Traditional values
Encyclopedia
Traditional values refer to those belief
s, moral codes, and mores
that are passed down from generation to generation within a culture
, subculture
or community
.
with "family values
" and imply a congruence with mainstream Christianity
. However "family values" is arguably a modern politicized subset of traditional values, which is a larger concept, anthropologically
speaking. It is also not necessarily a political
idea, though has come to be associated with a particular vein of Evangelicalism
and politics, embodied by some American politicians such as Ronald Reagan
, Dan Quayle
, and George W. Bush
, and the Christian right
more broadly, as embodied for example by Pat Robertson
. For a clearer sense of the range of differences, one can compare interest in reviving traditional values in Native American
communities, such as Red Lake Indian Reservation
, to the Family Research Council
. Or, within Christianity, the difference can be seen in the interpretation of the idea by C. S. Lewis
and Jerry Falwell
.
rather than any specific philosopher, moralist, or writer
. This means the "traditional values" of non-Western societies may be wildly at variance from any Christian Right
notion of Family values. Societies based on traditional values often embrace animism
and ancestor worship rather than any Abrahamic religion. Confucianism
also tends to place high value on the maintenance of traditional culture and values. It is related to the concept of traditional authority
and folk culture
.
That said, the term does apply to Abrahamic cultures as well. It can mean the actual values that are claimed or perceived to have remained relatively unchanged for centuries, for example the values in the Apostles' Creed
, the preservation of the Coptic language
in Coptic Christianity
, the values in the Hadith
, or certain rites in Orthodox Judaism
. In Christianity, maintaining tradition is perhaps most valued in the Roman Catholic Church
, Eastern Orthodox Christianity, and Oriental Orthodoxy
, although within Protestantism the Old Order Amish and some Anglo-Catholics could be deemed to place a strong value on traditional values. Historical research often shows that traditions and immutable values, in fact, change more over time than most adherents recognize.
The term can also refer to an intention to preserve ancient or traditional customs and values against anything deemed "innovation." In Abrahamic religion Old Believers
and traditionalist Catholics can be deemed to be champions of "traditional values." In Zoroastrianism
those who oppose conversion as being against the religious tradition generally deem themselves to be a force for "traditional values." Radical elements of Hindutva
are also intent to keep any Christian or other "foreign" religious values from entering their society, although their more modern views on Hindu law
might make their relation to traditional values more complex than this implies. There are also Hopi
traditionalists who wish to keep Christianity and other "foreign" religions from gaining a foothold amongst their people and who prefer that Native American languages be used instead of English
, Spanish
, and so forth.
as normative.
The term "traditional values" can though be an intentional usage of rhetoric in order to get the listener/viewer of the words to believe that a set of values is good because traditional is often perceived in a positive sense by many.
Belief
Belief is the psychological state in which an individual holds a proposition or premise to be true.-Belief, knowledge and epistemology:The terms belief and knowledge are used differently in philosophy....
s, moral codes, and mores
Mores
Mores, in sociology, are any given society's particular norms, virtues, or values. The word mores is a plurale tantum term borrowed from Latin, which has been used in the English language since the 1890s....
that are passed down from generation to generation within a culture
Culture
Culture is a term that has many different inter-related meanings. For example, in 1952, Alfred Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhohn compiled a list of 164 definitions of "culture" in Culture: A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions...
, subculture
Subculture
In sociology, anthropology and cultural studies, a subculture is a group of people with a culture which differentiates them from the larger culture to which they belong.- Definition :...
or community
Community
The term community has two distinct meanings:*a group of interacting people, possibly living in close proximity, and often refers to a group that shares some common values, and is attributed with social cohesion within a shared geographical location, generally in social units larger than a household...
.
Summary
Since the late 1970s in the U.S., the term "traditional values" has become synonymouswith "family values
Family values
Family values are political and social beliefs that hold the nuclear family to be the essential ethical and moral unit of society. Familialism is the ideology that promotes the family and its values as an institution....
