Preserving the old ways from being abused

Of all the Eve Tushnets known to me, Gnomic Eve is certainly a favorite. I know I'm outside the concensus on this one--"All life is a choice of genre? Woman, we have told you before what happens when you smoke the crack rock..."--but lay this one on your turntable:

TRADITIONALISM WITHOUT RELIGION IS ADDICTION

Well, maybe yes and maybe no. There's certainly a lot of truth to it, but do gender roles make no sense without "Male and female created he them," or would people still need to know who to court?* Is admitting that a tradition (i.e. the Western Canon) is ultimately arbitrary the same as admitting that the only reason to prefer it is comfort? Take Shakespeare--he is unlike an addiction insofar as it makes me uncomfortable, right? Or does that only make it more like an addiction, in a "cigarettes are exquisite and leave one unsatisfied, what more could one want?" sort of way?

Of course, if what Eve has said winds up being true, all is not lost. After all, one should never trust a man with no addictions; you don't know what he's capable of, and neither does he. I've spent forty-five minutes trying four different metro stops before finding one with both coffee and cigarettes, and that first-cigarette-and-coffee was like someone turning a light on. It's helpful to learn how to want something that badly, just to know what you're working with.

* Quentin Crisp: "Male and female created he me!"