Edward Shils - Tradition

Tradition
Author(s): Edward Shils

Source: Comparative Studies in Society and History , Apr., 1971, Vol. 13, No. 2, Special
Issue on Tradition and Modernity (Apr., 1971), pp. 122-159
Published by: Cambridge University Press
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/178104
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Tradition
EDWARD SHILS
Cambridge University and

University of Chicago
PRELIMINARY REMARKS
All existing things have a past. Nothing which happens

from the grip of the past; some events scarcely escape a
Much of what exists is a persistence or reproductio
earlier. Entities, events or systems, physiological, psych
cultural, have careers in which at each point the state of
some determinate relationship to the state of the system
Change as well as persistence are gripped by the past.
of persistence in human things are numerous; they range
imposed by genetic properties and the approximate iden
structure, from the continuity of personality through c
biochemical equilibria, memory and self-identification i
constant ego-ideal and moral standards to the large v
self-reproduction of social and cultural systems.
All novelty is a modification of what has existed pr
and reproduces itself as novelty in a more persistent co
characteristic is determined in part by what existed prev
character is one determinant of what it became when it
new. The mechanisms of persistence are not utterly
mechanisms of change. There is persistence in change an
and the mechanisms of change also call forth the operat
nism of persistence; without these, the innovation w
previous condition would be restored.
But the grip of the past is not exhaustively described
the determinative significance of the received instit
cultural equipment and the given environmental conditi
with which and in the face of which any action must b
things possess or acquire metaphysical, religious and aes
for human beings. Memory makes possible but it do
occupation with the past, the love and hatred of the pas
than the love and hatred of present things inherited fr
needs to have a valued past, to be continuous with som
122

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TRADITION 123
of the past, to justify oneself by reference to a real or alleged connec

with some vital point in the past, are all problematic. They call for an
in their own right and as parts of the system of mechanisms of persi
through which the past lives into the present, or is even sometimes p
ally resurrected in the present.
In the following paper I shall be concerned with mechanisms of pers
tence but not with all of them. Those mechanisms of persistence oper
from the stability of genetic properties, or from the stability of the ec
cal environment, will be disregarded here. The large residual catego
persistences arising from attachments to past things, to past persons,
societies, past practices, the performance of actions practised in the p
the adherence to modes of perception, belief and appreciation rec
from those who observed them previously, forms the subject matter of
paper. I am engaged here in an attempt to elucidate the structure, for
and functions of tradition.
'Tradition' and 'traditional' are among the most commonly used t
in the whole vocabulary of the study of culture and society. The t
'tradition' and 'traditional' are used to describe and explain the recurre
in approximately identical form of structures of conduct and pattern
belief over several generations of membership or over a long time wit
single societies (with a more or less delimited territory and a genetica
continuous population) and within corporate bodies as well as
regions which extend across several bounded territorial discrete soc
which are unified to the extent of sharing in some measure a com
culture-which means common traditions. Those who would explain
a particular action is performed or a particular belief accepted say
'there is a tradition ...' which motivates or elicits the desire to act
believe in that way; the matter is left at that. 'Traditional' is us
designate whole societies which change relatively slowly, or in w
there is a widespread tendency to legitimate action by reference to th
having occurred in the past or in which the social structure is a funct
of the fact that legitimations of authority tend to be traditional. Pract
all current macro-sociological classifications of types of whole soc
rest in various ways on the distinction between the 'traditional' and 'n
traditional' or 'modern'.
Critics of contemporary Western culture criticize it for having lost its
traditions; public disorder is attributed to the decay of tradition, the
defects of institutions are interpreted as a result of the dissolution of
traditions or their failure to develop traditions. Critics of societies outside
the West criticize them for being too traditional. Those who exhort others
in a group to act in a particular way allege that to do so would be in
accordance with the traditions of the particular group; or alternatively that
the adherence to certain traditions must be discontinued.