" and imply a congruence with mainstream Christianity
Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
. However "family values" is arguably a modern politicized subset of traditional values, which is a larger concept, anthropologically
Anthropology
Anthropology is the study of humanity. It has origins in the humanities, the natural sciences, and the social sciences. The term "anthropology" is from the Greek anthrōpos , "man", understood to mean mankind or humanity, and -logia , "discourse" or "study", and was first used in 1501 by German...
speaking. It is also not necessarily a political
Politics
Politics is a process by which groups of people make collective decisions. The term is generally applied to the art or science of running governmental or state affairs, including behavior within civil governments, but also applies to institutions, fields, and special interest groups such as the...
idea, though has come to be associated with a particular vein of Evangelicalism
Evangelicalism
Evangelicalism is a Protestant Christian movement which began in Great Britain in the 1730s and gained popularity in the United States during the series of Great Awakenings of the 18th and 19th century.Its key commitments are:...
and politics, embodied by some American politicians such as Ronald Reagan
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....
, Dan Quayle
Dan Quayle
James Danforth "Dan" Quayle served as the 44th Vice President of the United States, serving with President George H. W. Bush . He served as a U.S. Representative and U.S. Senator from the state of Indiana....
, and George W. Bush
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....
, and the Christian right
Christian right
Christian right is a term used predominantly in the United States to describe "right-wing" Christian political groups that are characterized by their strong support of socially conservative policies...
more broadly, as embodied for example by Pat Robertson
Pat Robertson
Marion Gordon "Pat" Robertson is a media mogul, television evangelist, ex-Baptist minister and businessman who is politically aligned with the Christian Right in the United States....
. For a clearer sense of the range of differences, one can compare interest in reviving traditional values in Native American
Indigenous peoples of the Americas
The indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of North and South America, their descendants and other ethnic groups who are identified with those peoples. Indigenous peoples are known in Canada as Aboriginal peoples, and in the United States as Native Americans...
communities, such as Red Lake Indian Reservation
Red Lake Indian Reservation
The Red Lake Indian Reservation covers 1,258.62 sq mi in parts of nine counties in northern Minnesota, United States. It is divided into many pieces, although the largest piece is centered about Red Lake, in north-central Minnesota, the largest lake entirely within that state. This section lies...
, to the Family Research Council
Family Research Council
The Family Research Council is a conservative or right-wing Christian group and lobbying organization formed in the United States in 1981 by James Dobson. It was fully incorporated in 1983...
. Or, within Christianity, the difference can be seen in the interpretation of the idea by C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
Clive Staples Lewis , commonly referred to as C. S. Lewis and known to his friends and family as "Jack", was a novelist, academic, medievalist, literary critic, essayist, lay theologian and Christian apologist from Belfast, Ireland...
and Jerry Falwell
Jerry Falwell
Jerry Lamon Falwell, Sr. was an evangelical fundamentalist Southern Baptist pastor, televangelist, and a conservative commentator from the United States. He was the founding pastor of the Thomas Road Baptist Church, a megachurch in Lynchburg, Virginia...
.
Definition of "traditional values"
In its own right "traditional values" simply means the values coming from traditionTradition
A tradition is a ritual, belief or object passed down within a society, still maintained in the present, with origins in the past. Common examples include holidays or impractical but socially meaningful clothes , but the idea has also been applied to social norms such as greetings...
rather than any specific philosopher, moralist, or writer
Writer
A writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....
. This means the "traditional values" of non-Western societies may be wildly at variance from any Christian Right
Christian right
Christian right is a term used predominantly in the United States to describe "right-wing" Christian political groups that are characterized by their strong support of socially conservative policies...
notion of Family values. Societies based on traditional values often embrace animism
Animism
Animism refers to the belief that non-human entities are spiritual beings, or at least embody some kind of life-principle....
and ancestor worship rather than any Abrahamic religion. Confucianism
Confucianism
Confucianism is a Chinese ethical and philosophical system developed from the teachings of the Chinese philosopher Confucius . Confucianism originated as an "ethical-sociopolitical teaching" during the Spring and Autumn Period, but later developed metaphysical and cosmological elements in the Han...
also tends to place high value on the maintenance of traditional culture and values. It is related to the concept of traditional authority
Traditional authority
Traditional authority is a form of leadership in which the authority of an organization or a ruling regime is largely tied to tradition or custom...
and folk culture
Folk culture
Folk culture refers to the lifestyle of a culture. Historically, handed down through oral tradition, it demonstrates the "old ways" over novelty and relates to a sense of community. Folk culture is quite often imbued with a sense of place...
