One of the elements that attracted me to the non-establishment right was that their common terminology consisted of words that I thought I had made up.
Back in the old days, when my reading consisted of The Atlantic, Harpers, with pre-lunacy Slate and Salon, I thought to myself, "These people aren't talking about improving race relations or improving the lives of minorities. They're just...anti-racists."
Likewise, the term traditionalism. I first glommed onto that word when considering Sarah Palin. I liked having a married mom in national politics but her particular personality irked me. I thought, "Yes, she's traditional without being a traditionalist."
However, Henry Dampier's piece, "Is Neoreaction Traditionalist?," makes a plain case that I think of the word differently than others do.
I think my usage is more accurate but what can I do against the mob? Traditionalism seems to mean adherence to the Western/American/Christian (take your pick) traditions of the past. That's just being traditional, isn't it?
That leaves a blank space when I talk about a belief in the efficacy of tradition as a process--the push and pull of a million separate individual interactions that result in the best outcome for the most people.
Believing in tradition is believing that, most of the time, people can work out solutions among themselves, if they are left to do so. Tradition triangulates between human desires, natural obstacles and the worst outcomes. It may be mysterious and slow, but it works like water carving out the Grand Canyon.
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