Three Concepts of Tradition

Author(s): JERZY SZACKI

Source: The Polish Sociological Bulletin , 1969, No. 20 (1969), pp. 17-31
Published by: Polskie Towarzystwo Socjologiczne (Polish Sociological Association)

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 THE POLISH
SOCIOLOGICAL BULLETIN
No. 2, 1969

Three Concepts of Tradition*

by JERZY SZACKI

Shils is right in remarking that "a very feature of almost all of

contemporary sociological literature is the pervasive absence of any
analysis of the nature and mechanisms of tradition." 1 This would not
be a cause of alarm had it not been for the fact that the term "tradition"
is being commonly used and, still worse, sometimes serves to "explain"
social facts which people do not know how to explain otherwise. It is
said, for instance, that the behaviour of members of a community can
be explained by a specific collective "tradition," but no endeavours are
made to describe "tradition" by referring to something more than intui-
tive formulations.
This is a risky procedure, since such terms as "tradition" belong
to those about which George Boas wrote (with reference to Lovejoy):
"L'une des particularités des termes dont émanent des ondes de pathos
métaphysique est celle-ci: ceux qui admirent comme ceux qui méprisent
ce qu'ils représentent se demandent rarement s'ils représentent bien
quelque chose." 2 Some see in "tradition" a cataract on the eyes of
mankind, others believe it to be the eyes themselves, but both the former
and the latter usually do not pose the question what the controversy
is about. And the controversies between the "Utopianists" and the
"traditionalists," which have been taking place in European culture since
at least the late 18th century, may be about various things. Attention
ought to be paid to at least two points. First, the said controversies as
a rule pertained to both facts and values: people argued about how the
past "presses" on the present, without usually separating this issue from
the question, whether the present ought to submit to that "pressure."
Secondly, widely differring ideas about what "tradition" is as a social
fact occurred in those controversies. While concentrating on the issue
whether people have to refer to "tradition" and, if so, to which "tradi-
tion" to refer, the parties to the dispute did not bother to define
concepts. In most cases we have to do only with persuasive definitions,
which are intended not so much delimit extensions of the concepts in
question as to change emotional associations linked with those concepts.
It would, of course, be wrong to claim that the problem of "tradi-
tion" has remained intact from a theoretical point of view. It has been
studied by many eminent scholars who include philosophers (e.g.,
Windelband, Husserl, Popper, Dufrenne), historians (e.g., Febvre, Bloch,
Dawson, Oakeshott), anthropologists (e.g., Redfield, Malinowski), söciol-

* Tihis is the abridged section of a book in preparation.

1 E. Shils, "The Calling of Sociology," in: T. Parsons et al. (ed.),
Theories of Society . Foundations of Modern Sociological Theory , New York 1961,
pp. 1426 ff.
2 G. Boas, "La tradition," Diogene, 1960, No. 31 (July-September), p. 76.

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 ļg JERZY SZACKI

ogists (e.g., Tönnies, Max Wéber, Durkheim, Mauss, Halbwachs, Czar-

nowski, Krzywicki, Dobrowolski, Ossowski, Shils). Yet as a rule their
contributions were not theories of "tradition," but merely ideas or out-
lines of such theories. In most cases they were independent of one
another and were concerned with different sets of facts, which spread
their standpoints wide apart and provided the term "tradition" with
a still more varied set of designata.
Thus, the term "tradition" is extremely ambiguous. Whenever we
have to do with any links between the present and the past we can
find authors who speak about "tradition," "traditionalism," etc. The term
"tradition" is used to cover all possible areas of "living history," without
any consideration of the fact that we have to do with heterogeneous facts
that cannot be covered by any single formula. In the social sciences we
find, that is true, a number of definitions of "tradition" which aspire to
precision, but in most cases their precision is apparent only, and more-
over the discrepancies between those definitions make their practical
utility questionable. R. Zimand was right in remarking in this connec-
tion: "It is not to be wondered that in the common usage and in the
common feeling of the term tradition means the same as 'something from
the pasť." 3
In order to find one's way in the maze of concepts we could probably
adopt the procedure used by Kluckhohn and Kroeber in their analysis
of the concept of culture,4 i.e., to draw a more or less complete list of
the definitions and pseudo^definitions to be found in the literature of
the subject. It does not seem, however, that this procedure could yield
any significant results, since the, point is not in the number and charac-
teristics of the definitions used in the past and still in circulation. Many
scholars Who tackled the problem of "tradition" did not advance any
formal definitions, and some of them even did not use the term at all.
There is no reason to disregard them if we are interested in the adven-
tures not of the term but of the issues that happen to be covered by it.
It seems that attention ought to focus on bringing out the most important
standpoints, the most important aspects of the links ¡between the present
and the past that can be found in the literature on the subject. The
theoretical problems of "tradition" will then take shape according to
the standļpoint adopted.
The three main standpoints have as their counterparts three differ-
ent, although complementary, concepts of "tradition." The first might
be termed functional : attention focuses on the act of transmitting, from
generation to generation, certain - usuially spiritual - values of a given
community. The second shall be termed objective, since attention shifts
from how such values are transmitted to what is transmitted. The third
might be termed subjective, since it brings to the fore neither the act
nor the object of transmission, but the attitude of a given generation
to the past, and its approval or disapproval of the heritage. The terms
to be used hereafter will be: social transmission, social heritage, and
tradition, instead of tradition in the functional sense, tradition in the

