The Idea of "Tradition" and Animal Studies

Being the sort of person who reads - and comments - at blogs, I've found myself in discussions from time to time regarding the morality of animal use. Lately, the context has been the Canadian seal hunt and efforts by Native advocates to justify one form of seal hunt (traditional), but condemn another form (capitalist). Notably, the major American animal welfare organizations also make this distinction between traditional use and commercial exploitation. I am in the minority, it seems, as I am opposed to animals being slaughtered by Mr. Money-bags just as much as I am opposed to animals being slaughtered by Noble Savage.

Advocates of the "traditional" hunt will routinely make reference to using much more of the seal's carcass than what is found in the "capitalist" hunt. (Although the reason why Mr. Money-bags doesn't use the entirety of the carcass is likely because there is limited potential for commercial exploitation (e.g., meat, oils, by-products) and, if there were, seals would be rounded up and placed in factory conditions.) Of course, the advocates of "tradition" usually forgot that a commodity, the base unit in capitalist economies, is any good produced for sale. The seal is, indeed, largely slaughtered for sale - the "traditional" hunt is as capitalist as the "capitalist" hunt.

But, from the theoretical standpoint, that isn't the most interesting thing - fetishizing cultures isn't really an academic interest in mine (although one has to wonder if the fetishization of Noble Savage as engaged in an authentic lifestyle outside of capitalism has something to do with a feeling of inauthenticity experienced by many living in large cities where no outside of capitalism can be seen; it is the urban advocates of the "traditional" seal hunt that are interesting). What is interesting is the recourse ostensibly "progressive" people have to defenses of "tradition."

Why do self-named "progressives" find security in tradition? What is so "progressive" about tradition? The question I put to them is quite obvious: how do you justify one form of "tradition" for the very reason that you perceive it to be "tradition" but condemn another form of "tradition" because you just don't like it? How can the seal hunt be defended because it is "tradition" but anti-semitism, homophobia, racism, sexism, and the like cannot? How can you say Noble Savage is a being who finds his moral core in the traditional hunt while at the same time condemning marital rape or genital mutilation? How do you distinguish between "good" traditions and "bad" traditions? Can that even be done? Once you've defended one thing "because it is tradition," it seems that only logical position one can adopt is to defend all practices deemed traditional.

The only response I ever get is that I am being shrill.

Comments

[Alexei]

There are, of course, limits to how far the 'it's part of tradition' line of thought can go, but wouldn't something like the following response be enough to satisfy your question concerning 'good' and 'bad' traditions:

First off, there's a distinction to be drawn between the narrow use of tradition and the wider, hermeneutical sense of the term. Whereas the narrower sense pertains to particular customs, beliefs, or practices (handhshakes, marriage ceremonies, institutionalized racism, etc), the wider sense of the term pertains to the web of practices, beliefs, interpretative practices, and evaluative criteria in which a given custom is performed. In principle, I suppose, the latter gives meaning, coherence, and legitimacy to the former, while also providing the tools for critiquing them (think here of Rawls' wide-reflective equilibrium, Habermas' 'communicative situation,' and Gadamer's notion of 'understanding' more generally). The wider sense of tradition ensures that there's no such thing as a 'critique from nowhere.'

Assuming we're willing to buy the distinction between the narrower and the wider sense of 'tradition,' it becomes possible for a given practice to be deeply at odds with the 'ambient conditions' that supposedly generate its intelligibility, and hence to be rejected as 'bad.' In fact, I'm tempted to say that your question qua argument against appeals to tradition trades on the difference between the wide and the narrow senses of the term. I'm even tempted to say that sexism and homophobia aren't themselves traditions in any sense of the word, but belief-sets that some traditions precipitate. The question is whether the traditions that precipitate a given belief is in (1) themselves coherent according to the contemporaneous standards of argument, justification, and legitimacy, and (2) even consistent with the traditions that precipitate them in the first place.

So, viz your question,

How can you say Noble Savage is a being who finds his moral core in the traditional hunt while at the same time condemning marital rape or genital mutilation?

the simple answer is that some basic respect for persons is consistent with seal hunts but not with genital mutilation. If you wanted to place them at the same level, you'd have to make a compelling case for 'speciesism,' but that's a radically different line of argument -- to wit, one which mobilizes the universalist tendencies of 'tradition' (in the wider sense) against a belief-set that is precipitated by a tradition (in the narrow sense). That is, it requires tradition.

[Cindy0002hui]

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