When Tradition Fails, And Why Tolerance Is Bad

Julian the Apostate, Christianity, and The Limits of 'RETVRN'

Many, if not most, of my readers are traditionalists, or “trads.” They attend church on Sundays, practice old-fashioned gender roles, and turn their noses up at liberalism and its consequences. They see themselves as part of an ethnos, and yearn to be tied to blood, soil, and the angels. Their ancestors are important to them. They would like for the West to RETVRN to its Christian roots.

This is all well and good, because Christianity is true. However, not all traditionalism is good. Traditions comprise the wisdom of collective experience: the custom of marriage, for example, is universal, and helps to regulate the excesses of the sexual marketplace. The trivializing of marriage in the 20th Century has led to pernicious evils: homosexuality, mental illness, venereal diseases, broken families, etc. Removing a well-established tradition, without justification, often leads to ruin.

And yet, traditions in and of themselves can be idols.

Yoram Hazony, founder of The National Conservatism Conference.

In 2019, Jewish academic Yoram Hazony organized the first National Conservatism Conference at Washington, D.C.’s swanky Ritz Carlton. Bringing together rightists from all over the world, the event has featured guests like Tucker Carlson, Viktor Orban, and JD Vance. The platform has helped to push anti-liberal views into the mainstream, and has nurtured traditionalist intellectuals.

In 2024, the conference featured Ram Madhav and Swapan Dasgupta, who are Hindu nationalists. Dasgupta suggested a “natural alliance” with Western conservatives, who like Hindus, wish to preserve and restore their country’s religious and cultural identity. Of course, India’s Hindu nationalists regularly persecute Christians, sometimes violently, and despite Madhav and Dasgupta’s appeals to tolerance, the fact is that there can be no “natural alliance” between Hindus and Christians (though temporary coalitions can be beneficial).

This strikes at an awkward feature of traditionalism: there is zero room for tolerance. Tolerance, as we think of it today, is a liberal construct: to cast off liberalism is therefore to reject toleration. The Enlightenment free-thinkers thought that the state should permit freedom of belief, leading to the emancipation of Jews and Catholics across Europe. Yet, India’s Hindu nationalists are consistent: they hold fast to their demonic faith, and anyone who holds different views is punished.

Swapan Dasgupta, Hindu nationalist.

Many of those who consider themselves “trad” are unwilling to consider that to be consistent, they must marginalize those of different faiths. To be trad means to hold firm to the beliefs of one’s ancestors — if others threaten those beliefs, then they must be smothered in some way. This is already transpiring in more traditional countries: Russia limits the activities of Protestant missionaries, Israel prohibits non-Jewish proselytism, and Saudi Arabia bans non-Muslim rites altogether.

Indeed, even though liberalism itself preaches toleration, it is anything but tolerant, a point Patrick J. Deneen makes in Why Liberalism Failed. Liberalism espouses firm principles of unrestrained emancipation and forced equality, which conflict with traditional values. This is why liberal states promote homosexuality, and punish dissent: after Uganada enacted an anti-sodomy law in 2023, Western liberal countries pulled foreign aid. No state can tolerate toleration.

(Even England, whose people are the most tolerant in the world, only emancipated Roman Catholics in 1829, and Jews in 1890. It was not until 1871 that non-Anglicans were permitted to study at the University of Oxford.)

James Legge, the first non-Anglican professor at Oxford.

A successful society requires its citizens hold similar values, so that they can work together towards common goals — a point I argued in a prior Substack post (see below). This involves the government, in some way, enforcing and promote values.

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Of course, one should avoid taking to extremes, as can be seen in the example of Julian the Apostate, a 4th-Century emperor of Rome. Julian, who studied Greek philosophy, rejected his Christian upbringing and by the age of 20, had become a fully-convinced pagan. He saw around him the demise of the Roman empire, and thought that the growth of Christianity was responsible for it.

Julian, being a traditionalist, persecuted the Church, banning Christian teaching, removing state funding, and barring Christians from holding government positions.

Julian the Apostate.

In one episode, Julian tried to rebuild the Temple of Jerusalem to show Christians that Jesus Christ’s prophecy, that the Temple would not be rebuilt, was wrong. Julian’s project was marred by multiple earthquakes, rendering his attempts to weaken Christianity moot.

As time went on, Julian’s zeal transformed into violent rage, resulting in his downfall. According to Christian sources, while Julian was waging war against Persia, emissaries arrived to negotiate terms of peace. Seeing that they were Christians, Julian commanded them to worship the Roman gods. The diplomats — brothers Manuel, Sabel, and Ishmal — refused, and were promptly executed. Enraged by this breach of diplomatic custom, the Persian king Shapur II sent an army against Rome, and Julian died in the ensuing battle. His last words were, “You have defeated me, O Nazarene [Jesus].”

Julian’s zeal for tradition ended in his violent death. According to Christian tradition, St. Mercurius the Great came down from heaven to kill Julian, in response to the prayers of St. Basil the Great.

On a personal level, I find these conclusions unsettling. I have a high degree of openness, and am even bemused by those who hold unorthodox beliefs, such as neo-paganism. The thought of persecuting good folk simply for being misguided strikes me as harsh, and yet, confronted with the logic of traditionalism and the weight of history, I cannot but surmise that persecution is a necessary evil for the greater good.

I would only caution that persecution should be limited, as much as possible, to prevent greater evils. Perhaps a model for this is Byzantine empire, which allowed for some freedom of religion, but within the framework of restrictions: Jews, Muslims, and Roman Catholics lived in Byzantium, and even built houses of worship, but they were restricted from holding high-ranking jobs. Orthodox Christianity was the official religion, funded and protected by the emperor: proselytization of other faiths was prohibited.

To be successful, a well-functioning nation with traditional values must persecute others. This is a disquieting thought for my “trad” readers, perhaps, but it also suggests that after the war against the Left has been won, then a conflict with others on the right will begin, in which only one side can emerge triumphant.