8 R. Zimand, "Problem tradycji" [The Problem of Tradition], in: M. Ja-

nion, A. Piorunowa {ed.), Proces historyczny w literaturze i sztuce [The
Course of History as Reflected in Literature and Art], Warszawa 1967, p. £61.
4 A. L. Kroeber, C. Kluckhon, "Culture. A Critical Review of Concepts
and Definitions," in: Papers of the Peabody Museum of American Archeology and
Ethnology , Harvard University, Vol. XLVII, 1962, No. 1.

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 CONCEPTS OF TRADITION ļg

objective sense, and tradition in the subje

main task of the present paper is to show e
which arise according to the acceptance of t
tion." The present author hopes to construct in this way a scheme
within the framework of which would be possible to combine in a single
theoretical system the various valuable ideas and formulations which
for the time being are still hopelessly pulverized.

Social transmission

"Tradition in the strict sense is a neutral term used to denote the

'transmission/ usually oral, whereby modes of activity or taste or be-
lief are handed down ('given across') from one generation to the next
and thus perpetuated." 5 The problems of "tradition" thus conceived
is of great significance in the social sciences. Not without reason one
of the basic distinctions used in those sciences is that between literate
societies and those which are called "oral," "illiterate," or "pre-literate."
There is no doubt that such words as "pressure" and "burden," as applied
to the past, remain purely metaphorical until we proceed to investigate
the paths of communication between generations.
It seems that the importance of the problems related to communica-
tion between generations has been fully appreciated only by the students
of pre-literate communities, i.e., in those cases in which these problems
loom large, because those societies accord a privileged status to all
inherited values and also because in those societies a large part of the
standards of experiencing, thinking, and acting is in fact ""traditional"
in origin. Problems of social tradition have so much coalesced with those
of pre-literate communities that "tradition" is often identified with oral
tradition, and the societies in question are often called "traditional," in
contrast with modern societies, in which oral tradition plays an incom-
parably less important role. Nevertheless it seems incorrect to treat
problems of transmission as specific to pre-literate societies and to
underestimate its importance in the study of modern societies. Yet
this is a practice to be encountered in the social sciences. Following the
example of social ideas prevailing in the 19th century people still
happen to identify "modernization" with the breaking of all ties with
the past, and modern societies are believed to be such for the under-
standing of which it suffices to watch actual behaviour of individuals.®
The students of those societies seem often to assume that - to use the
language of G. Tarde - imitation of "customs" has entirely given p
to imitation of "fashion." Consequently, they lay disproportionate
greater stress on -the propagation of opinions spread by mass med
than on the formation of personalities by other factors. The effect o
earlier generations upon later ones is studied only in connection with
the study of socialization, or else is dismissed with the vague statement
that "something has been assimilated with mother's milk."
But Riesman is right when he says that the difference between
"traditional" and "modern" societies consists not so much in the elimi-

8 J. G o u 1 d, W. C. K o 1 b, A Dictionary of the Social Sciences, London 1964,

p. 723.
• M. Bloch, Apologie pour Vhistoire ou métier ďhistorien, OParis 1959.

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 20 JERZY SZACKI

nation of "tradition" from the latter as in the fact that in the latter
tradition is "dismembered" following an increased division of lalbour
and growing social stratification.7 Hence the sociologist's task should be
not to confirm the otherwise obvious fact that modern societies are in
a sense less "traditional," but to find out what are the peculiarities of
social transmission in societies where literacy is common, division of
labour is far advanced, society is widely differentiated, and modern
mass media are used. It seems necessary to assume that social trans-
mission is equally important in all stable communities, while its mech-
anisms as well appraisals of dependence on "ancestors" may differ
from case to case. This opens a wide field for historical and comparative
study, which has barely been started. Since the programme of such
a study cannot be discussed here in detail, some problems only will be
indicated in this paper.
The first problem, recently taken up in Literacy in Traditional So-
cieties* is connected with the function of writing in social transmission.
Now it seems that the hypothesis could be advanced that the almost
proverbial "traditionalism" of pre-literate communities is conditioned
by the situation in which transmission of cultural heritage to the younger
generation takes place through face-to-face contacts, so that the values
thus transmitted are associated with definite persons and circumstances.
Only that is remembered and preserved which is actually important to
the group, and the whole rest is irreparably forgotten. In literate socie-
ties cultural heritage loses that linear character. The fact that indirect
transmission is possible calls for an incessant interpretation of that
heritage and at the same time accounts for its different interpretations.
Since many transmitted items are accessible at a time, it happens that
they are contradictory with one another, which necessitates selection,
and also gives rise to skepticism. The image of the past ceases to be
coherent, and hence the present cannot imitate the past as such. "The
content of the cultural tradition grows continually, and in so far as it
affects any particular individual he becomes a palimpsest composed of
layers of beliefs and attitudes belonging to different stages in historical
time. So too, eventually, does society at large, since there is a tendency
for each social group to be particularly influenced by systems of ideas
belonging to different periods in the nation's development; both to the
individual, and to the groups constituting society, the past may mean
very different things." 9
This issue is linked with vast research problems. Consider the dif-
ferences between those societies in which literacy is common and those
in which it is restricted to a small élite. Note that the social consequences
of different types of script - e.g., ideographic and phonetic - are
different. Note also that oral transmission retains, to some extent, its
importance in all literate societies. Now still very little is known about
all these problems.
The second problem, to be discussed here by way of example, is that
of social transmission in internally differentiated societies. This fact may
affect social transmission in many ways. First, there are communities