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124 EDWARD SHILS
Yet in scrutinizing the literature of the social and cultural sciences, o

sees that there has been very little analysis of the properties of traditi
The substantive content of traditions has been much studied but not their
traditionality. The modes and mechanisms of the traditional reproducti
of beliefs are left unexamined. The traditionality of 'traditional societi
assumed and the structures of these societies are described and studied
without reference to the ways in which and how tradition determines them.
It is not easy to account for this omission from contemporary studies of
society and culture. One possibility is that despite the frequency of its use
the term means nothing at all. Another is that it means so many different
things which are so different that there is no point in trying to group them
or to analyse them together. If social scientists and social philosophers
took either of these positions, then that might explain why there has been
no systematic treatment of the subject. But the fact that neither of these
views is generally espoused among social scientists prompts me to look for
other explanations.
This being so, I would put forward the following hypothesis: the
social sciences have in the period of their recent prosperity been focused
on the living; they have tended therefore to treat the 'historical' aspect as a
residual category from which ad hoc explanations are often drawn. The
conceptual structure of social science theories tends on the whole to be
atemporal. There is certainly a marked tendency in contemporary social
sciences for them to see their subject matters in the here and now, in tem-
poral sequences of short duration, the relations of two generations alive at
the moment of study.
It is not that the social sciences are indifferent to 'communication'-on
the contrary, communication is among their chief interests. Nor do they
disregard communication between generations. 'Socialization'-the
process by which a newcomer, whether a newly born child in a family or
an immigrant into a society or a new recruit into a corporate body-
certainly deals with the assimilation through the communication of a
pre-existent culture. Studies of socialization are valuable contributions to
the understanding of the processes of transmission of beliefs (and evalua-
tive attitudes) from those who have held them to those who have not
hitherto held them, but they are seldom linked with 'tradition'. Studies of
change in beliefs are accounts of changes within an individual lifetime-
usually the period scrutinized is much shorter than a lifetime-or
of a series of cross-sections of the states of belief of a population at
various points in a temporal sequence. In the latter, the mechanisms
which connect the various cross-sections or states of belief at a series
of points in time are not treated. Yet it is the linking mechanism and
the sequential temporal pattern which are the constitutive properties of
tradition.

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TRADITION 125
I. THE NATURE OF TRADITION
A. THE TEMPORAL CHARACTER OF SOCIAL AND BELIEF SYSTEMS
1. The Presentness of the Past

A person who arrives in a situation which is new to him
up employment in an organization in which he has not
employed, a student entering a university which he has not
viously, a recruit into an army unit or an immigrant into a
comes into an ongoing situation. He must become or do s
he had not previously been or done and he will so do by acq
which are already believed in his new environment or
actions which are already being performed in his new
Those who are already there seem, more or less, to know w
moment, they know what is expected of them and they kn
those expectations. They 'believe' certain beliefs1 about t
situation, about the wider situation and about what is ri
wrong in each of those situations. The newcomer has t
instructed by authorities, he sees what others are doing and
perception of their actions beliefs about what is required
they say about what they are doing and what they believ
'given' to him to 'receive'. He is, when he first enters
'recipient' of what is 'given', of the already existent.
The situation is in very important respects the same for a
and growing up in a family. He too confronts a situati
activities and is the addressee of expectations, conformity w
enable the 'newcomer' to act in a manner which will give hi
acceptable place in the future reproduction of the already o
ties. He becomes part of the bridge which carries the past i
or put somewhat differently, causes the present and pr
future to bear a close resemblance to the past.
The beliefs-including evaluations and imperatives-and
action associated with these beliefs, which are offered to th
those already present and above all by those who are particu
with the responsibility to inculcate these beliefs into the
already currently accepted and practised by many of t
preceded him in entry into the situation. The beliefs offere
him are as far as the newcomer is concerned part of a si
1 In what follows, unless otherwise specified, I shall usually use the word
evaluative, appreciative and cognitive judgments; it should be understoo
dural rules, cognitive, 'factual' propositions regarding empirical and tra
etc. I shall also deal with 'traditional' actions but primarily with respect
engender 'traditional' action.