.
That said, the term does apply to Abrahamic cultures as well. It can mean the actual values that are claimed or perceived to have remained relatively unchanged for centuries, for example the values in the Apostles' Creed
Apostles' Creed
The Apostles' Creed , sometimes titled Symbol of the Apostles, is an early statement of Christian belief, a creed or "symbol"...
, the preservation of the Coptic language
Coptic language
Coptic or Coptic Egyptian is the current stage of the Egyptian language, a northern Afro-Asiatic language spoken in Egypt until at least the 17th century. Egyptian began to be written using the Greek alphabet in the 1st century...
in Coptic Christianity
Coptic Christianity
The Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria is the official name for the largest Christian church in Egypt and the Middle East. The Church belongs to the Oriental Orthodox family of churches, which has been a distinct church body since the Council of Chalcedon in AD 451, when it took a different...
, the values in the Hadith
Hadith
The term Hadīth is used to denote a saying or an act or tacit approval or criticism ascribed either validly or invalidly to the Islamic prophet Muhammad....
, or certain rites in Orthodox Judaism
Orthodox Judaism
Orthodox Judaism , is the approach to Judaism which adheres to the traditional interpretation and application of the laws and ethics of the Torah as legislated in the Talmudic texts by the Sanhedrin and subsequently developed and applied by the later authorities known as the Gaonim, Rishonim, and...
. In Christianity, maintaining tradition is perhaps most valued in the Roman Catholic Church
Roman Catholic Church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church, with over a billion members. Led by the Pope, it defines its mission as spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ, administering the sacraments and exercising charity...
, Eastern Orthodox Christianity, and Oriental Orthodoxy
Oriental Orthodoxy
Oriental Orthodoxy is the faith of those Eastern Christian Churches that recognize only three ecumenical councils — the First Council of Nicaea, the First Council of Constantinople and the First Council of Ephesus. They rejected the dogmatic definitions of the Council of Chalcedon...
, although within Protestantism the Old Order Amish and some Anglo-Catholics could be deemed to place a strong value on traditional values. Historical research often shows that traditions and immutable values, in fact, change more over time than most adherents recognize.
The term can also refer to an intention to preserve ancient or traditional customs and values against anything deemed "innovation." In Abrahamic religion Old Believers
Old Believers
In the context of Russian Orthodox church history, the Old Believers separated after 1666 from the official Russian Orthodox Church as a protest against church reforms introduced by Patriarch Nikon between 1652–66...
and traditionalist Catholics can be deemed to be champions of "traditional values." In Zoroastrianism
Zoroastrianism
Zoroastrianism is a religion and philosophy based on the teachings of prophet Zoroaster and was formerly among the world's largest religions. It was probably founded some time before the 6th century BCE in Greater Iran.In Zoroastrianism, the Creator Ahura Mazda is all good, and no evil...
those who oppose conversion as being against the religious tradition generally deem themselves to be a force for "traditional values." Radical elements of Hindutva
Hindutva
Hindutva is the term used to describe movements advocating Hindu nationalism. Members of the movement are called Hindutvavādis.In India, an umbrella organization called the Sangh Parivar champions the concept of Hindutva...
are also intent to keep any Christian or other "foreign" religious values from entering their society, although their more modern views on Hindu law
Hindu law
Hindu law in its current usage refers to the system of personal laws applied to Hindus, especially in India...
might make their relation to traditional values more complex than this implies. There are also Hopi
Hopi
The Hopi are a federally recognized tribe of indigenous Native American people, who primarily live on the Hopi Reservation in northeastern Arizona. The Hopi area according to the 2000 census has a population of 6,946 people. Their Hopi language is one of the 30 of the Uto-Aztecan language...
traditionalists who wish to keep Christianity and other "foreign" religions from gaining a foothold amongst their people and who prefer that Native American languages be used instead of English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
, Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
, and so forth.
