I am going to try to write a few shorter posts over the next couple of weeks instead of my usual long, multi-part epics. Today’s subject is traditionalism. The point of this post is merely tactical, a way to get around the negative connotations of the word “tradition.” As soon as someone says they are a traditionalist they open themselves up to some immediate objections. You can already hear howls that slavery was a tradition, or invocations of Shirley Jackson’s The Lottery. Either that or you will invoke images of silly harmless holidays like Groundhog’s Day. This is because the word “tradition” has a connotation of rote repetition for no other reason than that is how things have always been done.
However, this is not what a self-described traditionalist is trying to convey. When someone claims they are a traditionalist they are making the point that things have been done a certain way for good reasons, and that there isn’t really a better word for this in English than “tradition.” What is missing from the word “tradition” is the crucial point that traditions are teleofunctional. Take Chesterton’s fence. Chesterton’s point is that the fence serves a purpose; it has a function (to keep the horses in or whatever). A fence is a designed artifact with a function, and in claiming that tradition is like a fence the analogy is that traditions are designed to prevent problems, that traditions are teleofunctional.
Just because something has a function of course doesn’t mean it was good. Slavery had a function, providing the slave owners with a life of comfort. It is a separate argument to show that a social structure is needed or good. The ultimate weapon of reaction/neoreaction is that claim that anti-liberal structures are inevitable given the workings of nature (gnon) and human nature; that liberal values are deathwish values.
Plus, saying you’re a traditionalist sounds so musty and fuddy-duddy; saying you’re a teleofunctionalist sounds modern and sexy. So my proposal is to stop calling ourselves traditionalists and start calling ourselves teleofunctionalists. If you really want to sex it up call it bio-social teleofunctionalism, which encapsulates the Dark Enlightenment in a nutshell.
Darwinian Reactionary 
“If you really want to sex it up call it bio-soicial teleofunctionalism,”
huh. As long as Dark Enlightenment as a term is buried I could live with that.
Dark Enlightenment is too easy to mock.
“If you really want to sex it up call it bio-soicial teleofunctionalism,”
lolz.
Chestertons Fence is a bad argument..even in the opinion of those who occasionally use it. You can tell, because no one uses it when there is any better argument available. After all it doesn’t give a reason why some X was wrong or right;. Instead, it just suggests that there was a reason and a function and purpose for it at some point in time… because no one ever does anything without good reason, right?…and that the function persists…because, circumstances never change, right?
A fence whose function is visible , like your fence protecting some horses, isn’t a good analogy for Chestertons Fence, because the point is that the function the fence originally had is unknown, and, according to Chestertons, the burden of identifying its original function falls to the would be remover. Chestertons Fence is all about bowing to the wisdom of the ages, not reasoning for oneself. For that reason, it isn’t at all the same as Aristotlean teleofunctionalism, where you can and should apply your individual reason to determine a thing’s function.