Tradition
means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the
democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant
oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking about.
-
GK Chesterton
Do not move
the ancient boundary which your fathers have set.
-
Solomon
Has
there ever been a generation of Americans more ahistorical and anti-tradition
than ours? We live and make our decisions as if history began with our
generation and us. We pay no heed to the wisdom and traditions, i.e., a body of
beliefs, handed down from age to age: the understanding that comes from experience
winnowed down through the ages means zip to us. We believe that we are fully
capable of sorting out the major crises of our day without any guidance from
the past. Consequently, we have become a nation of pigmies who are cannibalizing
the inheritance passed on to us by giants.
Much
of the wisdom we need for successfully navigating through life is found in “the
democracy of the dead.” Back in the day (before John Dewy, the father of modern
education here in the US), this was one of the great goals of education: to
immerse the student in the collective wisdom of ages past as to what
constituted a fully functioning human being, a strong family, a harmonious society,
a prosperous nation. Western Civilization itself grew out of and sustained
itself by this very mindset. In studying theologians, philosophers, artists,
societies, and cultures where human dignity, liberty, and equality before
constituted law were espoused, each generation sought to conserve and add to
this wisdom, so as to pass on the beliefs that secure the pillars of
civilization.
Some
of the pillars of American civilization are:
God
creates humans and ordains government
Belief
in a transcendent moral order that is based in religious faith
Belief
that individual virtue is essential to societal harmony
Religious
liberty
Individual
liberty under law
Equality
before the law
The
right to own what you produce: a critical component of all our freedoms
The
most effective governments are localized not centralized
Society
is a spiritual community with responsibilities to both past and future
generations
Does
this mean that we are to accept every espousal of wisdom and tradition
(beliefs) passed on by past generations as if it were Holy Writ? Of course not.
But if an ancient boundary has been set - if there are generations of customs,
mores, and beliefs that have been established – we are fools worthy of
destruction, if we treat such as minor inconveniences of no consequence. There
is a reason why generations of people adhered to this boundary, why they
believed as they did. At the very least
we should find out why this was so, before we throw it into the dustbin of
history.
Ignoring
the wisdom and traditions of our forbearers while tackling the crises that are
threatening civilization with anarchy or tyranny with only our limited reason and
experience is hubris of the highest degree. If we want to leave our
grandchildren a nation that supports “life, liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness,” then we ought to discover what body of beliefs from the past
created such a culture in the first place.
Copyright,
Monte E Wilson.2016
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