Tradition vs. Orthodoxy

[Chirs]

Would it help at all to differentiate between Tradition and tradition?

If we acknowledge that there are Traditions that are formal, widespread, deeply ingrained and mired in history - be they religious, national, military... it's a long list - we may all agree that there is a call (a demand?) for respect. These Traditions, after all, represent something that has enough importance to enough people to warrant them being enshrined. I believe, DWFll, this is what you are referring to. And I would agree. If we altered - let's just use an example - U.S. Independence Day, changing the date perhaps, this would be a violation of the Tradition and would show either a startling lack of respect or a total ignorance of the historical importance of the date. I doubt anyone would miss the point here: Traditions call for respect.

Now, let's consider what a tradition might be. In my estimation, a tradition would be any one of the thousands of customs (is that the right word for it?) which may have been handed down to us from the previous generations, or they may be customs that we ourselves have developed through the years. Some may be meaningful to many while others have meaning only to one. To continue our example above, it may well be a tradition, on the Fourth of July, to take a blanket down to the lake to watch fireworks. Or maybe go to the cabin for the weekend. Or have a family barbeque and watch Aunt Bessie yell at the kids.... Or, there may be a reason why your family cannot celebrate on that day - let's just say that your dad is a fireman and always has to work that day - so it would be the family tradition to celebrate the weekend before or after. The tradition may be connected to the Tradition but is, nonetheless, quite separate from it.

I would agree with you, DWFll, that "Traditions are important...perhaps critically important to what makes us human." In fact, I would go one step further and add that traditions are equally important, just less visible. There is very little about human life that cannot be connected to Tradition and/or tradition. This is, I believe, that which we call "culture." In the North American culture we celebrate the Traditions of Christmas and Easter, but not Losar or Holi; although all four are Traditions, not all are our traditions. And, I would point out, our traditions regarding how we mark these days do not undo the Traditions.

Whether or not what I have said can be seen as a reified truth, it does make a useful lens through which to consider the comments made in this - and other - threads. It becomes possible to discern Traditions, which call for respect and need not be re-defined, and traditions, which are personal and ever-evolving. But I do not think that we can go so far as to say that traditions are whimsical or mere fashion. While the traditions may well be meaningless to the wider population, they may still be felt as forcefully as Traditions to the one/s who practice/s it. To the degree that the custom has a history and is meaningful to the one/s who partake of it, I think we can call it a tradition. Should it happen that a large enough number of people share this tradition and imbue it with sufficient meaning, I think we can call that a Tradition.

[DWFII]

Would it help at all to differentiate between Tradition and tradition?
.

I don't have much more to add to this conversation and I was going to bow out but common courtesy says "at least answer this person."

I don't believe there is a distinction between Tradition and tradition. Despite my rather whimsical capitalizing.

The OED doesn't recognize a distinction.

I am immediately suspicious of people who parse words to have meanings that ultimately amount to a secret code that only they can know.

Any and all sense of commonality, communication, or understanding disappears in the face of such an attitude.

But perhaps that's the point...

ps...on the off chance that this post could be misinterpreted, I was just musing. I was not speaking specifically of you or accusing you.

[CMcG]

Would it help at all to differentiate between Tradition and tradition?
<snip>

Nice work Chirs. I think that is helpful and is a fairly common technique in writing.

Take, for example, the word 'classical.' In writing about music, the uppercase Classical is sometimes used to specify a certain period in Western European composition. The lower case 'classical' is used more generally to mean Western Art music but can also be applied to a range of other musical traditions as a qualifier.

I'm still ruminating about the implications of Bugbear's comment on genetics and evolution. In keeping with the OED definition of tradition as being mostly oral, there is a lot of room for mutation. The imperfections of the medium of transmission account in part for the wide variation and also the evolution.

