Originally published on TheFactIs.org on July 7, 2005.
Reasoning with the Id
"Where reason shines forth, ... tradition is no longer necessary." So says Lee Harris in his expansive "The Future of Tradition," published in the current Policy Review. In other words, once we introduce reason into the equation, whether attacking or defending tradition on rational grounds, the tradition is all but lost.
Let alone our questionable ability to comprehend all of the important purposes of a particular tradition (which Harris addresses). Let alone the possibility that the religious claims underpinning much of tradition are in fact true (which he does not). What models that counterpose reason and tradition seem always to discard is the experience of the thing.
If researchers unravel the biological foundation of the "self," for example, they will have explained nothing about the experience of being a self. Yet, in developing a concrete definition based on their extremely limited perspective, they will have thrown society's sense of it out of balance. If they are incorrectly seen as having "found the self," they will have uprooted an entire system of beliefs and traditions that make the experience of being human what it is, even though the human self is much more than a mechanism.
More prudent rationalists give feelings and experience space, albeit claiming them to be somebody else's department. Explanations, however, can subvert the crucial functions of those other components of society, especially in a culture that doesn't treat them all as equally serious pursuits. The scientists can't point to the autonomy of the poet while minimizing the importance of his work, which they do in part by claiming to solve the mysteries that lend profundity to his aesthetic.
Harris's example of an attempt to justify tradition through reason, Moses Maimonides' twelfth century rationalization of Jewish dietary laws, is more applicable than may initially appear to be the case. It is a peculiar conceit of mankind that discovering one benefit or astute observation within a tradition stands as proof that the rest is chaff. The fact that Levitical proscriptions against certain foods prove helpful toward avoiding illness does not mean that the laws have only that as their purpose, or that other foods are on the list erroneously. The laws have effects (and perhaps intentions) in fields entirely unrelated to nutrition, not the least of them being the cultural definition of the Jews as people who obey God's word, rather than as people with prudent eating habits.
Rather than finding a bit of rationality in tradition and pivoting entire institutions, entire cultures, on that bit, rationalists must be able to trace the formation of traditions in all of their particulars, proving errors rather than assuming them, and then to offer workable substitutes for all effects that we wish to preserve. The sheer impossibility of such a project points to a banal, but easily forgotten, observation: Simply put, the goals and preferences of rationalists help to direct their rationalization, whether they've specific cultural changes in mind or merely a drive for blind change. The more fundamental the views being rationalized, the more base the instincts directing the conclusions.
In Lee Harris's view, "a tradition is viable if it effectively keeps future generations from backsliding to a lower ethical or civilizational state." Not surprisingly, moving on from this statement requires him to step carefully through the net of relativism, and it would be a difficult matter to judge between relative opinions about his success. One might observe that, when he attempts to argue which direction society should prefer, Harris falls back on the very appeals to longevity and complexity that he previously argued have "failed miserably."
While it may be a confounding matter to decide which direction our society should head, as if we stand without momentum at a crossroads, we can objectively assess whether a particular social approach achieves the ends that it promises. If a guiding principle undermines itself, we can conclude that there is something else at play, whether we see that something else as Satan, as a conspiracy, or simply as delusion.
If a rationalist approach to society ends up allowing the id to overtake reason, thereby undermining the foundation of rationality, then it is a plain matter to remind each other that it was our longstanding collection of "irrational" traditions that created circumstances conducive to reason. Even those who take the ability to reason as the height of the human experience should, therefore, err on the side of tradition.
As parents learn when their children begin to explore a dangerous unknown, it is a mistake to limit our counsel to "do not go there," thereby lending a falsely profound aesthetic to the mystery. The traditionalist does not lose the argument, as Harris implies, simply by allowing the forces of rationalization a podium. Rather, he loses by allowing the rationalist to limit the terms of the debate to the narrow ground of reason, rather than the well-honed balance of intellect, feeling, and action that tradition in reality is. Humanity is more than calculation, and the same must be true of our society.
Let alone our questionable ability to comprehend all of the important purposes of a particular tradition (which Harris addresses). Let alone the possibility that the religious claims underpinning much of tradition are in fact true (which he does not). What models that counterpose reason and tradition seem always to discard is the experience of the thing.
If researchers unravel the biological foundation of the "self," for example, they will have explained nothing about the experience of being a self. Yet, in developing a concrete definition based on their extremely limited perspective, they will have thrown society's sense of it out of balance. If they are incorrectly seen as having "found the self," they will have uprooted an entire system of beliefs and traditions that make the experience of being human what it is, even though the human self is much more than a mechanism.
More prudent rationalists give feelings and experience space, albeit claiming them to be somebody else's department. Explanations, however, can subvert the crucial functions of those other components of society, especially in a culture that doesn't treat them all as equally serious pursuits. The scientists can't point to the autonomy of the poet while minimizing the importance of his work, which they do in part by claiming to solve the mysteries that lend profundity to his aesthetic.
Harris's example of an attempt to justify tradition through reason, Moses Maimonides' twelfth century rationalization of Jewish dietary laws, is more applicable than may initially appear to be the case. It is a peculiar conceit of mankind that discovering one benefit or astute observation within a tradition stands as proof that the rest is chaff. The fact that Levitical proscriptions against certain foods prove helpful toward avoiding illness does not mean that the laws have only that as their purpose, or that other foods are on the list erroneously. The laws have effects (and perhaps intentions) in fields entirely unrelated to nutrition, not the least of them being the cultural definition of the Jews as people who obey God's word, rather than as people with prudent eating habits.
Rather than finding a bit of rationality in tradition and pivoting entire institutions, entire cultures, on that bit, rationalists must be able to trace the formation of traditions in all of their particulars, proving errors rather than assuming them, and then to offer workable substitutes for all effects that we wish to preserve. The sheer impossibility of such a project points to a banal, but easily forgotten, observation: Simply put, the goals and preferences of rationalists help to direct their rationalization, whether they've specific cultural changes in mind or merely a drive for blind change. The more fundamental the views being rationalized, the more base the instincts directing the conclusions.
In Lee Harris's view, "a tradition is viable if it effectively keeps future generations from backsliding to a lower ethical or civilizational state." Not surprisingly, moving on from this statement requires him to step carefully through the net of relativism, and it would be a difficult matter to judge between relative opinions about his success. One might observe that, when he attempts to argue which direction society should prefer, Harris falls back on the very appeals to longevity and complexity that he previously argued have "failed miserably."
While it may be a confounding matter to decide which direction our society should head, as if we stand without momentum at a crossroads, we can objectively assess whether a particular social approach achieves the ends that it promises. If a guiding principle undermines itself, we can conclude that there is something else at play, whether we see that something else as Satan, as a conspiracy, or simply as delusion.
If a rationalist approach to society ends up allowing the id to overtake reason, thereby undermining the foundation of rationality, then it is a plain matter to remind each other that it was our longstanding collection of "irrational" traditions that created circumstances conducive to reason. Even those who take the ability to reason as the height of the human experience should, therefore, err on the side of tradition.
As parents learn when their children begin to explore a dangerous unknown, it is a mistake to limit our counsel to "do not go there," thereby lending a falsely profound aesthetic to the mystery. The traditionalist does not lose the argument, as Harris implies, simply by allowing the forces of rationalization a podium. Rather, he loses by allowing the rationalist to limit the terms of the debate to the narrow ground of reason, rather than the well-honed balance of intellect, feeling, and action that tradition in reality is. Humanity is more than calculation, and the same must be true of our society.