Allitt: “One of the most intriguing contributions to the debate as to whether Britain should become a democracy [note: as was the case in America, the British system explicitly excluded many citizens from participation it the political process, perhaps most obviously by denying them the vote] and what the relationship is between democracy and tradition was made by the journalist and controversialist G.K. Chesterton. I’d like to read you a passage from his book Orthodoxy, written in 1908, in which he makes the claim that you might think democracy is one option, and tradition another, but actually that’s not true. They really go together beautifully. Chesterton knew how to manipulate paradox in a beautiful way, and he never did it better than here. Here’s what he says:
“Tradition may be defined as an extension of the franchise. Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking about. All democracies object to men being disqualified by accident of birth; tradition objects to their being disqualified by accident of death. Democracy tells us not to neglect a good man’s opinion, even if he is our groom; tradition tells us not to neglect a good man’s opinion, even if he is our father. I at any rate cannot separate the two ideas of democracy and tradition.”
I like that. What tradition provides is a keel in the churning tides of change. It keeps us on track, even if we have the option of altering course. Cultural habits that are retained have, in general value, or at least did have value. What is new is untried, and science is unequal to the task of testing ideas for 100 years prior to granting them to us. What they do is think they have found something, then use us as lab rats. 100 years of Freud is too much. 2,000 years of Christianity was not too much.