When I picked up Mark Sedgwick's Traditionalism: The Radical Project for Restoring Sacred Order I thought I was in for a quick and rewarding read. But it was not to be. I spied the Pelican edition on the shelves at Wardah Books on my recent foray there, recognising the name of the writer from a website I chanced upon some months back that dealt with thinkers like Rene Guenon and Frithjof Schuon, names that frequently cropped up in the works of Islamically related writers I enjoy. I've never really pursued the work of these guys in any serious sense and assumed that Sedgwick's book was going to give me the direct introduction I needed to their exciting ideas. But the problem is that I've not found the ideas themselves, as summarised in the tome in question, at all exciting. Or convincing.
To be honest, their notions come across as over-generalised with little foundation in the complex details of the cultures with which they deal. It's all been more than a bit 'pie in the sky' - fine sounding, but of limited substance. But how exactly do you know all this?, I've found myself asking, page after page.
Funnily enough, the best and most convincing thing I've read so far concerns the work of Jordan Peterson of all people, in the form of a neat summary of the Prof against Political Correctness's understanding of hierarchies of competence and critique of the notion of white privilege. I'm not exactly a fan of Peterson, but if he gets anything right (and I think he often does) this is top of the list and important to appreciate, especially for wooly-minded leftist activists who are overly in love with their own righteousness.
Anyway, I'm still a way off finishing Sedgwick's book and hoping to find a few more insights that will make reading it worthwhile.
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