I think I got the original post slightly off.

I was critiquing Sam Kriss' claim that the best traditions come from "just doing stuff", without trying to tie things back to anything in the past.

The counterexample I was thinking of was all the 2010s New Atheist attempts to reinvent "church, but secular". These were well-intentioned. Christians get lots of benefits from going to church, like a good community. These benefits don't seem obviously dependent on the religious nature. So instead of tying your weekly meeting back to what Jesus and St. Peter and so on said two thousand years ago, why not "just do stuff" and have a secular weekly meeting?

Most of these attempts fell apart. One of them, the Sunday Assembly, clings to existence but doesn't seem too successful. People with ancient traditions 1, people who just do stuff 0.

But after thinking about it more, maybe this isn't what Sam means.

https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/clarification-on-fake-tradition-is