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).