7 D. R i e s m a n, The Lonely Crowd .

8 J. Goody (edJ), Cambridge University Press, 1968.
9 J. G o o d y, I. W a 1 1, "The Consequences of Literacy," Comparative Studies
in Society and History, Vol. V, 1963, No. 3 (April), p. 334.

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 CONCEPTS OF TRADITION 21

(estates, castes, classes, etc.) with cultures so

to speak without special reservations about a
society. Secondly, an individual living in a society with a complex
structure may belong to various communities and be thus linked with
different group pasts. Thirdly, different types of social transmission (e.g.,
coexistence of literate national culture and pre-literate folk culture)
may prevail in the various milieus forming one and the same society.
Some of these facts are observable in germinal forms even in fairly
homogeneous traditional societies. The difference between the cultural
heritage transmitted to men and that transmitted to women i's commonly
known. Bernard S. Cohn, when making studies in the village of Senapur
in the Ganges valley - a "traditional" village in the sense that its
inhabitants are deeply attached to the past and see in it the pattern for
the present - notices that the word "the past" may not be used in sin-
gular, since the various groups of inhabitants have quite different ideas
about it.10 (Robert Redfield, the eminent student of pre-literate communi-
ties, used to emphasize that "great tradition" and "little tradition" exist
parallelly almost everywhere. He attached very much importance to the
study of the relations between them, and he blamed historians for con-
centrating too much attention on "great tradition," deliberately cultivat-
ed at schools and in temples, and for disregarding "little tradition,"
shaped spontaneously in everyday life of village people.11
The issue raised 'by Redfield is also important in the study of modern
societies. Those societies also have esoteric knowledge in the sense that
certain kind of knowledge may be transmitted only within a certain
group: a religious organization, the ruling class, a professional body,
etc. The existence in society of groups closed in various ways results
in the existence of many "traditions": the process of social transmission
becomes a process of initiation, and if it even is such in a very small
degree, it nevertheless takes different courses in different groups and
covers different elements of culture. "Each group has its own tradition
and its own past, and believes it to be the past." 12 This issue has been
tackled by Halbwachs in Les cadres sociaux de la mémoire, and so has it
been by other authors, but it seems that there is still a long way not
only to its solution, but even to its satisfactory formulation.
The third problem is that of changes in those elements of culture
which are transmitted from generation to generation. The statement that
an institution or an idea has "lasted" for centuries is largely only meta-
phorical in nature, since change and adjustment to new conditions always
are prerequisites of duration. "[...] any achievement of an earlier period,
when taken over by a later period, is a misinterpretation of an old
thing." 13 The endeavours made from time to time by erudites and ideol-
ogists to demonstrate that certain "precepts of the past" are under-
stood "wrongly," "falsely," "incorrectly," or in a "distorted manner," are
simply hopeless. "Returns to the sources," sometimes recommended, are
not so much returns, but just deviations from the actual interpretation
of "tradition" in the direction of a new interpretation, which certainly
need not be more "faithful" (if something can be said on that subject at
10 B. S. Cohn, "The fPasts of an Indian Village," Comparative Studies...,
Vol. Ill, 1-961, No. 3 (April), pp. 241-9.
11 R. Redfield, Peasant Society and Culture, Chicago 1961, pp. 40 ff.
12 A. Gramsci,
13 K. Ma rx's letter to F. Lassalle of July 22, 1861.

