Azrael said:
What's your view on custom and tradition in society? For me they're the glue that holds together people who would otherwise have little in common, and must be defended against idealistic wrecking. I generally mistrust idealism of any kind: the rules of society need to be pragmatic if they're to function at all.
Broadly the same as Donna Ferentes's view - and not so far from your own. Many traditions survive in name, or outward form, only, and superficial continuity masks much more fundamental underlying change. Few traditions IMVHO are as well-established as they seem. Take the family, a concept which many cultural conservatives cling to. The fact is that the family unit they hold up as a tradition and as an ideal is actually a pretty recent construct. The concept of 'family' has meant different things down the ages, and doubtless will go on evolving. People like Hitchens seem to want to turn it back half a century or so, and freeze it there. That is IMO not realistic and, as you say, it's all bound in with a lot of highly inflexible moralising Biblical ranting at anyone who doesn't accept, or abide by, that concept of 'family.'
I don't think tradition is unimportant, by any means. In the end, all of our identities are formed with reference ot the past in one way or another and, as you suggest, accepted traditions and/or behavioural norms can help to hold society together, though I don't agree they are
the glue - more one glue of many.
However, I don't like the sort of mindset which says that because something is traditional it should not be changed. All too often IMO intelligent conservatism can drift into a knee-jerk dislike of any change at all, which is a fairly unconstructive attitude.
Er ... I'm rambling a bit. Liquid lunch.
I hope that's a reasonable summary of what I think.
Tbh I'm surprised people liked Friday night's contribution. I was fairly well tanked up when I composed that (on the bus, on the way home from a works party) and to me it now seems full of holes. Oh well...
) His book A Brief History of Crime abounds with sensible conservative (and pragmatic) points about family stability, police method, court procedure, and the damage of abandoning punishment as a moral imperative. But he wrecks it with rosy-eyed nonsense about Christian virtue, and his chapter about the war on drugs is hilariously idealistic from anti-idealist. His "Christian virtue" created much instability and should have evolved itself. But being dogma it couldn't.