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126 EDWARD SHILS
'given' to him. They are continuations of a past whi

How far they extend into the past is another ma
might or might not include reference to their 'past
The belief itself, referring to properties of the situa
newcomer might not in principle include any refere
its acceptability-although in fact it usually does. Is e
given, i.e. pre-existent and not newly created by the
it, a traditional belief? Rather than to attempt t
directly, I shall follow a more roundabout path.
Traditions are beliefs with a particular social s
consensus through time. In their content they m
(i.e. they might make no reference to past or futur
even have a temporal (traditional) legitimation. But
temporal structure. They are beliefs with a sequ
They are beliefs which are believed by a succession
have been in interaction with each other in succession or at least in a
unilateral (even if not intergenerationally continuous) chain of communi-
cation. This structural property of traditional belief is distinct from the
substantive properties of the beliefs, i.e. the extent to which the beliefs
themselves refer to the past and to which their legitimation refers to the
past. It is also distinct from mode of acceptance.
The sequential structure of traditional beliefs and actions can itself
become a symbolized component of the belief and its legitimation (the
grounds of its acceptance). It becomes part by being referred to in its
pastness as a model (e.g. 'we should do as we have done before') or by
becoming part of the legitimation (e.g. 'we should do now what we did
previously because that is the way in which it has always been done or
because that is the way in which the founder did it').
Although analytically the temporal structure of traditional belief or
action is independent of its being taken into the substance of the belief, in
reality complete independence is unlikely. If the temporal structure is not a
product of biological identity then the reproduction of the past belief or
performance is likely to occur when the past belief or performance serves
as a model for the prospectively accepted belief or prospectively performed
2 We could use the term 'tradition' to refer to every belief which is believed at a given
moment by a particular person and which was believed and accepted previously by that
person and which was believed and accepted previously by that person 'because' he accepted
(i.e. believed) it even prior to that earlier point. What a person believes at any point in time is
in a sense transmitted to him by himself. It would be an 'intrapersonal' tradition. 'Intraperso-
nal traditions' are closely connected with interpersonal traditions. The fact that a person
believes at a given moment what he previously believed enhances the likelihood that he will
continue to believe it in the future and that he will offer it to someone else in a way which will
differ from the way in which it would be offered if he had not believed it at an earlier time.
In this paper I am interested primarily in interpersonal and above all intergenerational
traditions but I do not gainsay the significance of the intrapersonal traditions for the inter-
personal.

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TRADITION 127
action. The past performance or the action or the past acceptanc

belief is less likely to be a model if there is not some referenc
pastness, i.e. to the previousness of its occurrence.
Thus even though one-perhaps the chief-constitutive featur
traditional belief is that it has been believed previously, of a tr
action that it has been performed previously, its present accept
performance-its continuation in the present-depends upon its
perceived by those who recommend acceptance or perform it a
been existent previously.
Hence a 'statistical' criterion of recurrence alone, even if we
obtain a satisfactory measure of the critical minimum frequency o
rence necessary for the constitution of a tradition, is not sufficien
quency of recurrence is a constitutive element but is not sufficient t
a traditional belief (or action). Acceptance or performance in the pa
have some causal or necessary connection with its acceptance or
mance in the present, and since the occurrence in the present
function of biological structure or genetic endowment, it must be
through the perception of pastness.
There are beliefs which might be believed recurrently, generation
generation, because they are rediscovered in the confrontation of e
ences which are themselves stable and recurrent, generation after g
tion. The elementary rules of arithmetic, for example, could concei
rediscovered by every generation out of the need for classifying an
merating to solve the tasks of everyday life; we might justifiably
call the belief in rules excogitated and promulgated anew in each
tion of users a traditional belief. Likewise, the religious needs
human race might generate perceptual experiences in every ge
which would create a recurrent 'knowledge of God' similar from
tion to generation. Recurrence or identity through time is not as s
decisive criterion of traditional belief or action. It is not the intert
identity of beliefs or actions which constitutes a tradition; it is th
temporal filiation of beliefs which is constitutive.
Filiation entails transmission, 'handing down'.3 Filiation entails no
handing down but receiving as well. Both handing down or recomm
are susceptible to various motives. There is however a marked t
for reception to be motivated by belief in the legitimacy of the auth
the recommender and for some of this legitimacy to be connected
traditionality of the authority and of the rule which he sponsors o
mands. There is something about the mode of the handing do
traditional beliefs and of receiving what is handed down which
guishes traditional beliefs from other beliefs.
We often speak of the traditional acceptance of a belief as an unt
3 Actions are not handed down; only their models, rules and legitimations are.

