The Nature of Tradition

I've pretty much stopped commenting on contemporary controversies on this blog. Looking back, I think I probably stopped doing so around the abortion referendum in 2018. It seemed such a definitive defeat that it made engagement with current affairs in Ireland seem rather pointless. (I have kept critiquing political correctness and woke, but that's more socio-politics than current affairs.)

I realize that many of my readers are international, so I don't know how much you've been keeping up with the controversy about the Orange Order and the Garvaghy Road in Northern Ireland. The Protestant (and, let's face it, historically anti-Catholic) Orange Order were given permission to march down a road with a mostly "nationalist" population (whatever that means these days), for the first time in years. In the past, the march had led to huge stand-offs, which once resulted in the utterly horrific murder of three young brothers. This year, once it was announced the parade would go ahead, the nationalists immediately blocked the road, along with many sympathizers. Today the nationalists won the day and the parade was banned again.

As I said, I've stopped commenting on contemporary controversies. I especially avoid doing so in the case of Northern Ireland. As far as I can see, both the "Catholic" and "Protestant", "Irish" and "British" communities are now for the most part secularized and globalized, leaving nothing but a tribal conflict based upon historical grievances. Large-scale immigration is transforming everything anyway, as in the Republic. That's as far as I can see. I might be wrong.

(If there's any exception to the picture I've painted here, it's that the Democratic Unionist Party seems to be the only major party in Ireland with socially conservative positions on anything. How long they will maintain these is another matter. Both of the major nationalist parties have enthusiastically embraced social progressivism, and the Ulster Unionist Party seems to have gone down the same road, albeit with less gusto.)

Regardless of the controversy, and regardless of your stance on the controversy, I think this passage from a tweet posted by Emma Little-Pengelly (the Deputy First Minister, a unionist) is very profound, as regards the point that she is making (the grammar is a bit off, but who cares?): 

All of our traditions come from particular aspects or “sects”. By its very nature, they are “of “something and not “of” something else. They are exclusionary by the very nature of it pertaining to the particular tradition, beliefs or views of some, but it is not exclusionary by experience or engagement. Every religious order or community is exclusionary by doctrine, but not by outreach.

I think is a hugely important point, setting aside its application to the current controversy. Do we want a society with vibrant traditions? If we do, we have to accept that traditions are inherently exclusionary, sectarian and even divisive. Of course, we could have a society without traditions, or where traditions are relegated to private life. But that will be a pretty colourless, rootless, impersonal, atomised sort of society. It seems to me we are travelling in the latter direction.

(I always appreciate comments. But if you're leaving one on this post, please avoid anything inflammatory.)