Those who, like René Guénon, nostalgically advocate a return to "tradition" usually mean a return to the social cultural and religious life of the Middle Ages. They do not see that such a return could only be possible by including the obsolete economic environment of the Middle Ages also. Consequently it would mean the reappearance of such social relics as feudal lords and feudal serfs, the disappearance of machines and the electric powerhouse, the reversion to an agricultural and pastoral activity, the use of simple methods of production and primitive methods of exchange. Much the same diagnosis and remedy as René Guénon's were put forth by T.S. Eliot in the world of poetry, but with more success and with the emphasis on mystical religion rather than on metaphysics. Eliot deplored the chaotic plight and sinful condition of modern society, the exaggerated individualism of modern literature. He demanded a return to tradition, a recovery of the sense of history and community, a submission to the Church in culture and morality. Granted that the unsatisfactory spiritual conditions of today point to the necessity of moving out of them, but the Guénons and Eliots seek to escape them by moving backwards. The wiser ones seek to overcome them by moving forward. The first group find comfort in a decayed past because they lack vision to enter an unknown future. The second group accepts the duty of hard pioneering and labours to create a new and better kind of life for humanity.
-- Notebooks Category 13: Human Experience > Chapter 4 : World Crisis > # 125
