Performative Traditionalist Orthodoxy

Dashing out a few unformed thoughts about some trends I have seen.

There are some aspects of "traditionalist"-minded Orthodox that strike me - and some others - as performing the role of "traditional Orthodox Christian" rather than being an Orthodox Christian, with all the difficulties entailed. It's certainly very easy to shut off your mind and spout platitudes. I'm reminded of a Thomas Merton footnote: “I had a pious thought, but I am not going to write it down." It is always very possible and very easy to come up with a more rigid, more conservative position than the last one given, and then you can very easily find somebody to support it. And there is a certain attraction to this - rigidity and conservatism for their own sake are seductive.

I'm not trying to impugn the motives of self-identified traditionalists or treat their discourse as behavior. But there are some odd things that often pop up:

• Beards.
  
• Enthusiasm for the tsar, Putin, Russia, Putin's Russia, etc.
  
• Decrying things as feminized, or other examples of performative masculinity/femininity.
  
• Susceptibility to conspiracy theories and anti-vax ideology.
  
• Neo-Confederate and Monarchist sympathies.
  
• Reflexive anti-Islamic, anti-homosexual, or broadly anti-liberal responses.
  
• EDIT: Scarves.
  

With the exception of possibly beards, there is no particular reason why all or some of these should go along with a commitment to being a "traditional" "Orthodox Christian". But demonstrating some of these becomes a de rigueur method of displaying that you are a "traditionalist" and speaking out against some of these, while possibly acceptable, can be very much a matter of swimming against the tide. Then there are various theological questions where some nuance is perhaps required and permissible as an actually traditional position, but the "traditionalist" pose is performed by taking some specific rigid viewpoint or acting in a particular way about an issue. Consider the following list:

• Talking to other Christian denominations.
  
• The Hebrew Bible or the Vulgate.
  
• Young Earth Creationism.
  
• Not really theological, but goes here: "Thou/Thee" vs "You" language. This really the one that made me write this list. There is no particularly good or truly "traditional" reason to insist on "Thou" or to claim "You" is deficient.
  
• Anything to do with sex or gender.
  
• Constant referral to Patristic quotes.
  
• "Piety".
  
• Another big one: using words like nous, phronema, panheresy, prelest, logismoi, etc.
  
• EDIT: denouncing the New Calendar.
  

I'm not saying any of these are bad and wrong or that self-styled "traditionalists" should stop doing them. Some of the things on the last can be good in some way. Young Earth Creationists who insist on saying "Thou" aren't bad people doing Orthodoxy wrong and aren't even necessarily incorrect. I welcome other thoughts, criticisms, examples, etc, as these are unformed reflections.

EDIT: I want to note that being "performative" is not a criticism per se. Crossing yourself at the invocation of the Trinity is "performative Orthodoxy".