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 22 JERZY SZACKI

all). The recurrent faith in the possibility of being in toto faithful to

one's forefathers is an illusion, since it would require something im-
possible: living in the same world they were living in. Taking over in-
evitably means transforming.
All these statements, aimed, as they are, against very common
fallacies, look just trivial. The theoretical issue begins one step further,
namely when we pose the question, whether such transformations can
be studied, and if so, how to do that. B. Malinowski's functionalist
approach, formulated by him in The Dynamics of Culture Change, is well
known: he questions the practical utility of the investigations on what
given elements of culture had been in the past. He made a distinction
between that past which for antiquarian purposes can be reconstructed
by a researcher and that past which is practically important as it is
being remembered by people of a given culture and as it forms the
psychological reality of the present. In his opinion the latter only deserves
interest on the part of the anthropologist. Malinowski's standpoint, well
grounded as it is with reference to African communities which he studied
at the time of writing his book, raises essential doubts as a general
methodological rule. Not only does it deprive the work of a historian
of all sense, but also makes it difficult for a sociologist and an anthro-
pologist to comprehend the present.14 In the case of many cultures the
state of the sources makes it quite possible to examine the changes under-
gone by certain ideas and institutions, and to find out what has "survived"
and what has been changing.
In the Polish literature of the subject an excellent example of this
standpoint is provided by the works of S. Czarnowski, who investigated
"the past and the present in culture" so as to grasp both the process of
adjusting the .past to the present (rites become sports events, myths
become tales for children, supporting elements in buildings become
ornaments, etc.) and that of adjusting the present to the past (e.g., present-
ing new experiences in an inherited literary form). Czarnowski wrote
that he was interested in intersections of each case of present experience
with the received standard, motif-like, form of those experiences.15 This
formula of his has, unfortunately, remained unexpanded, and the concept
of a motif-like form is certainly not clear (except for research on folk
literature). It seems nevertheless that this formula points to research
problems of immense significance, problems which should be taken up
in the various disciplines concerned with social facts and processes.
Studies of the peculiarities of oral transmission form a separate field
of research on "faithfulness and betrayal" in social transmission. These
studies have been recently intensified in connection with the needs of
African historians who have to resort to that source, which can hardly
be called standard from the historiographer's point of view.16 This field
is the more so promising as it opens certain opportunities for experimen-
tal research.17

14 Attention has been drawn to this fact by C. Lé v i-S t r a u s s in his

Anthropologie structurale , Parils 1958, p. 17.
15 S. Czarnowski, Powstanie i społeczne funkcje historii [The Origin and
the Social Functions of Historical Research ], in: Dzieła [ Collected Works], Vol. V,
Warszawa 1956, p. 102.
16 Cf. J. Vansina, De la tradition orale. Essai de méthode historique ,
Tervuren 1981.
17 Originated by F. C. BartHett in: Remembering , Cambridge 1932.

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 CONCEPTS OF TRADITION 23

The three problems outlined above are,

merely selected examples of a much more c
of social transmission. It is to be borne in m
has confined himself to verbal transmission
cesses of inheriting culture patterns throug
emphasized, for instance, by M. Mauss in h
du corps.18 But the examples given above
one's mind the type of the problems determ
of tradition.

Social heritage

The term "tradition" often happens to be used with reference not to

the process of transmitting as such, but to that which is being transmitted
from generation to generation. "By tradition we mean in principle all
that heritage which the passing generations hand down to the genera-
tions which enter life." 19 "Tradition" so understood is an extremely vast
concept whose extension comes close to that of "culture." From this
point of view "all elements of social life would be traditional, except
those relatively few novelties which each age creates for itself and those
immediate borrowings from other societies which can be observed while
the process of diffusion is taking place." 20 It must be said that there are
many theorists of culture who identify it with "tradition" and/or "social
heritage."
It is not the intention of the present author to engage in any subtle
conceptual analysis in order to select a definite interpretation of the
concept of "culture." It must, however, be pointed out that the concepts
of "tradition" and "culture" are correlated with one another, so that
even when they differ in their extensions a definite interpretation of
culture has its counterpart in a definite interpretation of heritage. If,
for instance, M. Mauss includes in "tradition" 21 (heritage - in the
terminology used in this paper) the techniques du corps mentioned above,
this is strictly connected with his opposition to the spiritualization of
social life by Durkheim, and his conviction that the sociologist should not
confine himself to a study of "collective consciousness." If, for instance,
M. Dufrenne focuses his attention on the psychological conditioning of
continuity of beliefs, customs, and institutions, then the underlying mo-
tive of his thematic preferences is not any arbitrary decision concerning
the definition of "tradition," but the concept of "basic personality,"
borrowed from Linton and Kardiner, on which his interpretation of
culture is based.22 If, for instance, Gramsci claims that the most important
heritage of a society consists in its economic base, then again we have

18 Cf. M. Maus s, Sociologie et anthropologie , Paris 1960, pp. 365 ff.

19 K. Dobrowolski, Studia nad życiem społecznym i kulturą [Studies in
Social Life and Culture ], Wrocław 1966, p. 77.
20 M. Radin, "Tradition," in: The Encyclopaedia of the Social Sciences ,
Vol. XV, New York 1949, p. 62.
21 M. M a u s s, "Fragment d'un plan de sociologie générale descriptive," Annales
Sociologiques, Series A, Paris 1934, Fase. 1, p. 31.
22 Cf. M. D u f r e m n e, "Note sur la tradition," Cahiers Internationaux de
Sociologie , Vol. III, 1947, pp. 158 - 9; by the same author, La personalitě de
base. Un concept sociologique , Paris 1953, pp. 272 ff.

