitarian perspective as a whole.