Inherited patterns of behavior connect us spiritually to the past from which we inherited them, to those around us who share the same ways of doing things, and to those in the future to whom we shall pass our inheritance on. It has often been said that rapid technological change requires us to change our morals, customs, and institutions. This is plausible only if we assume that man was made for the machine, not the machine for man. If anything, technological progress makes cultural conservatism more necessary than ever. Because communities, traditions, and nations do exist and are important, conservatism is not merely temperamental and insubstantial.
Shared traditions are essential for social cohesion, and therefore a primary and permanent good.
It is this attachment to particular traditions that allows us to maintain the thread of continuity through the changefulness of the world.