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 24 JERZY SZACKI

to look for the explanation

opinions. Such being the case, it is not to be wondered that theories of
social heritage have, as a rule, been fragmentary and one-sided. It was
so since they started from definite theories of culture, and not from
empirical findings about what the contemporary generation owes to the
earlier ones.
But some endeavours have been made to find that out. The pride of
place goes to the concept of "historical substratum," developed in Poland
by Ł. Krzywicki and K. Dobrowolski.23 Let Krzywicki's major statements
be recalled here: (a) "Each phase of social development leaves a heritage
which blends with that from earlier periods;" (b) various facts, namely
"political and legal institutions, ethical and aesthetic views, beliefs and
philosophical systems, everyday customs and even temper combine to
form the historical substratum;" (c) some of them persist as "inexplicable
absurdities," while others "have received rational, though entirely new,
explanations;" (d) the historical substratum plays an important role in
social life by restricting the freedom of action and possibility of changes;
(e) "the factors inherent in the historical substratum are passive in na-
ture: they do not give rise to new movements, but clip the wings of the
emergent ones;" (f) the historical substratum is a support for the con-
servative social strata; (g) in modern societies the role of the historical
substratum diminishes: "modern industrialism has blocked the influence
of tradition and has shifted the centre of gravity to the requirem
present-day development." 24
Krzywicki's idea was a valuable endeavour to formulate a theory
Of social heritage. But his effort was cramped by evolutionism, which to
the concept of "relic" ascribes an explanatory role and also tends to
identify progress with a detraditionalization of society. In Krzywicki's
concepts there was no place for the role of "tradition" in progressive
social movements, a problem raised e.g. by K. Kelles-Krauz.25 But from
the point of view of our present analysis still more important was the
fact that Krzywicki's idea offered a very narrow interpretation of social
heritage: that concept in his system covered only those elements of
heritage which are obstacles to novelties, and not all that which a given
generation "receives" from earlier ones.
K. Dobrowolski's concept is not crippled in such a way. In his opinion,
"the historical substratum covers the totality of products of culture,
products which cover all fields of activity of past generations, including
social life, and which more or less visibly affect actual behaviour of
living generations, or can have a potential influence upon such be-
haviour." 26 K. Dobrowolski thus strives to cover all the elements of
heritage, and not only those which hinder social progress. His paper
quoted here is a tentative complete listing of those facts which ought to
be considered inherited from earlier generations. His approach, unfortu-
nately, helps to order things on the surface only. Dobrowolski is aware
of the heterogeneity of the facts covered by the common term "historical

23 K. Dobrowolski, Studia z pogranicza historii i socjologii [Studies in the

Border Area of History and Sociology], Wroclaw 1967, pp. 6 - 51; L. Krzywicki,
Studia socjologiczne T Sociological Studies 1, Warszawa 1951, pp. 41 - 149.
24 Ł. Krzywi c ik i, op. eilt., pp. 146-7.
25 K. Kelles-Krauz, Socjologiczne prawo retrospekcji, in: Pisma wybrane
[Selected Works], Warszawa 1962, Vol. I, pp. 243 - 77.
26 K. Dobrowolski, op. cit., pp. 9 - 10.

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 CONCEPTS OF TRADITION 25

substratum," and so he from time to time resorts to various detailed

classifications and multiplies divisions and subdivisions, but when doing
so he cannot go beyond the poetics of a catalogue, imposed by his concept.
In that catalogue excavations neighbour with factories, religious beliefs,
methods of soil cultivation, and a great many other objects whose only
common trait is to have been "inherited." Such an interpretation of social
heritage can certainly be useful for an anthropologist who describes
a small community and wants to register all that which it has retained
from the past. For a sociologist such an approach is not convenient: he
clearly sees the disadvantages of "covering," as S. Ossowski wrote in
connection with another issue, "with one concept and putting on the
same level both certain properties of the human individual and certain
products that belong to man's external world." 27 Lumping heterogeneous
facts together results in an enumeration that comes to replace description.
In this connection Ossowski's suggestion that "the cultural heritage
of a social group" be interpreted as "certain patterns of muscular, emo-
tional and mental responses which shape dispositions of the group mem-
bers, but that no external objects be included in that heritage." Those
objects, "the sét of such products as works of art, scholarly publications,
products of technology, settlements, institutions," would be interpreted
as correlates of the cultural heritage: "correlates, but not elements; cor-
relates of certain mental and muscular responses, dispositions for which
are transmitted as 'the cultural heritage of the group'." 28
It is not only because of methodological considerations that it seems
advisable to accept Ossowski's proposal. When describing heritage as a set
of patterns we bring out the fact that we mean group heritage, and hence
certainly not all that which has been preserved in a given area. Our
field of vision need not cover all the old objects which, for instance, the
archaeologists may happen to find; we shall be concerned with those
only which occur now a correlates of responses of grouip members.

Tradition

While referring the concept of heritage to the sphere of actual be-

haviour, to that which has in fact been preserved from the past, we do
not disclaim interest in ideas and emotions associated with it. On the
contrary, in the present author's opinion it is only the emergenc
such ideas and emotions which testifies to the existence of tradition in
the strict sense of the term. It can easily be noticed that certain elem
of social heritage sometimes acquire special meaning for the group: the
present generation not only has something in common with the pas
generations, but also submits that community to an appraisal. Certain
elements of culture are inherited as it were mechanically, whereas others
are received in an act of emotional identification with predecessors. A sys-
tem of diet is inherited in a different way than are religious beliefs,
political ideals, and opinions about other nations. But even the diet may
be an object of vivid emotional responses if it is controlled by a system
of religious restrictions or if eating certain kinds of food is taken as

27 S. Ossowski, Więź społeczna i dziedzictwo krwi [Social Bonds and the

Heritage of Blood 1, in: Dzieła [ Collected Works 1, Vol. II, Warszawa 1966, pp. 64 - 5.
28 Ibid., p. 66.

