Progress Without Tradition, a Factor in Revolutionary Warfare – Folha de S. Paulo, April 16, 1969

By Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira

A compelling excerpt from General Jose Muricy’s speech at his inauguration as Army Chief of Staff caught my attention. Talking about the “revolutionary war in which we are all engaged,” he said, “Since a people are only truly dominated when they break with their past, cultural and social base, the moral foundations inherited from their elders, and their spiritual formation, and since for Marxists only what serves their purposes is moral, the enemies of democracy seek to destroy these values in this struggle. We are witnessing, particularly among young people, an attempt to destroy moral principles through dangerous philosophies exalting eroticism and perversion to break the ties that bind young people to their past and their families.”

In the spiritual realm, there is a strong effort to distort values, causing the less enlightened to doubt, and even promoting a nonsensical communist-Christian symbiosis as the ideal solution to social problems, even with violence. They present communism as the way to uplift man and protect him from what they call alienation.

Every good Brazilian should carefully consider these ideas. Let me highlight one in particular. As we have just seen, General Muricy views a people’s break from their past as a clever communist trick to enslave them. In other words, maintaining tradition is crucial to the country’s independence.

This distinguished officer’s statement might surprise many readers who don’t fully understand the concept of tradition. Let me quote a brief passage from Pius XII to clarify this point. It is the best commentary General Muricy’s words deserve.

The pontiff begins by showing that tradition is not stagnation: “Many minds, even sincere ones, imagine and believe that tradition is nothing more than memory, the pale vestige of a past that no longer exists, that can never return, and that at most is relegated to museums, therein preserved with veneration, perhaps with gratitude, and visited by a few enthusiasts and friends. If tradition consisted only of this, if it were reduced to this, and if it entailed rejection or disdain for the road to the future, then one would be right to deny it respect and honor, and one would have to look with compassion on those who dream over the past and those left behind in face of the present and future, and with greater severity on those who, spurred by less pure and respectable motives, are nothing but derelict in the duties of the now so very mournful hour.”

He then shows that, if progress is a forward march, tradition is the direction, an invaluable asset in this march: “But tradition is something very different from a simple attachment to a vanished past; it is the very opposite of a reaction mistrustful of all healthy progress. The word itself is etymologically synonymous with advancement and forward movement—synonymous, but not identical. Whereas, in fact, progress means only a forward march, step by step, in search of an uncertain future, tradition also signifies a forward march, but a continuous march as well, a movement equally brisk and tranquil, in accordance with life’s laws, eluding the distressing dilemma: “Si jeunesse savait, si vieillesse pouvait!” [If youth knew, if the aged could]; like that Lord of Turenne of whom it was said: “Il a eu dans sa jeunesse toute la prudence d’un âge avancé, et dans un âge avancé toute la vigueur de la jeunesse” [In his youth he had all the prudence of advanced age and in his advanced age all the vigor of youth] (Fléchier, Oraison funebre, 1676).

He then emphasizes the strong connection between genuine progress and true tradition: “By virtue of tradition, youth, enlightened and guided by the experience of elders, moves forward with a steadier step, and old age can confidently pass on the plow to stronger hands, to continue the furrow already begun. As the word suggests, tradition is a gift passed down from generation to generation, the torch that at each relay one runner hands over and entrusts to the next, without the race slowing down or stopping.”

He triumphantly concludes that tradition is indispensable to progress: “Tradition and progress complement each other so harmoniously that, just as tradition without progress would be a contradiction in terms, so progress without tradition would be a foolhardy proposition, a leap into darkness.” (Address of His Holiness Pius XII to the Roman Nobility and Patriciate, in 1944, published by L’Osservatore Romano on January 20, 1944). https://nobility.org/2012/01/pius-xii-january-19-1944/

A country that advances quickly without tradition is like a man who walks fast without a clear path or direction. The faster he moves, the more chaotic and exhausting it becomes. Eventually, he becomes impoverished, worn out, and stumbles, vulnerable to any attacker.

In this situation, communism is the attacker… disguising itself as progressivism.