ABSTRACT
Good traditions are too important to advocate only timidly and defensively. The crisis of belief traditions is intensified by the experience of worldview-moral pluralism and the widespread alienation of individual persons from social control by bearers of authority. Change in traditions occurs in two domains: In the world-describing empirical scientific-technological domain, change is usually the result of progress in knowledge and technology. Modern life is burdened by an overly rich mixed or eclectic culture. It encompasses a great diversity of incompatible traditions: religious and atheistic, achievement-oriented and pleasure-oriented, elitist and egalitarian, local and international traditions, etc. The study of religion has replaced religious education, and ethical instruction on moral-philosophical abstractions has replaced moral education. Cultural struggle must occur in a world characterized by cultural abundance, cultural intermixing and cultural conflict. A good tradition of shared ideals and life forms is not just indispensable so that children can acquire socially legitimate value-attitudes.
