We Need to be Reasonable About Tradition | A Reasonable Alternative

Tearing everything down is simply misguided

A major problem with some recent social justice demands is that they are antagonistic to long-standing social norms, even where they don't need to be. There is sometimes a deliberate attempt to challenge, invalidate, or otherwise subvert many social norms, even where it doesn't clearly lead to more social justice. I think this is due to the heavy influence from radical academic theories like social constructionism, deconstructionism, and postmodernism more generally. I believe this approach is fundamentally misguided. It is based too much on abstract philosophy, and not on real world practicality. In the real world, social norms are an important part of social life. Using a functionalist sociological lens, we can often see that they fulfill important social functions, particularly around integration and pattern maintenance. Without these norms, social cohesion could fall apart. Hence, most people value social norms, and will defend them from unjustified attacks.

I'm not saying that social norms don't need to be changed or updated from time to time. What I'm saying is that, this must be a careful and well justified process. The mass deconstruction of social norms leads to potential instability, and would naturally be met with backlash. Instead, I suggest a much less invasive approach: only the social norms that actually adversely affect minorities should be changed, and they should be changed to the least extent needed to resolve the problem.

Let's make this clear: the idea that traditional norms are inherently oppressive, and need to be relentlessly challenged and deconstructed, is a product of postmodernism and critical theory, and these philosophical traditions are not known for being empirical or objective. The fact is, in the real world, the destruction of tradition is actually not required for social justice. More often, traditional institutions, that are imperfect in some way, can be reformed to make them more inclusive and equatable, and that is usually adequate to address social justice concerns. There is simply no need to challenge everything, and tear everything down.

Existing traditions and institutions can often be reformed to become even better, without sacrificing their spirit or essential function. We can do this by bringing people together, to form a consensus through good-faith discussions, and to then pursue constructive reform. This is almost always the more satisfactory option for everyone involved. I think we really need to deprogram the postmodern critical theory mindset, so that progressive minded people can start to think of constructive reform as the default way to approach imperfect traditions, and abandon the destructive critical deconstruction ideology once and for all.

Moreover, the relentless deconstruction of tradition could also lead to dangerous outcomes. Fascist and fascist-adjacent movements gain popularity through promoting the idea that society is in decline, and the rapid deconstruction of traditional norms feeds into this sentiment. Once these reactionary movements get into power, they can actually do very real harm to the minorities they dislike. Far-left cultural radicalism thus often ends up hurting the people it claims to support. I've even said that it is the opposite of compassionate, because of this. I think we need to talk about this more, so truly compassionate people can make a more rational choice, when it comes to which kind of social progress they want to support.