The Problem of Traditionalism

 The American Conservative published a somewhat predictable jeremiad against modern thinking, lamenting the inability of the modern, rationalist outlook to comprehend the phenomenon of Donald Trump's popularity. The author wrote:

 As the AP European History concept outline in my textbook uncritically puts it: “They [Enlightenment thinkers] sought to bring the light of reason to bear on the darkness of prejudice, outmoded traditions, and ignorance, challenging traditional values.”

He later writes: 

One can almost imagine the line I just quoted grafted onto the present: They [Democrats] sought to bring the light of reason to bear on the darkness of prejudice, outmoded traditions, and ignorance, challenging the traditional values of Trump voters in flyover country.

Well, everyone has the right to imagine, or if you insist, "almost imagine" anything, although I cannot quite see why anyone would go to the trouble of "almost imagining" anything. But equating the traditional values of mediaeval and pre-enlightenment Europe with whatever motivated Americans to pull the lever for Donald Trump ignores almost all of the specific principles at issue. The Declaration of Independence, and even more the Constitution of the United States are, after all, manifestos of 18th century enlightenment principles. The analogy falls apart the moment you apply hard specifics: voting, the idea of the people collectively selecting the head of their state, specifically repudiates the idea of the divine right of monarchs, a cardinal value of European politics from the fall of the Roman Republic up until the Long Parliament and the Glorious Revolution. The voters who went to pull the lever for Donald Trump acted out a basic ritual of the enlightenment.

The article did mention a peasant revolt against the extreme rationalism of the French Revolution, but instead of addressing the critical divide between principled conservatism and traditionalism, the author descended into a lament for the students these days.

And thus we have another article exemplifying traditionalism: a bare-knuckle defence of the outrageous innovations of a decade or a century (or two) ago.