We all find our own ways in life to some extent. In two sizeable stints of bachelorhood in my life, I've known the need to fend for myself, and out of necessity have picked up a few "survival" skills. Take sewing, for instance. I've sewn only buttons or patches, but I am happy with the tricks I have taught myself. It might seem possible that a mule packer, working alone on his own, and never in his life having seen or heard of mule packs, might sometime in his lifetime come up with a diamond hitch. But chances are he wouldn't. One might think that one would come up with a stirrup if one were left to one's own devices. But more than one brilliant civilization came and went before it was invented in the Second Century B.C. If we think we could've "invented" it, it is only because the idea of it has already been shown to us in all of its simplicity.We fool ourselves if we think we don't stand on the shoulders of our predecessors.

I could learn so much more about sewing by studying what others have already learned. That is what authority is. It's the handing down of things, from the more authoritative-whether they be individuals, forebears, civilizations, institutions, value systems-to the less authoritative. Archeologists, in digging up cultures, make judgments on those cultures' advancements based on such things as, for instance, the kinds of stitches they have developed or the kind of pottery or metallurgy they have mastered.

Indeed, much about a culture's values and beliefs can be deduced from its tools and technology. Where ancient peoples are concerned, these judgments have been fairly reliable, because societies then esteemed authority in all fields-not just in their technology. Advancements in the sciences usually meant advancement in the arts, as well as in ethics, morals, metaphysics, spirituality. Authority was authority, and it was heeded in all fields.

What would some future archeologists say of us, were they to dig up our civilization and see its incredibly advanced technology? Would they say that we must have been profoundly developed in heart and soul, in morals and metaphysics, as well? Would they be right?

We stand on the shoulders of our authorities in technology, largely without recognizing it. Ask some if they revere authority, and many will bristle. They don't see that it is inescapable in their material lives, and meanwhile they spurn or scorn it especially in matters of spirit and soul. Why refuse to grant authority or to respect tradition and "the wisdom of the ages" in moral, spiritual, and metaphysical fields? Perhaps it is because these are areas where we feel free to "sew" as we so desire, or to go on sewing as we always have, for in these realms, unlike technology, we think we are truly free to be "free."

Or maybe we think that because our technology is advanced, this fact must be an indication of a corresponding, automatic superiority in our reason or tastes, or in our moral or spiritual selves. But if we disdain authorities in these fields-in other words, in the only fields in which ultimate and important questions exist-why think we are advanced in them?

The cowboy world is a world that values authority and the carrying on of tradition and the revering of the ways of our elders and forebears. It is because of this reverence that the Cowboy Way is especially valuable not just to cowboys but to all. It serves as a touchstone for a society that could easily lose its way and may be doing so.

G.K. Chesterton observed that tradition "means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking around." C.S. Lewis also had a name for the contempt of authority. He called it "chronological snobbery." Every age must guard against it.

Just as a packer need not be ashamed that a diamond hitch be handed down to him from his superiors, so must we not think that we cannot learn anything from our Founding Fathers, from moral authority, from time-tested truths, from all who have shed their blood to pass on something that transcends our mere daily doings. In matters of the heart and soul, the most important insights always come from above.