Caught between traditional and modernity
In what does progress consist?
WILLIAM GOULD
During my last summer vacation I found myself sitting beside two elegant women who were discussing salads, caesar salads to be exact, when a common modern dilemma came to light. I always find it interesting how people’s beliefs come out in common tasks and in their daily lives. People’s true colours don’t come from discussing religion or politics, but living out their common lives.
The first lady remarked that she had been attending several restaurants and in each case the caesar salad was a full leaf of lettuce as opposed to bitesize pieces. The second lady appeared perplexed and quickly remarked: “In the north though, people tend to be more progressive.” After hearing this statement, I became perplexed. Besides being able to hardly comprehend how this small Minnesotan town where I was resorting was a bastion of “progressiveness,” another contention caught me off-guard: how a full leaf of lettuce was more progressive than a bite-size piece. I came to the conclusion that to believe such a statement was ridiculous. I actually came to a deeper more profound realization: to be progressive in and of itself means that one is progressing towards a goal.
That deeper realization was that change from the standard does not in and of itself indicate a progressive step. Change for the sake of change is not always good. Change is not intrinsically good, I answer on the contrary that often change is more negative than positive. Let us define change as a deviation from the accepted standard. There is in our culture a deeply rooted sense that anything established or institutionalized bars one from a deeper sense of freedom and enjoyment. Although I am no historian, I really do believe that this is the relic of an older generation that lived through the radical 1960s and student movements.
Again, I challenge this new skepticism with the wisdom of ages, tradition. We live, breathe and swim in tradition; attempting to avoid tradition is impossible and foolish. As I wrote before, progression requires a goal; progress is not a set of changes hoping to increase some sort of pseudo-good, but rather it is a definite choice towards a goal. Why would people whose life on earth is short and is but a fleeting flash in eternity start anew with every birth? Why would they not build upon their ancestors’ voyage towards a set goal and the tools left behind? Those tools and guideposts are tradition, which is how the dead live and speak to us and steer us. Now for the above-mentioned points and perhaps several others, I would be foolish not to mention the impact of G.K. Chesterton on this line of thought.
I am not suggesting that tradition is never wrong or inadequate for people. Rather, it is a guide for people and should not be so quickly changed as the wind, when it is the legacy of often greater men and women before us. It is easy to do away with tradition because following it requires sacrifice, courage, and bravery.
For example, it is tradition that a man should marry a woman and establish a family. Any happily married couple will easily say that it was not an easy journey or always enjoyable, but worth the challenge nonetheless. A journey filled with doubt that required love, better described as charity — a virtue that is in high demand in our age but not often found. Rather than attempt tradition, the modern man has tried easier, quicker means. He has tried to invent a speedboat or a fast car to achieve age-old desires for which the only answer is the ancient tradition, and dare I say the Christian tradition.
His attempts have brought him divorce, heartbreak, suicidal children, abortion, a culture of fear and death. Instead of trying tradition, he continually runs from it trying to manufacture other ways to deal with these innate desires. His change has brought forth his downfall. He has lost sight of his goal and is only trying to manufacture immediate gratification.
Human beings’ attempt at lawless freedom has brought about their demise and utter slavery. It is a paradox: to be free you must give up your freedom. Man hopes that if he can redefine what a boat is and call it an airplane, it might fly, yet he finds it only sinks deeper. Such is the man who inhabits the earth now.
This is why change in and of itself is not progressive, and should be more challenged and tested than tradition. It is change that is more dangerous. Progress is good as long as it leads to ultimate meaning and purpose, to suggest that progress is simply letting loose of the past traditions of man is insanity.
Freedom can only come with responsibility. Cosmically, human freedom comes with responsibility. Freedom comes with sacrifice, courage and most importantly, law. There cannot be safety and security without law. To disobey the cosmic law, more appropriately the natural law, brings great consequences and often limits people’s ability to experience true freedom. It is often these principles that the traditions of old were built upon and were fought for.
This may only appear as harmless as a leaf of lettuce on the surface but underneath it has cosmic and eternal consequences. Perhaps then it is fitting that I came to this realization through the visage of a leaf. It echoes another plant, a fruit that man ate to bring forward change and brought with it all the suffering and evil of the world. Let us learn from the mistakes of our ancestors and heed the path that they have laid for us, lest we eat the forbidden fruit or taste the “progressive leaf.”
