Joseph Pearce
Tradition is the extension of democracy through time. It is the proxy of the dead and the enfranchisement of the unborn. “Tradition may be defined as the extension of the franchise,” wrote Chesterton. “Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead.” And he continues: “Tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking about. All democrats object to men being disqualified by the accident of birth; tradition objects to their being disqualified by the accident of death…. I, at any rate, cannot separate the two ideas of democracy and tradition.”
We could go further than this by insisting that tradition, the democracy of the dead, is always fully alive. This is evident once we realize that the phrase “living tradition” is a tautology. Tradition is always living because it can’t be anything else without ceasing to be itself. A tradition is something which has been done for a long time and is still being done. Those in the present who practise tradition are honouring the proxy of the dead but they are also enfranchising the unborn by passing on the living flame, the torch of tradition, to future generations. Tradition is, therefore, not about the past, except in the honouring of it, but about the present and the future. This is why the Great Books are not dead texts from the distant past but living voices in the Great Conversation which animates the present and empowers the future.
And what is true of the canon of Great Books is also true of the canon of Great Music. Gregorian chant continues to grace the sacred liturgy and man’s worship of God, as does polyphony. The great composers are a living presence in the ears of all except the deaf.  » Read More
https://theimaginativeconservative.org/2025/03/tradition-musical-revival-joseph-pearce.html