My summer reading this year is Sara L. McClintock's Omniscience and the Rhetoric of Reason (yes, I've been told, nice light summer fare). On page 94 there is a reference to some work by Mohanty (1992: 11) where he describes his take on the relationship between tradition and orthodoxy and, as I read it, I was reminded immediately of some of the discussions we have had on this forum. For your consideration:

"Orthodoxy consists in fossilizing tradition into a lifeless, unchanging structure. Tradition, as distinguished from orthodoxy, is a living process of creation and preservation of significations. When a tradition is alive, it continues to grow, to create, and to respond to new situations and challenges. When it is no longer alive, it requires an orthodoxy to preserve its purity against possible distortions and desanctifications. A living tradition is ambiguous in the sense that it allows for growth and development in many different ways. It is false to oppose tradition to freedom from rational criticism, for rational criticism, takes place, not within a vacuum but from within a tradition."

As I read this it occurred that this is exactly what we are doing with our discussions and criticisms, and may well be the battle we are fighting in a wider sense of things. Many people here wear their kilts in ways that may not be entirely "traditional" but it is this which maintains the kilt as a tradition, rather than an orthodoxy which allows no room for divergence from established norms. The greatness of this idea of tradition is that it leaves room for (actually, I think it demands the presence of) people who would wear their kilts in a traditional manner. As was said: "...rational criticism takes place not within a vacuum but from within a tradition."