If a change is too great or too fast, a new 'species' is formed, but probably remains part of the same genus (like a modern kilt). Smaller differences may or may not be incorporated into the existing species, depending on how well they work over time (natural selection within tradition). Recessive genes account for the acceptability but rarity of some things (box pleats being revived in the 1980s). Artificial selection to maintain an unchanging orthodoxy could be like breeding show dogs to meet the kennel club standard (the kilt as uniform or costume).

[Bugbear]

[QUOTE=CMcG;998735]I'm still ruminating about the implications of Bugbear's comment on genetics and evolution. In keeping with the OED definition of tradition as being mostly oral, there is a lot of room for mutation. The imperfections of the medium of transmission account in part for the wide variation and also the evolution. [QUOTE]

Yes, oral communication can have a very low fidelity, especially in complex traditions. This was why the OED definition made me nervous. It also does not seem to take into account that we can unconsciously pick up elements of a tradition, especially in oral transmission, that have non-verbal aspects.

For example, people unconsciously communicate and even form networks of unconscious communication through body language etc, and this is inherited from the "older" parts of our brain's evolution. This influences, again on an unconscious level, the perceptions of the people participating in the communication; Pentland, Honest signals, 2008. I suspect these networks also play a role in the formation of orthodoxies. That doesn't do justice to Alex Pentland's MIT studies...

Also, in relation to the kilt, I have seen many of Jock's posts that would indicate there is an unspoken, visual side to the transmission of the tradition of kilt wearing; it just looks right or wrong to him from growing up seeing it done "that way," and the reactions of people around him to the "wrong way." Those perceptions do not have to be conscious, but could play a role in the tradition.

Just saying more might be going on with this than meets the ear.

[tripleblessed]

This may sound odd, so I guess it fits with perceptions of many of my posts. Research done over a period of years and first published around 2000 says most learning is direct transmission of one type or another. Heard a talk by one of the researchers and managed to have a conversation with him, but didn't have the money for the book.

The thesis was that by age two we have learned 80-95% of all we will ever learn. If one should earn a couple of doctoral degrees, that might get it down to around 80, but the average high school graduate not continuing education would have already learned virtually everything he ever will. Watch babies - scientists at work, examining their surroundings, gathering information, sorting, filing. Tasting tells you food-not food, PH, more about chemical analysis than you might credit. Movement teaches how to know where your left little toe is, and that the piano is harder than your toe, ............on and on. You hear people speak, but don't have vocabulary to understand, so you examine tonality, posture, circumstance, context, etc. In a couple of years you realize you have the basics and go with it. But you have the foundation for a lifetime of "That's how it's done". Since much of this occurs before a good dictionary is in place, it suggests that much of it occurs by means normal but not perceived as normal. Energetics and mind-to-mind being field-effect transmission, they don't need words.

[Father Bill]

As principal / headmaster of an elementary school I used to quote that research and point out that by the time we got a child in junior kindergarten the most we could do was "remedial enrichment." :smile:

[Bugbear]

Kind of like programming from the culture in which one grows up in... Parts of who we are come from our culture. That would probably include what does and does not seem right about attire...

The unclothed cultures meeting up with the clothed cultures come to mind as an example.

[Chirs]

(Thank-you CMcG. Content Analysis is a preferred method of analysis for me and recognising the multiple usages of any given word/concept has proven quite useful. This also brings me to the conclusion that humans are inherently self-contradictory, most especially in the use of language. Derrida provides a lot of useful work in that area.)

This is going in an interesting direction. tripleblessed: I have also heard of this research and believe that developmental psychologists tend to accept this premise without a great deal of question. For myself, I use this idea in debates on nature vs. nurture: all things social are learned. This research suggests that we take in the information well before we have any capacity to cognize it and find ourselves, years later, accepting that these 'facts' are beyond question (advertisers use this strategy in the production of tv programs aimed at infants. Notice how the various characters bear striking similarities to brands beyond a child's understanding. For example: a character who is red on top, blue on the bottom, and wearing a white belt will prime children to drink Pepsi later on in life. Many companies use this tactic. http://www.jstor.org/pss/1252328 http://jama.ama-assn.org/content/266/22/3145.short). So, I think we can all accept that the traditions we find ourselves following may well come from the environment in which we grew (this is what I was alluding to when I wrote that we have a tradition of Christmas but not of Holi. If you grew up in India you would have traditions for Holi but not Christmas).