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I28 EDWARD SHILS
acceptance of a belief previously accepted by others. The unthi

of the acceptance might be tantamount to the acceptance of the m
the already existent as a whole. Alternatively the model might be
after scrutiny to determine whether it conforms with certain crit
are themselves unthinkingly accepted. Or again it might entail the
of a new pattern of belief by the application of criteria which are
ingly accepted. In any case, a fully traditional belief is one which
ted without being assessed by any criterion other than its ha
believed before.
The unthinking or 'unconscious' acceptance of beliefs which in their
substance are rationally and empirically demonstrable as true is a real
possibility. Scientific and technological beliefs are often 'unthinkingly'
accepted, i.e. they are accepted without analysis by the acceptor of the
grounds on which they could be demonstrated. Such beliefs are clearly
traditional in their formal properties, even if they are not substantively
traditional.
Beliefs which are rationally recommended and received and which are
not in that sense traditional do enter into and form traditions. Their
traditionality is less homogeneous or pervasive than that of beliefs which
are substantively traditional. Their traditionality may obtain with respect
to the criteria for the determination of what is to be believed, with respect
to the legitimacy of those who conduct the institutions within the beliefs
are promulgated, but there is a zone in the beliefs themselves which is in
itself free of traditionality. It is a rational (and empirical) zone. The
intricate interconnections between rational, empirical and 'traditional'
traditions constitute a major problem in the study of tradition.
Beliefs can also be accepted on the grounds of the charismatic qualities
of their recommenders-just as they might be generated by the working
of the mind on the raw facts of experience or by the rationally persuasive
powers of those who recommend them. Traditional reception is different
from a belief received solely on the grounds that its 'recommender' appears
to the 'recipient' to be so intensely and concentratedly charismatic that
possession of the belief and its observance in conduct place the recipient
into direct contact with the locus of charisma. A belief which refers to
sacred things can be structurally traditional; it can be in part rational as
well as charismatic. Beliefs about sacred things can be transmitted and
accepted 'unthinkingly'. Thus it would appear that there is nothing in the
content of a belief about charismatic things which requires it to be factually
independent of tradition. On the contrary, such beliefs about charismatic
things are most often transmitted traditionally; they are recommended
largely and are accepted largely on traditional grounds, i.e. that they have
been accepted in the past. In many cases the charismatic content itself is
tied to pastness; the charismatic events occurred in the past and adherence

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TRADITION 129
to propositions about it involves also adherence to a pattern evolv

the past and that partly on grounds of its having occurred in th
In principle, a belief recommended by a concentratedly and inte
charismatic individual has no past. Its authority depends on its immed
present contact with the source of its authority or validity. Its persu
ness rests on the immediacy of the link to the source of charisma
reception provides. This was what Max Weber meant when he spo
charisma as being revolutionary and anti-traditional. Yet in the co
the process of 'routinization', which means transmission to a succ
generation, charisma becomes 'traditionalized'. 'Pastness' becomes i
tant as the link to the charismatic source which becomes increa
remote temporally. Its 'pastness' is then joined to its charisma as
the grounds for the claims which are made for its acceptance and
observance
2. The Present as the Reinforcement of Responsiveness to the Past

The property of statistical frequency-sheer massive factuality, present
and past-has a penetrating impact on the behaviour of those who per-
ceive it. This is true both of contemporaneous events and events occurring
in extended temporal filiations. The simple perception, or rather entry
through imagination, into a massive performance touches something deep
in the human mind. The communis opinio does not work only because its
consensual acceptance by 'everyone' reduces the probability of perceiving
or imagining the empirically possible alternatives which could be perceived
by an external observer. It works because it entails a perception of the
quality resident in other minds and this perception opens the mind to a
'contagious' effect. It overcomes the tendencies of individuality which
would make the individual self-sufficient and separate and which fuses
individual minds into something closer to a single entity. Through the
sharing of an idea, it suspends the sense of separate existences. The
perception of a certain 'state of mind' in others arouses a disposition
towards a similar 'state of mind' in the perceiver-where the perceived
'state of mind' is of sufficiently massive frequency. The anonymous
'they', 'everybody', etc., are authoritative even where they utter no com-
mand, give no directives and indeed do not in any way address themselves
to the potential believer who only perceives their acceptance of the given
belief and is not perceived by them.
There is something like this at work in the traditional reception of a
belief. In traditional transmission and reception, the communis opinio
embraces the past as well as the present; it is the acceptance of a belief
which has been accepted by others in the past and by living elders who
speak for the past in the present. Those who have a quality of pastness
about them 'count', as do those who are alive and present.