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 20 JERZY SZACKI

a symbol of group members

members to the culture heritage of that group is emotionally hetero-
geneous, and the various elements of that heritage play different roles
in sfociai life by being in different degrees formation centres of group
solidarity.
These facts have persuaded certain researchers to adopt a subjective
interpretation of tradition. The earliest expanded formulation of this
standpoint is to be found in the above-mentioned item Tradition written
by Max Radin, who stated that "tradition is not a mere observed fact
like an existing custom [...] it is an idea which expresses á value judge-
ment. A certain way of acting is regarded as right; a certain order of
arrangement is held desirable. The maintenance of the tradition .is the
assertion of this judgement." 29 When studying tradition we are interested
not in what has been preserved from the past, but in which elements
of social heritage are still being subjected to valuations by the group.
In the Polish literature of the subject this standpoint has been suggested
by R. Zimand, a literary historian whose conclusions will still be referred
to below.30
It is perhaps worth-while noting that the popularity of the subjective
interpretation of tradition is in fact greater than it might be concluded
from dictionary definitions,31 and also from sociological and anthropologi-
cal literature. Sociologists have on the whole been showing little interest
in the connections between the past and the present, while anthropolo-
gists, because of focussing their attention on pre-literate societies, have
not been sufficiently taking into consideration those situations in which
the selection of social heritage is not an irreversible process of forgetting
and transforming, but is taking place again and again, since records of
the past make retrospections and come-backs possible. Many ideas, on
the other hand, can be found in literary historians, who in that respect
often refer to T. S. Eliot's famous essay on tradition and the individual
talent. The subjective interpretation of tradition seems to be most deeply
rooted in journalist language, although it occurs there implicitly in the
form of statements that we are making "selections" and "revaluations"
of certain traditions and that we "recall" or, so to say, "depervert" them.
Such acts, indispensable in all social education, are in fact nothing else
than labelling certain elements of heritage with definite values, be they
positive or negative.
When accepting the subjective interpretation of tradition we follow
a certain direction of interest, but this is still far from a satisfactory
theory of the phenomenon. All the studies known to the present author
are very sketchy in character and in many points require further analy-
sis, not to speak of historical and comparative research that would enable
verification of the hypotheses advanced. Attention is directed below to
a number of issues which ought to be discussed with first priority.
The first is the nature of those values which are referred to in all
subjective interpretation of tradition. When it is said that we have to
do with tradition when a part of the heritage is „subject to valuation"
by the group, this does not mean in the least (although not every author

29 M. Radin, op. cit., p. 62.

30 R. Zimand, op. cit.
31 Some dictionaries, however, point to the subjective interpretation of tradition.
<Cf. J. Gould, W. C. K o 1 b, op. cit., p. 723.

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 CONCEPTS OF TRADITION 27

states that explicitly) all possible valuations, but a special kind of

valuation. The point is not that an element of the heritage is subject
to valuation, but that it is subject to valuation from a special i point of
view. For instance, if in a modern country timber is floated down the
rivers by methods used centuries ago, or if glass is melted by an archaic
method, definite valuations come in question, too: we have to assume,
for instance, that those ancient methods are still economic and efficient.
But in many cases the valuation of a method of action is quite independent
of whether it forms part of the group heritage. Moreover, a positive
valuation is often accompanied with the comment that a given thing
deserves a positive valuation even though it is old. Now in such situations
we do not, obviously, have to do with tradition in the sense now under
consideration. We have to do with tradition in those cases only where
valuation refers to the origin of the thing in question, or, in other words,
where the acceptance or the rejection of a pattern is fully or in part
dependent on its existence, or non-existence, in the past of the group.
For tradition to develop, existence in the past must be one of the traits
suibject to valuation.32 Reception of certain elements of the heritage "must
be accompanied by affirmative attachment to the past, however vague,
unconscious, and unspoken." 33 It seems that it is this peculiarity of tradi-
tion that has provoked so much criticism on the part of fanatical
rationalists.
The question arises what is the place in our culture of such valuations
based on existence in the past (or, in Max Weber's terminology, "tradi-
tional actions"). In the present-day social sciences we notice on an
increasing scale the rejection of the 19th-century stereotype of modernity
as rejection of tradition,34 but we often confine ourselves to intuition,
even though the scope of traditional motivations is subject to empirical
study. It seems justified to suppose that the scope of traditional motiva-
tion is quite considerable in all stable societies, and that Max Weber's
vision of modernization as "rationalization" is not supported by facts.
It must be borne in mind, however, that in modern societies valuations
based on existence in the past can rarely be found in their pure form.
The corresponding reasonings (if we have to do with reasonings) rarely
follow the schema: "this is good because it is old;" existence in the past
is usually being associated with other values. Thus tradition happens
to be treated as synonymous with experience : the respect we have for
behaviour patterns of old standing is in fact due not to the attachment
to old things, but to the conviction that patterns which have survived so
long must be well tested and reliable. Heritage is here to a certain extent
deprived of its sacred nature, but tradition is not eliminated. It remains
to be investigated how valuations based on existence in the past are taking
place in present-day ideologies.
The second issue is this: how far the act of singling out tradition
from the whole of the group's heritage is conscious in nature. This issue

82 "Existence in the past" does not imply that if something is older then
it is ¡better. Diistance in time is not significant, although in some cases traditionalists
pay attention to it, too.
88 E. S h ils, "Tradition and Liberty: Autonomy and Interdependence," Ethics,
Vol. LXJVIII, 1958, No. 3 (April), pp. 154-5.
84 Cf. J. R. Gus'field, "Tradition and Modernity: Misplaced Polarities in
the Study of Social Change," The American Journal of Sociology, »Vol. 72, 1967,
No. 4 (January), pp. 351 - 62.

