Part II in an ongoing series, Localism and the Universal Church. Read Part I here.
The traditionalist wishes to defend the reverence and deference due to inherited folk ways in spite of their appearances of irrationality, and often does so by taking a stand in defense of the irrational per se. Such is political romanticism. And the traditionalist presumes, understandably, that securing allegiance to a tradition will in turn keep in place the essential elements of a localized and intergenerational community. If one toes the line of spiritual tradition, the body of natural community will be sustained. If one demands fidelity and solidarity to one’s own as the highest if inexplicable good, one can secure the perseverance of an entire way of life. Modernity is consequently decried as rationalist, idealist, and abstracting—claims I take to be true, but perhaps not for the reasons the traditionalist critique would recognize.
Surely, modernity is beholden to this triad of fetishes. I would argue that insofar as modernity is “rationalistic,” it has ceased to believe in reason; insofar as it is idealist, it neglects not simply the body but the idea of reality; and insofar as it tends toward abstraction, it has failed rather than succeeded in being adequately critical of the concrete conditions of human knowledge.
I hope he elaborates more on what he takes to be the weakness of the traditionalist position is (as stated in the first paragraph).
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