Traditionalism as Therapy for Late Capitalism

On the issue of politics, the article only discusses churches that take "leftwing" political stances, but at least anecdotally, it seems to me that many young people--even those with an interest in traditional liturgy and the like--are even more hostile to churches with "rightwing" politics. So, sure, they like the bells and smells, but that doesn't mean that they are all going to accept orthodox Christian positions on, say, homosexuality or contraception.

To be a little pessimistic, this sort of thing makes me wonder if for many of these people traditional liturgies and devotions are anything more than isolated, "authentic" aesthetic experiences like eating ethnic food or listening to indie music rather than practices that shape one's life in any sort of meaningful way.

In this case, traditional churches serve a sort of hygienic or therapeutic function, providing people with temporary relief from the pressures and unreality of late capitalism, but people who rely on traditional religious practices for these functions do not accept the idea that they have political and social consequences. Christopher Lasch had it right, I think: "A society that has made nostalgia a marketable commodity on the cultural exchange quickly repudiates the suggestion that life in the past was in any important way better than life today. Having trivialized the past by equating it with outmoded styles of consumption, discarded fashions and attitudes, people today resent anyone who draws on the past in serious discussions of contemporary conditions or attempts to use the past as a standard by which to judge the present." Thus, we have people who are fascinated with past styles but who nevertheless angrily reject the idea that the societies in which those styles emerged might have anything meaningful to teach us.

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Source: http://www.fisheaters.com/forums/index.php?topic=3470152.msg34024618#msg34024618