The Need For Tradition

Destroying a tradition without considering what to put in its place is more dangerous than nuclear war. I am not defending tradition for traditions sake. It is not merely the tradition that is thrown out, it is the spirit.

A tradition’s benefits are intangible. Similarly, a house does not do anything. It serves us simply by being there. A computer does many things, but if you had to choose between a house and computer, there would be no contest.

People, for a host of reasons, are too willing to opt for change for the sake of change or because a small number of people find it in their interests to have that change, but the general benefit of the change is doubtful. This can be best observed by looking carefully at a country such as the USA. It still counts as a young country and every adult was once a child. Americans have got far too much power for their own good and most of it was thrust upon them. Now they are in the position of having pushed off from the quayside of childhood. They are in mid ocean and they cannot see the shore of adulthood. They do not have a target. There is very little shaping events for them except, mainly, outside forces.

Change should be a matter of evolution rather than some hastily-taken decision. Hunting is one of those things that could so easily be abandoned by everyone but the vacuum would not be pleasant. America is good at this, finding new things but no-one has had time to work out what they really mean.

No-one who campaigns against hunting has any grasp of what abolishing fox-hunting really means. At this moment in time it is not going to happen, so it does not really matter. It matters more and more as abolition gets closer. This is a very complex subject and it does not just concern fox-hunting. What do you think this country would be like if every habit and tradition over thirty years old was suddenly eradicated?

People who wish to abolish fox-hunting cannot be sure that the damage they are doing is not greater than hunting foxes. The longer a tradition survives, the more “soul” it gets. No-one considers enough what it is they are really doing before they do it. They don’t like this, so get rid of it, but no-one really knows what they are getting rid of. This is why Iran went through such a change when they got rid of the Shah. Al it started out as was an attempt to restore some of the more basic Islamic traditions. They have gone over the top, in part because of what they were trying to do, but a great deal has to do with pressure from other people from outside. In a little over a couple of decades, the Shah destroyed a lot of Islamic traditions and the country is reaping the doubtful harvest of that now. For a revolution to be successful, it must be capable of getting rid of what it set out to remove without putting something equally bad in its place. Leaders of a revolution always move into the palace vacated by their predecessors.

When something is disposed of, in a cosmic as well as a physical sense, there is a void and something has to fill it. But the people who are responsible for disposing of it do not want the responsibility of replacing it. They will bulldoze it flat, but they will leave it to someone else to put something in its place. Not a responsible attitude.

No-one ever invents something to replace tradition. It happens by accident, in a hotch-potch manner. If it is traditional, it is established, settled, a known quantity, usually balanced. That which replaces it cannot be any of those things. That includes fox-hunting, which is to be replaced by the indiscriminate slaughter: traps, gas, poison. They cannot differentiate between the harmful and the harmless wild creatures.

Witchcraft was the traditional religion of Britain and other countries. It was replaced by Christianity, which is still too new and too unsure of itself to be anything other than bloodthirsty.

Describe a country that does not have any tradition older than thirty years. You will not like the result, but it is a possibility for the future. If it happens, it is one of the things that cannot be un-happened, but no-one would like it; everyone would blame everyone else, no-one would accept responsibility.

To be receptive, empty your mind, create a vacuum.

Getting rid of tradition creates a very large void. Those who seek abolition in any form have no idea what will take its place.

Anonymous article taken from the Dark Lily Journal No 6, Society of Dark Lily (London 1988).