Traditionalism for Inklings?

Wolfgang Smith is a Catholic philosopher with a Traditionalist perspective, i.e. Traditionalist as in Guenon, Coomaraswamy and Schuon (not "traditionalist" in the sense of Mel Gibson's father).

Traditionalist writings are usually rather heavy (at least those by Guenon), but "Cosmos & Transcendence" is a surprisingly easy read. But then, the book doesn't sound specifically Traditionalist. I comes across as a conservative, Green, Christian and vaguely perennialist-panentheist work.

Smith connects our loss of the perennial tradition (which he interprets in Christian terms) to the rampant hedonism, individualism and commercialism of our age. He attacks modern art, the technological domination of Nature, and social engineering. The author never proposes a concrete political program, but some kind of Green conservative politics seem to be the bottom line (one is almost tempted to say Throne-and-Altar conservatism).

The heaviest chapters are those dealing with quantum physics, while the chapters on Freud, Jung and "progress" are the easiest. There's also a chapter attacking Darwin, featuring that old Traditionalist favourite Douglas Dewar. Interestingly, Wolfgang Smith does *not* believe that good and evil are relative and equally necessary for the perfection of creation, a position defended by Huston Smith. This is no doubt connected to the author's Christian faith and Platonist-Thomist metaphysics. Even so, one wonders how this squares with perennialism or Traditionalism, which is usually based on the metaphysics of Advaita Vedanta.

Who could benefit from reading "Cosmos & Transcendence"? Apart from Traditionalists who forgot the freshman course, it might conceivably appeal to admirers of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, G.K. Chesterton and other Christian writers with anti-modernist tendencies. I'm less sure if Owen Barfield's fan club will stomach it. Jungians will reel and regard it as no better than Richard Noll's works. (Incidentally, Smith seems unaware of Noll's thesis that Jung *did* see himself as the Christ - otherwise, he would surely have used it in his attack on the Swiss psychoanalyst.)

Personally, I'm not a Traditionalist. I'm not a supporter of any particular school of spirituality, but some kind of synthesis of "premodern" metaphysics and "modern" democracy and human rights would be my preferred option. Still, it seems uncharitable to criticize a Traditionalist work for being, well, traditionalist...