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130 EDWARD SHILS
There is a marginal case of traditional transmission when living e

recommend a belief or a practice-explicitly or by providing a m
and it is difficult to say just how much of the authority of the proff
model derives from the pastness which the elders represent. Wher
elders offer traditional legitimation (e.g. 'it has always been done
way among us' or 'our forefathers always believed this to be true') the
is clearly traditional but they need not do so, and yet the simple fact
they are older than those to whom they proffer the model makes
representative of an ill-defined pastness.
The 'pastness' imputed to a belief or action may derive either from i
presumed connection with symbols of authority in the past-the symb
may be symbols of particularpersons who exercised authority in the p
events in which authority was significantly exercised-or from the
fact of its frequent anonymous occurrence in the past. The sheer, mas
and anonymous occurrence of the phenomenon in the past can constitu
its claim to authoritativeness as much as acceptance or performance
great personality in the past.
In some respects, the mechanisms which operate in the generatio
consensus among contemporaries are also operative in traditional r
tion. The need for the transcendence of the boundaries of the emp
self, to share beliefs in a community of those who have similar 'states
mind' extends not only laterally towards contemporaries but also b
wards towards those who lived in past times. There is also a need to be
contact with them-not with all who have ever lived but selectively
need for continuity with those past, like the need for community with
present, is a variant of the need to be part of an order which is infused
meaning.
Much of the reception of beliefs inherited from the past is to be att
buted simply to the massive fact of their presence, to their wides
acceptance by other persons to an extent which hampers the imaginat
generation of plausible alternative beliefs. In any given particular situ
in which long recurrent beliefs are widely accepted, this kind of recep
which we shall call 'consensual reception', is probably a major factor in
acceptance of beliefs and norms which have been observed in prev
generations and which are recommended traditionally by the elde
their juniors. In other words, this kind of reception reinforces receptio
the basis of 'pastness'. The two bases of reception are almost alw
concomitant; the combination varies from a very high degree of 'pastn
and a small degree of 'consensuality' to their opposite. Part of the acce
tance by common opinion may be a function of (a) the presence of per
in dominant roles who are especially sensitive to pastness and (b
incipient readiness to respond to the pastness of things, beliefs and ev
which are recommended both authoritatively and consensually.

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TRADITION 131
3. The Past as an Object of Attachment

The effectiveness of frequency of belief or action in the present is a f
tion, at least in some part, of visibility. But this is not so with respec
events of the past. Their adherents or performers are no longer prese
Even though it is said by the living that the events in question were v
frequent in the past, there will remain the question as to why the pas
has any significance. Granted that human beings have memories and t
historiography, mythological or truthful, extends and fortifies memo
beyond the beginnings of the living generation, why should the p
significant ?
Obviously a great charismatic exemplar counts for more than a f
considerable number of anonymous performers or believers; it i
frequency alone nor is it even pastness alone since the traditions whic
respected in one society or lineage or corporate body often carry no w
with those who are members of other societies, lineages or corp
bodies. A particular relationship to the individual or collective perform
or believers in the past is called for. Some belief in affinity-be it prim
dial or civil or charismatic or ideal-is a necessary condition of the will
ness to receive a tradition, to accept it as a mandatory model for one's
conduct and the judgment of others. Still we must not be diverted by
necessary task of analysing the relationship between different ty
sense of affinity and the reception of tradition from considering pastn
such.
Does the fact that an action has been performed or a belief believed
the past confer on it a significance different from its mere occurrence
present? In one respect, it is not as exigent in its demand for attention
action performed in the present. Its past performers or believers, if t
are no longer living, are not capable of doing damage, in any empirica
plausible way, to the persons who will not heed their 'lessons', wh
living and present contemporaries, if their actions and the norms whic
actions imply are disregarded, might make unpleasant the lives of
who are indifferent to them. It might also, not wholly unreasonab
contended that given the facts of memory and discriminating evaluat
large part of the things which human beings at any one time val
bound to be in the past. Important though the present is, it cannot co
everything. Then too, given the deficiencies of imaginative powers of
human beings, the need to act effectively requires models of actio
they will therefore readily accept the models which have been genera
in the past and which have the advantage of being easily available
there is undoubtedly more to it than this. 'Pastness' as such seem
gather to itself an authority independent of the contemporary consen
which confronts the individual actor and recommends to him a belief or