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 28 JERZY SZACKI

is certainly controversial. Bo
have contributed to the image of tradition as something irrational and
pre-reflective by its very nature. Many thinkers used to imagine tradi-
tion as something which man uses to replace reason. But it can easily
be noticed that tradition frequently happended to be an object of com-
plex intellectual operations. It is a truism to say that for tradition to
develop such operations are not necessary: that "affirmative attachment
to the past," of which Shils says that it may be "vague, unconscious, and
unspoken," is quite sufficient. Yet the question remains open, how the
intellectualization of the indefinite "sense of existence in the past" takes
place and what are its limits. The question seems to be important, since
beginning more or less with the last 18th century the various advocates
of tradition have been trying to present their standpoint as rationally
valid.
We can as it seems, point to two types of intellectualization of tradi-
tion. One of them is described by E. Husserl, who made a distinction
between "passive" and "active" tradition. Passive tradition is a set of
rules of behaviour which, in the opinion of a member of the group, ought
to guide his own behaviour and that of other members solely because
these rules are proper to the group, i.e., without showing any interest
in whether they have any use at all. But members of the group may
also think about tradition and reveal its "intentional sense." By analysing
the origin of a custom we discover the purpose for which a given be-
haviour was originally being used, and hence we "rationalize" tradition.
Habitual behaviour comes to be observed on a principle other than
thoughtless group conformism.35 Intellectualization of tradition in this
case consists in indicating the functions of old patterns, functions other
than the consolidation of the group by the affirmation of the common
heritage. This procedure can often be found in the sphere of social ideas.
But it seems that tradition, when fully justified in this way, ceases to
be tradition, since if the usefulness of patterns drawn from the past is
uncontested, there is no need to refer to their traditional nature. "Ration-
alization" of tradition, interpreted in this way, eliminates it qua tradi-
tion, since it eliminates that peculiar type of valuations which has been
discussed above.
But another method of intellectualization of tradition is possible, too
It has beeh; pointed to by Bert F. Hoselitz, who describes traditional b
haviour as "a class including widely varying forms of behaviour, rang
from the purely automatic, often not meaningfully oriented, behaviou
a highly self-conscious behaviour whose underlying principles are ref
ed upon and the often highly 'rationalized'." 36 His subclasses are: hab
usages, norms, and ideologies. We need not go into the details. We
to note, however, that the basic criteria of "rationalization" of tradit
(which brings it closer to Max Weber's model of Wertrationalität)
the degree of making conscious the acceptation of its precepts and
degree of their systematization. Intellectualization of tradition con
in the emergence of traditionalism as the ideology based on the ac
ance of existence in the past as the supreme value.
35 R. Toulemont, L'essence de la société selon Husserl, Paris 1962, pp.
202 ff.
36 B. F. Hoselitz, "Tradition and Economie Growth." in: R. Braibanti,
J. J. Spengler (ed.), Tradition , Values, and S oc io- Economie Development,
London 1961, p. 84 - 5.

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 CONCEPTS 9F TRADITION 29

In the situation described by Husserl tra

strength of the statement that a given patte
were not traditional. Hoselitz, on the other h
lization of tradition qua tradition. Now it seems that both processes
singled out above do take place in social consciousness. But it is worth-
-while to point to one process more, namely such which is reverse to
those described above. To define it briefly we may say: we have a ration-
al pattern of behaviour, and we try to provide it with a tradition of its
own. Behaviour patterns which for some reasons are accepted as rational,
must for some other reasons be presented as complying with patterns
to ¡be found in the past. The reasons may be of various kinds: we want
to increase the attractiveness of the said patterns in certain milieus; we
are of the opinion that rational explanations are good for the élite, but
not for the masses; we believe in the peculiar aesthetic value of historical
symbolism, etc. A simplified case of such a reasoning is: the propagation
of certain personality patterns is required, hence let us consider which
historical heroes are to be popularized. It would be erroneous to think
that in such cases we have to do with an apparent, invented, tradition,
not supported by genuine attachment to the past. Even if it happens to
be so at first, as soon as such a tradition spreads it ceases to differ from
tradition of a different origin. It must be admitted, however, that it
spreads with utmost difficulty.
This brings us closer to the third issue, namely that of the formation
of tradition, often referred to by researchers who now reject the old
stereotype of tradition as something received and existing as a result
of a process of spontaneous self-formation throughout centuries. The
issue deserves closer analysis. It has been mentioned above that such
terms as "handing down" and "adoption" are to some extent metaphoric-
al in nature in view of the modification which culture is undergoing in
the process of social transmission. Each generation makes its own selec-
tion of elements of its heritage, making new ones again and again the
object of valuation, changing approvals into disapprovals, and vice versa,
becoming indifferent to what used to be burning issues, etc. Changes
undergone by the tradition of a community are so far-reaching, and
conclusions drawn from the past are so widely different, that it is
legitimate to ask whether tradition has at all anything to do with the
past except for the belief that it preserves the most valuable remnants
of that past. This question might be answered in the negative,57 and
thus admit the possibility of creating tradition that would be not the
valuated part of the actual heritage, but the valuated part of an alleged
heritage. There are good reasons in favour of this solution, in particular
the fact that there are examples of group traditions which, from the
point of view of our historical knowledge, either are pure phantasy or
cannot be assessed as to their agreement with the past. Should we try
to construct a definition of tradition, we would have to take this into
account. It is also legitimate to suppose that the essential demarcation
line is not between "real" and "invented" traditions, but between tradi-
tions felt to be such by large social groups and those which - perhaps
confirmed by historians - cease to be an element of social conscious-
ness: they are what was, and what now means little or nothing.