And I think that most of us can accept that there are traditions and there are Traditions, that we can see this manifest in our own lives. We all know that turkey was not a big part of the European diet during the Middle Ages and yet, who here does not understand that it is traditional to have a turkey dinner at Christmas? And how many think that the Tradition has been changed, that turkey is now an immutable part of the Tradition, right up there with the three Wise Men? I would have to doubt that (some friends of mine always have ham). We all know the Nativity story, we all understand the Tradition, and we all have our traditions. And we all know that, although directly related, they are different and not interchangeable.

To extend this analogy a little further: there are groups today who continue to practice what we would call an Orthodox Christmas wherein the practices are fixed and unchanging, remaining the same for the last thousand years (or for however long). Their point of pride lies in their complete dedication to keeping the traditions exactly as has been handed down to them. These groups proudly bear the name Orthodox.

The idea of using genetic mutation as an analogy for the social is interesting and, I think, is useful in the consideration of Tradition. Here we can see creeping changes that are handed down, pehaps unwittingly, never intending to debase a Tradition but alerting it nonetheless, even if through innocent ignorance. And, the idea of a rapid change leading to an entirely new 'species' may be what we are considering as tradition. For example: if watching a parade and singing the Star Spangled Banner is the Tradition for the Fourth of July, having a "kegger" may be your tradition but is not the Tradition; it is a different 'species' entirely, even if it is of a genus.

So, can we apply all of this to the kilt? We have our Orthodox Kilters who proudly maintain the Tradition "as it was writ;" we have our Traditional Kilters who carry on the Tradition as it is presently, maintaining a clear and distinct line to the past with its traceable 'mutations'; and we have the Modern Kilters who may be out of kilter with Tradition to varying degrees but not so far as to have no tradition - even if they have become a different 'species', they are still of a genus.

So, there are my thoughts on the matter; what do you think?

[Chirs]

I don't have much more to add to this conversation and I was going to bow out but common courtesy says "at least answer this person."

I don't believe there is a distinction between Tradition and tradition. Despite my rather whimsical capitalizing.

The OED doesn't recognize a distinction.

I am immediately suspicious of people who parse words to have meanings that ultimately amount to a secret code that only they can know.

Any and all sense of commonality, communication, or understanding disappears in the face of such an attitude.

But perhaps that's the point...

ps...on the off chance that this post could be misinterpreted, I was just musing. I was not speaking specifically of you or accusing you.

I honestly don't know how to speak to this but do not want to leave it unaddressed.

I would agree that, when people play with words to such a point as to lose all meaning, their motives are not to be trusted. It may well be their point to cause all meaning to disappear but surely you do not see this in what I have written. I am attempting to generate an understanding that may bring some clarity to some of the (often heated) debates that occur on this forum from time to time.

Although you refer to yourself as a Traditionalist, I would suggest that, if indeed you are, you are an ironic one. Rather, from my perspective, and given your reliance on the OED, I would consider you as an Orthodox, one who is invested in attitudes akin to "as it is writ, so shall it be known." This position is, in my estimation, one of great value to all people. You would be a "Keeper of the Histories" and something our current culture sorely lacks. As an academic I see accurate histories to be of immeasurable value to any culture and their loss will almost certainly herald a dark age (not unlike the one in which we find ourselves now).

DWFll, there is no insult in anything I have written here. I have chosen all of my words with care and wish to convey a great respect for you in your role as (what appears to me as) one who is dedicated to the accurate preservation of history. A culture without a history is likened to a helium balloon without a string: with nothing to tie it to the ground, it will float aimlessly and be carried away by every slight wind in any direction.

[tripleblessed]

deleted - went in a different direction than intended.