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132 EDWARD SHILS
action affected with pastness. The existence of some measure of p

consensus in the recommendation of a traditionally received or legitim
belief is in fact evidence of this independence. But why are older
thought to be better? Why does the mere fact of having existed earli
the history of the earth or of the species, or of one's own culture or s
have particular significance? Does a traditional reception of belief
brace in an inarticulate form some elementary image of a connection
the beginning of the universe, the origin of time, the point at which
kind was more in contact with the sacred source which set it into moti
and provides the scheme for its right ordering?
The greater power of those who are older to indulge and depr
probably one important source of the prestige of the past. A very
component of the face-to-face and the more indirect interaction
society occurs between older and younger persons with much o
influence flowing from the older to the younger. It is not exclusively
cause the older ones occupy positions of power in corporate bodie
dispose over resources and rewards that they exercise influence o
younger members. The persuasiveness of the elders for many of thos
acknowledge their authority is enhanced by the fact that the elders k
what the institution was before the young ones came into it. The asym
trical interaction permits the younger ones, to some extent, to sh
these past states of mind which are embodied and symbolized by
elders. Thus, even where 'pastness' is not explicitly invoked as a g
for the reception of a belief, the recipient is responsive to the proffe
belief on the grounds of its pastness. Much of consensual receptio
large part traditional reception, even where no reference is made
'pastness' of the belief proposed and accepted, and quite apart from
formal and substantive properties of the belief itself.4
Traditional beliefs and practices are not only recommended by
who have received and observed them from their own 'elders' and received
and observed by those immediately 'junior' to whom they are recommen-
ded. It is in other words not just a matter of passive reception of the
given. There is a more active seeking relationship to traditional belief
which motivates recommendation and reception at least in part and which
4 There is no direct linear relationship between influence and age. The more 'juventocentric'
a society, the earlier the beginning of the downward curve of the influence of advancing age.
Even in such societies, however, elders continue to have preponderance of influence for a
substantial period; and this influence is enhanced by the correlation between the allocation of
power and age which even the most 'juventocentric' societies have not succeeded in overcom-
ing. As long as there are 'careers', those who enter earlier will have advantages not simul-
taneously available to those who have entered later. Only if 'experience' ceases to be equated
with the number of years of service or if experience comes to be excluded as a criterion of
recruitment and is replaced by other criteria which are not correlated with age will later
entrants stand on a more equal footing with the earlier entrants. This might diminish the
amount of 'traditional belief' in a society in relation to the total body of beliefs in that society
but it cannot eliminate it.

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TRADITION 133
also appears in a more independent form. Traditions are sometimes so

for. The need to be connected with the past which is present in va
degrees in recommendation and reception is sometimes intense am
those to whom the recommended, immediately given traditional belie
unsatisfactory-who are in search of traditional beliefs to which to att
themselves, to 'create a past' for themselves which will legitimate
in a way which just being themselves in the present will not allow th
do. This active and insistent search or demand for a tradition which is
immediately received and consensually recommended is not a searc
just any traditional belief or practice. The search for past practic
beliefs to replace those which are current at the moment sometim
covers once accepted beliefs of the seeker's own society. Sometim
search goes 'abroad' and finds once or still accepted beliefs and pr
which are thought to be more valid than the current beliefs and prac
which might also be to a large extent traditional. The sought-for trad
is sometimes said to be the 'real' tradition or the genuine source o
temporary 'dilapidated' traditions, which have broken the lines of eff
traditional transmission with the point of origin. 'Renaissances' a
characteristic form of this rehabilitated tradition. The whole phenom
bears a close relationship to presumed 'Golden Ages'.
It should be added that the source or model of the recreated tradition
need never have existed in the form in which the seeker alleges; what is
significant is that he believes that it did so exist.
B. THE PROPERTIES OF TRADITIONAL BELIEFS
1. The Formal Properties of Traditional Beliefs

