Traditionalism is timeless, which is a problem because for something to be popular it must be fashionable. Liberalism is fashionable and it has been for quite some time now. That's the thing about fashion something can be fashionable for great periods of time and other things are unfashionable again in the blink of an eye.
When we think of fashion we normally think of clothes, which certainly do go in and out of fashion. But most things follow that ideas, the likes and dislikes of the crowd. Which can be big or small or any size in between. Fashion can also be either positive or negative, 'fashionable' or 'unfashionable'. Movies, music, books, ideas, social tastes, ideologies, even religions can and have and are falling into and out of fashion. Think of a song or movie that you once loved and now you encounter it and you think to yourself 'I really used to love this' and when you did love it you probably couldn't imagine a time when you wouldn't. But that time did come, it moved from fashionable to unfashionable. Which is a process that everyone goes through.
In my life time I have seen homosexuality go from being illegal in most places, to something that is publicly celebrated. That's how fashion works. I once watched a documentary on the Bee Gees and one topic was how they were phenomenally successful in the late 1970's and then how in the 1980's they were so unpopular that people joked that they couldn't get arrested. One commenter on the program said that American culture is like a Viking feast, everyone gorges themselves until they are sick and then they reject the thing that mad them sick. That thought has stuck with me, that we do tend to overindulge in whatever we find fashionable. Even homosexuality.
But just like the Bee Gees everything that is fashionable will end up becoming unfashionable. Even homosexuality. One day in the future it will fall from public taste and it will be as fashionable as bellbottom trousers. Just like the above trousers, that does not mean it will be unfashionable forever. Fashion is not always cyclical, but it can be. Classical architecture went out of fashion for more than 1000 years, then it came back into fashion and then it went out of fashion, but I would not be surprised if it came back, again and again and again.
Liberalism believes in the Cult of Progress, in the idea that things get better and that they can only get better. But that ignores the role of fashion in our lives, we all have ideas and tastes and we are all influenced by other people. All of which means that fashion is and will continue to be an influence in our lives. The only questions are what things will come in or go out of fashion and how long will that take?
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