87 Cf. R. Z i m a n d, op. cit., pp. 364 - 5.

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 30 JERZY SZACKI

Nevertheless, skepticism concerning the "creation" of tradition is

recommendable. The present author finds the following statement by
K. Wyka very convincing: "Whatever choice we make, we all play with
the same chessmen and have the same pack of cards at our disposal." 38
It seems that the experiences of socialist revolutions are highly instruc-
tive from this point of view: they bring out all kinds of resistance en-
countered both by the elimination from social consciousness of certain
traditions and by the creation of new ones. It must be borne in mind,
however, that these experiences have not yet been analysed from this
point of view, so that in this case, too, we too often resort to intuition.
The last issue is that of negative tradition. It has been given least
attention in the literature of the subject, and many authors fail to notice
it at all. The problem is treated from two points of view. First, as the
problem of a de facto dependence of thinkers on those predecessors whom
they valúate negatively. Secondly, as the problem of consciously singling
out, in the group's heritage, those elements the negative valuation of
which is to serve as guidance. The present author is here interested in
the latter issue only, i.e., in those situations in which certain elements
of social heritage are turned into patterns of how not to act. It seems
that negative tradition is an element of any Weltanschauung except
extreme traditionalism, which sanctifies social heritage as an undifferen-
tiated whole. In this connection it should be added to the present author's
conclusions concerning valuation because of existence in the past that
such a valuation may be both positive and negative.
The importance of negative tradition is connected with a far-reaching
differentiation of most societies. In nó group do its members shape their
attitudes in a vacuum; while developing their attitudes they take a stand
toward the attitudes of other members of the group. If that amounts
to a conflict of attitudes, then a positive tradition of Group A becomes
a negative tradition of Group B, which opposes Group A. The mistake
we often make when interpreting such facts is that, when stating that
a tradition has changed, we forget about the historical context of such
changes. And it is that context only (the totality of social, political, and
ideological conflicts in a given period) which explains the fact, incom-
prehensible at the first glance, that patterns originally included in
a negative tradition later become neutral or even begin to function as
a positive tradition. Changes in negative traditions of the various groups
are probably the most sensitive indicator of inter-group relations, and
also of the status of a given group within a larger group. If that status
is marginal, that fact seems to favour a negative valuation of the social
heritage. On the other hand, it is precisely the feeling of bonds with
that larger group (e.g., the nation) accounts for the fact that we observe
a negative tradition, and not just an abandoning of received behaviour
patterns.
To ¡put it briefly, in a society divided into groups with different
systems of values the formation of group traditions means both affirma-
tion and negation. Since the heritage of a giyen group includes a large
number of alternative patterns the approval of some almost automati-
cally implies the disapproval of others, namely those which at a given
moment are associated with an antagonistic group. As long as each

38 K. Wyk a, "Węgiel imo jego zawodni" [The Substance of My Profession],

Zycie Literackie , 1967, No. 40.

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 CONCEPTS OF TRADITION 31

political orientation in France has its ow

1789, as long French politicians cannot approve Rivarol without dis-
approving of Marat, and vice versa. But every French politician is
a French politician because of that he considers it necessary somehow
to define his attitude toward that revolution, which for politicians in
many other countries is just only a historical event.
♦ * *

None of the issues listed in the present paper has been properly
elaborated, not to say solved. This was not the task set himself by the
present author. The point was to bring out the basic aspects of the
relation between the present and the past. These aspects are, to a certain
extent, complementary, and the study of "living history" requires taking
all of them into account. It seems, however, that the lack of a clear
distinction between them adversely affects the scholarly study of "the
pressure of the past" and also journalist controversies over tradition.
When studying the issue of social transmission we are concerned with
something else than when analysing social heritage , and with something
else still than when concentrating attention on tradition . Each of these
standpoints imposes a different set of questions and answers, problems
and solutions. For the time being, questions and problems are much
more numerous than answers and solutions.

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