Traditional beliefs are any beliefs which are part of a t
i.e. of a sequential chain of beliefs with which they pos
close resemblance; the identity or close resemblanc
reception of the beliefs from their earlier state in the se
poral pattern.
Not all beliefs which are traditional in the sense that
tradition-a persisting intertemporal pattern-are eq
their mode of transmission, although most transmission
most members of a society is traditional in the sense th
as 'given'-at least at the moment of their first receptio
can be based on reasoned argument regarding the merit
of the belief, empirical evidence, etc. But even thes
accepted by some persons and which are susceptible
and evidence are 'unthinkingly' accepted by many other
vouched for by the authoritativeness of their prio
authority of those who recommend them.

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I34 EDWARD SHILS
Thus every and any belief can be a traditional belief. The conte
belief, however scientific that belief, does not render it immune to be
part of a tradition and of being transmitted traditionally.
The beliefs which become traditionalized need contain no substantive
reference to the past; they need not express appreciation of the past in
order to be recommended and accepted for their connection with the
past. They can indeed disparage the past and praise the present and the
future. They can claim to legitimate their actions by reference to law
in conformity with present popular will. There is probably no belief and no
action which is not capable of being taken as 'given'. This does not mean
that beliefs and the norms of action which become 'given' do not by the
fact of their 'givenness', by the fact of their traditional transmission,
acquire certain determinate properties. Nor does the fact that any substan-
tive belief or norm of action is capable of becoming traditionalized mean
that all beliefs and norms are equally likely to become traditionalized, or
that they become traditionalized in the same way.
Whatever the substantive content of the beliefs, there are certain
properties which tend to be generated in them in consequence of their
traditionality, i.e. in consequence of their being available or 'given'
rather than by being newly promulgated by reason, experiment or revela-
tion. The length of the chain of traditionality and the mode of transmission
are further determinants of the properties which substantive beliefs
acquire. For example, oral transmission as against written transmission;
transmission in the context of unspecialized institutions rather than
through specialized institutions; reception through concentrated and
disciplined preparatory study rather than through reception in the context
of ongoing performance; transmission through exemplary models rather
than through exposition and command all have some influence on the
formal properties of the beliefs acquired through traditional transmission.
Some of the formal properties of beliefs and patterns of belief are precision/
vagueness; particularity/generality; mandatoriness/permissiveness; flexi-
bility/rigidity; coherence/disjunctiveness.
Transmission which refers to written texts of belief is conducive to
precision. Yet even written transmission cannot be exhaustive in its
prescriptions; this leaves room for interpretation, and precision introduces
some measure of modification. Traditional transmission of written beliefs
tends towards modification in the direction of greater particularity as well
as precision (e.g. casuistry and 'normal science'). Oral, exemplary trans-
mission seems to be more permissive than exposition from a written text.
The longer the presumed chain of traditionality, the greater the degree of
mandatoriness.
Flexibility is the extent of modification or the capacity for modification
of a belief or a pattern of belief through time. The levels of modification,

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TRADITION 135
e.g. details or framework, can change at different rates. The degr

level of modification might be affected by the mode of transmission
learning in the context of performance might permit greater and
continuous modification of a pattern of belief than learning by discip
study. Oral transmission might permit more modification throu
extended period of time than transmission on the basis of a given wr
text. The latter will permit modification of details through specificat
the former might permit more gradual modification of the framewo
a pattern of belief through gradual modification of details.
A tradition can have a continuous or a discontinuous structure. Beliefs
which have died away and have apparently ceased to have a wide adherence
are capable of renewal, i.e. of finding once more a widespread acceptance
('Renaissances'). For example, the belief in the value of civic virtue
according to the image of the Roman Republic can lose its following
through being transformed into a belief in the value of the contemplative
life-as seems to have happened in Europe in the high Middle Ages. It
can then be revived as it was in fact in the late Middle Ages and early
modern times in Italy and in eighteenth-century France and North America
and to some extent England. The models which are deferred to are not
those which are immediately antecedent. Likewise the prophetic tradition
can be revived intermittently and indeed begin to flourish once more as it
did in England in the seventeenth century amongst the dissenting sects or
as it did in the Great Revival in the United States in the nineteenth century.
Different structures of traditional transmission will hypothetically each
produce a corresponding set of characteristic formal properties. Hypothe-
ses about such correlations will be more appropriately produced when
better classifications of modes of traditional transmission and of the formal
properties of beliefs have been established. All I do here is to indicate the
problem.
2. The Substantive Properties of Traditional Beliefs

