The Impossibility of Preserving Tradition

A Christmas Carol, Conservatism and Marx

Morning Comrades.

Christmas is around the corner and whilst I usually sign off for the year around this time, there are no such guarantees today. Similarly to too many people, this time of year is once again proving to be a test of the not-so inherent optimism within oneself and yet it is a little different this year, personally speaking at the very least. Earlier this month I felt a shift in my own mind that isn’t a complete reversal per se but for the first time in several decades my immediate and often vicious refusal to engage in the disney-fied force fed feel good Christmas spirit didn’t take place, I even thought about getting a Christmas tree for the apartment, I didn’t and even get a little emotional whilst mindlessly watching something on TV that included a traditional English Christmas scene.

Sure, typically, one could put that down to mellowing with age but that’s total horseshit in my case. Nothing and no one is mellowing with age at the other side of your screen. Nevertheless, it got me thinking about traditions, where they come from, what and whom they serve, their relationship to conservatism and the conservative movement as well as how all that applies to the numerous philosophies at work here in this home. So whilst the title might imply so some of reconciliation based on my own emotional responses of late there aren’t any. This isn’t some sort of feel good end of the year story but rather a critical look at tradition, conservatism and yes, Christmas.

N.B.: I use the term Christmas liberally here and without any intent to piss anyone off. I am not a Christian and I don’t celebrate this time in their way. I do, however, think the term “the holidays” a little juvenile, considering most of us workers aren’t on holiday, but making food for rich people, cleaning houses and caring for drunk white assholes in hospital because that 4th bottle of bubbly was totally necessary whilst screaming kids run around a chopped off pine tree. You catch my drift.

N.B. Part 2: I am pretty sure that I will put out at least one more dispatch before signing off, actually, it’s already planned out and if nothing too crazy happens in this next week - right - it’ll be a short one with a number of gifts for everyone. Stay tuned.

The Impossibility of Preserving Tradition: A Marxist Critique of Conservatism

Conservatism’s foundational aim is to preserve tradition against the forces of change. At its core, it seeks continuity in values, institutions, and social structures, often appealing to history to justify the endurance of an established order. However, Karl Marx’s The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte offers a profound challenge to this worldview, particularly through his assertion that:

"Men make their own history, but they do not make it just as they please; they do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves, but under circumstances directly encountered, given and transmitted from the past.

The tradition of all the dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brain of the living."

Within this context, conservatism's attempt to preserve tradition is revealed as inherently flawed, not only because of the dynamic and mutable nature of human reality but also because of the very historical materialist forces Marx identifies. Tradition, far from being a static anchor, is shown to be a contradictory and illusory concept under ever-changing material conditions.