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Citation sorely needed. This just sounds like some uncharitable "all religions are cults and believers are just brainless automatons" claptrap.
But their parents will have spent their entire lives actively resisting and disobeying authority figures to adhere to their traditions? That sounds like the opposite of your 1-dimensional strawman.
As a side note, I've engaged with you several times here and you're only ever abrasive and uncharitable. I'm not really sure what your goal is, but it doesn't seem to be to convince those who may disagree with you, so I'll probably reply less going forward. Feel free to have the last word.
Maybe he phrased it churlishly, but I see what he means. The trads are less defying authority than they are preferring one authority over another. Among the traditionally-minded there are many highly intelligent people. In my little homeschooling circle there are computer programmers, a guy with a phd in engineering physics, a woman with a masters in musical accompaniment, etc. They are also all evangelical Christians. Normally we don’t think of evangelicals as highly-educated, but these people border on hyper-educated. Except that both their education and religious inclination depend on strict adherence to agreed-upon truths. I, a de facto wordcel, show up and try to make conversation about ideas- their ideas! Physics! Music! Code! and it’s the embodiment of the NPC meme. They absolutely cannot think outside their boxes, and even thinking inside their boxes takes the form of mere recitation of principles. If the regeneration of the West ever comes, it will come after the traditionalists’ descendants recreate something like worst aspects of the middle ages. So expect it in 400 years, not 200.
Is this not equally true of non-trads in general? In the words of the poet:
"I'm an emo kid, non-conforming as can be
you'd be non-conforming too if you were just like me."
Have you seen a general population of normies that actually qualify as "defying authority" or "thinking for themselves" or "persuing individualism" in some truly rigorous sense?
Almost definitionally, no, because normies are ‘people more conformist than the reference group’.
eh, for this purpose, read "normie" as "normal", "not unusual", "not outstanding."
Take the Atheist community. Is it your experience that the average atheist in, say, 2010 was unusually non-conformist?
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That's an interesting anecdote, thanks for sharing. I'm not too surprised to hear it since I've come to believe that the overwhelming majority of people are the way you describe. I work in tech in a very blue tribe and progressive company. The engineers here are smart, heck even the salespeople here are pretty smart relative to most salespeople I've met. In my first year here I (perhaps unwisely) tried to discuss ideas with some of my closer colleagues. Each time, I was met with talking points or indifference. I think that the vast majority of people are just uninterested in and/or incapable of contributing to a discussion about complex abstract ideas. Now I mostly talk about TV shows, beer, or people to get along.
The "respect for authority" gene can't be mutually exclusive with creativity. If it were, humanity would never have gotten to where it is today. Widespread suspicion and rejection of authority is a very recent and, I suspect, very American phenomenon. The vast majority of people in history just took the authority of their rulers and social betters as a given, and yet somehow they managed to produce beautiful art and novel ideas all the same.
Also, I think this depends heavily on your definition of "regeneration." If it means "a return to liberal secular humanist values, the sexual revolution, and atomized individualism" then yes, I agree. But to me that would be degeneration, not regeneration.
If these supposedly stultified traditionalists built a society based on respect for hierarchy and love of God, county, family, and peace, I would see that as a regeneration of Western society to its former glory. A modern observer might think therewould be less "creative ferment" because there might be no more tumorous postmodern skyscrapers, no more "piss Christ" exhibits, no more international NGOs evangelizing an ever expanding list of "human rights" to coerce societies to ever greater levels of "freedom." But then he might be missing the innovations in classical architecture, the Renaissance in symbolic religious art, or the flourishing of local "intermediate institutions" binding communities and families closer together in a way that is sorely missing in his own time.
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Sure, but among my tradcath circle there's many people who have large families and will then talk philosophy or speculative linguistics or musical composition or literature until they're blue in the face. My anecdata is more or less the opposite of yours.
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