Attempts
Attempts at creating a kind of universalized "traditional values" has proved generally difficult or even impossible. It is generally fair to say that usually traditional values tend, by definition, toward conservativism and that they often, but not always, accept some form of patriarchyPatriarchy
Patriarchy is a social system in which the role of the male as the primary authority figure is central to social organization, and where fathers hold authority over women, children, and property. It implies the institutions of male rule and privilege, and entails female subordination...
as normative.
Usage
The usage of "traditional values" can in some cases imply that said values, in being traditional, are better than values that are non-traditional; but without giving a defense of why they might be better other than an appeal to tradition, which would be a fallacy of logic. However, in other cases "traditional values" can simply imply a matter of identity ("it's who we are") without seeking or addressing any notion of absolute values of "good" or "bad". In this latter case, values are no more a matter for logical defence than are aesthetic judgements or matters of preferred flavours; with the presumption of a necessity for logical defence coming simply from a different bias of value set (one which seeks abstract universal guides that can be applied in a meaningful way by concrete personal beings (humans)).The term "traditional values" can though be an intentional usage of rhetoric in order to get the listener/viewer of the words to believe that a set of values is good because traditional is often perceived in a positive sense by many.
See also
- Asian valuesAsian valuesAsian values was a concept that came into vogue briefly in the 1990s to justify authoritarian regimes in Asia, predicated on the belief in the existence within Asian countries of a unique set of institutions and political ideologies which reflected the region's culture and history...
- Continuing Anglican MovementContinuing Anglican MovementThe term Continuing Anglican movement refers to a number of churches in various countries that have been formed outside of the Anglican Communion. These churches generally believe that "traditional" forms of Anglican faith and worship have been unacceptably revised or abandoned within some...
- Folk religionFolk religionFolk religion consists of ethnic or regional religious customs under the umbrella of an organized religion, but outside of official doctrine and practices...
- Paleo-OrthodoxyPaleo-OrthodoxyPaleo-orthodoxy is a broad Christian theological movement of the late 20th and early 21st centuries which focuses on the consensual understanding of the faith among the Ecumenical Councils and Church Fathers...
- Sacred TraditionSacred TraditionSacred Tradition or Holy Tradition is a theological term used in some Christian traditions, primarily in the Roman Catholic, Anglican, Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox traditions, to refer to the fundamental basis of church authority....
- Society of St. Pius XSociety of St. Pius XThe Society of Saint Pius X is an international Traditionalist Catholic organisation, founded in 1970 by the French archbishop Marcel Lefebvre...
- Traditional Chinese lawTraditional Chinese lawTraditional Chinese law refers to the laws, regulations and rules used in China up to 1911, when the last imperial dynasty fell. It has undergone continuous development since at least the 11th century BC...
- Traditional knowledgeTraditional knowledgeTraditional knowledge , indigenous knowledge , traditional environmental knowledge and local knowledge generally refer to the long-standing traditions and practices of certain regional, indigenous, or local communities. Traditional knowledge also encompasses the wisdom, knowledge, and teachings...
- Traditionalist SchoolTraditionalist SchoolThe term Traditionalist School is used by Mark Sedgwick and other authors to denote a school of thought, also known as Integral Traditionalism or Perennialism to denote an esoteric movement developed by authors such as French metaphysician René Guénon, German-Swiss...
- Vishva Hindu ParishadVishva Hindu Parishad' , which is usually known more simply as the VHP, is an international Hindu organization, which was founded in India in 1964. Its slogan is "धर्मो रक्षति रक्षितः Dharmo rakṣati rakṣitaḥ", which is supposed to mean "Dharma protects its protector"...