To a progressive, all is prelude and straw underfoot. Top down, bottom up, whatever it takes. To Utopia, and Beyond!!

To a conservative, all is prelude and preparatory, top down and bottom up in God’s image. To Heaven by Grace…

Allowing tradition to exercise authority without some assumption of a benevolent plan is indeed the tyranny of the past over the present and future.

However, assenting to the authority of tradition is not only an example of praiseworthy humility in light of all those who have come before, but it is dependent upon that authority residing somewhere, with someone.

Which makes my mind wonder about the “young conservatives” and what exactly they hope to conserve? Other than personal liberty in the service of personal license perhaps – i.e. the libertarian mode.

If one hopes to call upon the authority of tradition to conserve personal liberty in the service of, among other things, personal betterment, self-mastery, provision for family, formation of conscience, and freedom to worship and work under God, then such conservativism is pointing somewhere beyond the here and now. But it is not Utopia, at least not that of our own making.

Mr. Carter mentions the hearing that Catholic would give to such a discussion. It is particularly apropos to recall the Catholic sense of our Holy Mother Church. Such is maternal authority – exercised in the longing for our good, desiring no other end but our eternal life with the Lord forever.

In fact, it isn’t uncommon for a conservative these days to point out that the supposed new and fresh ideas of the political left are little more than a repetition of what progressive politics has been for well over a century. And if you like, you can trace that back to Hegel or Fichte.

But progressivism seems to be a particular kind of tradition that praises the dynamic and the novel. It is a tradition that believes that we ought to be improving our beliefs and our values with each generation. The gay rights movement sees itself as part of an ongoing struggle, which includes the abolition of slavery, women’s suffrage, the civil rights movement of the 60′s, and women’s liberation. That Lincoln would not have approved of gay marriage is beside the point. Lincoln had the courage to stand up to the prevailing injustice of his time, etc.

What’s more, the special attention given to tradition by the traditionalists has never been absolute deference. Thomas Aquinas himself says that an appeal to authority is the weakest form of argument; and tho’ he gave special attention to well-deserving predecessors, he did not hesitate to correct them when his reason showed them to be mistaken.

The problem I think most of us have with tradition is not that we don’t give it its proper authority, but that we don’t know our history well enough to know when tradition is exerting its influence on our thinking. Recognizing this influence requires not simply knowing the basics of history (as we might get out of a high school textbook) but knowing of competing accounts of the same history. This is, of course, difficult to do while young.

He was right.