Conservative versus traditional

Sometimes I'm asked why I would defend a conservative position in a world where modern freedoms, justice, democracy are threatened by reactionary extremist movements. A 'conservative position' seems to be in sympathy with these movements, is often suggested. Am I against feminism, abstraction in the arts, gay rights, am I supporting fox hunting, the AfD, am I a Wilders fan? Am I against liberalism? Such questions throw a light upon some conceptual confusions of our time, which makes it difficult to come-up with a clear-cut answer, because aesthetic, cultural, and political positions are currently in flux and fuel anxieties which, in turn, stimulate hysteria. My answer always is: I am not a conservative because I don't conserve anything, I'm a traditionalist. But that merely transfers the subject to another confused territory: what is tradition? Isn't that exactly what conservatism means? And so on.

To begin with: I'm all for progress in the sence of improvement. In the arts, it is impossible to see progress in terms of an upward historical line, as there can be found in science; but (in the arts) one can see periods of decline, renewal, and restoration, all in terms of artistic quality. Also one can discover improvements in terms of available means, and of technique. The internet is, in many ways, an improvement in terms of information and contact, and also a hughe danger for democracy, justice, sense of reality, etc. as everybody with a residu of common sense has discovered - it is possible that the advantages of the internet are of less import than the dangers, and it is even possible that the internet will, in the end, kill-off civilization, because of too many people misusing it with uncontrollable consequences. But to return to the arts: if you want to get a sense of quality, craft, psychological meaning, civilizational values (for which the arts have always been an important instrument), what can be concluded about what is presented as 'new' in the established art museums, the established festivals for new music, the new music we occasionally hear in the regular concert and opera circuit? It seems clear to me that what we see and hear there, is the cumulative exposure of cultural decline. So, if we would look for ways of improvement of cultural awareness, we should look for examples of exemplary art, and if we find them in the past, there is nothing against the attempt to learn from them and to emulate them and thus, create a revival - not with copies, but of the spirit and the assurance which lay behind those examples. 

Interestingly, there is still high-quality art being made. However: we don't find it in the established museums of contemporary art, but in the small galleries and in the margins of the art world where the silly fashions of the post-Warhol world don't count; and in the chamber music concerts which don't get the attention that 'big premières' at the big orchestras or opera houses get, but where serious listeners explore the unusual and the timeless in one combined experience.

A cultural tradition is not a prescriptive body of rules, but a practice of dynamics and principles, in terms of intention, craft, aesthetics. Also, it has a character, in the way a person has a character, which may change and develop, but which will maintain its outlines and the centre of its nature. So, in a cultural tradition nothing is 'conserved' - a context, a spirit, a 'soul' of an art form are not 'things' that can be subjected to 'conservation'. The aesthetic and artistic dynamics that inform cultural traditions are living processes, reinventing themselves with every work, exploring unexpected potential, and reflecting the infinite variety of human nature. 

To paraphrase Alexander Tzonis and Liane Lefaivre in 'Classical Architecture: the Poetics of Order' - changing the subject of architecture into that of music:

The 'language' of a cultural tradition - in this case, music - consists of 'figures', i.e. gestures, tropes, compositional units, parts, details - in short, typified patterns for associating units in a manner that contributes to the completeness and wholeness of the work. These figures defy systematic classification, they are rather like 'lists' of ingredients, of means, of forms and gestures. In spite of many attempts in music theory, there is no definite, closed system that 'explains' all works of classical music. This lack of rigor might indicate a weakness in its theoretical framework, but it also might suggest that what we have is an open-ended set of constraints that can be superimposed on a composition, thereby increasing the layers of correspondence among the components of the work and multiplying the ties of interrelationships. 

In other words: music is not written according to formulas, which would petrify its dynamics, but following the free handling of musical means by the composer who decides for himself which contraints he will apply and which not. In such a creative process, 'conservatism' in the sense of freezing a particular set of rules as something like fixed limitations, is not possible and not wished. This combination of freedom and constraint explains the striking character of much classical works that breath both freedom of  imagination and logic in the evolving narrative, in the musical architecture. Here we are as far removed from any hint of conservatism as from the meaningless chaos of underdeveloped whimsiness.