In addition to the structural character of traditions and the formal
properties of traditionally transmitted beliefs, we must consider th
properties of substantively traditional beliefs. Although all beliefs can be
traditional (in structure and in mode of transmission), there are som
which are traditional in substance. These substantively traditional beliefs
are more likely than others to possess the structural properties and th
modes of transmission and legitimation which I call traditional. Belief
which are not substantively traditional, although they too are susceptible
to possess traditional structure and transmission, are less likely to do s
than are those which are substantively traditional.
What are the properties of substantively traditional beliefs? Traditiona-
lity of legitimation is one of these. The legitimation of a traditiona

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136 EDWARD SHILS
belief-which is not the same as the substance of a belief and which is more
integral to the mode of transmission-recommends its acceptance and
observance on the grounds that it has been accepted as valid in the past
or that a 'great man' created or discovered it in the past or had it revealed
to him in the past. Not all legitimations of traditionally transmitted
beliefs give central prominence to their past existence, acceptance, obser-
vance or origin. Rational and charismatic legitimation are likewise
possible.
In their most elementary form, traditionally transmitted beliefs are
recommended and received 'unthinkingly'; they are 'there'. No alterna-
tives are conceived, there is nothing to do but to accept them. Once they
reach the point of requiring a legitimation, the reference to the 'pastness'
of their origin, promulgation, reception and observance becomes more
frequent. Scientific, religious, political, ethical beliefs which do not refer
to the past and which support themselves empirically, rationally, expedien-
tially and intuitively or by revelation and which are in no way substantively
traditional tend in consequence of their structural traditionality to be
supplementarily legitimated by reference to their past creation, adherence
and observance. They could conceivably be entirely legitimated by the
invocation of the 'tradition' of which they are a part, i.e. by reference to
their pastness, but in that case they would cease to be what we know them
to have been. Once living bodies of knowledge could continue to exist as
dead subjects, not examined, not criticized and simply perpetuated. It is
likely that certain branches of knowledge occasionally and transiently fall
into this condition.
Yet is this all distinct from the question of whether these are substan-
tively traditional beliefs-beliefs which are not just legitimated by the
claim that many others or a great many others believed them before or
which do not just stand in some genetic affinity with similar beliefs which
existed previously and from which in a sense they flow? Are there beliefs
which we can call traditional beliefs? It is perfectly obvious that there are.
Traditional beliefs are beliefs which contain an attachment to the past,
to some particular time in the past or to a whole social system or to
particular institutions which (allegedly) existed in the past. Beliefs which
assert the moral rightness or superiority of institutions or a society of the
past and which assert that what is done now or in the future should be
modelled on the past patterns of belief or conduct are traditional beliefs.
Beliefs which assert that an earlier age of one's own society or civilization
was a 'Golden Age' or 'the good old times' are substantively traditional
beliefs.
In principle, all of these beliefs about the superiority of the past to the
present, and about the need to conform in the present with the standards
embodied in the past could be about any type of society or institution or

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TRADITION 137
belief as long as it is located in the past. It could be about an equali

regime, about a republic, about a regime of individualism-and so
fact was in the Roman Empire, when historians like Tacitus looked
to the regime of republican virtue and used it as a standard to dispara
period in which they themselves lived. So it was in the United Sta
certain sectors of opinion when the ethics of self-help and laissez
individualism were looked back upon as a Golden Age. Regardless o
substantive content any age or society has the capacity to arouse
affections of its successor, near or remote, and to provide them w
criterion for judging their own contemporaries and the society in whi
they live.5
These considerations now lead us to the positive content of traditional
beliefs. These have often been described by sociologists and anthropolo-
gists; they are the beliefs of the Gemeinschaft, of the folk or peasant socie-
ties. They are beliefs in the virtue of authority, of respect for age and the
rightful allocation of the highest authority to the aged. They are beliefs
in the value of the lineage and the kinship group and in the primacy of
obligations set by membership in these groups. Traditional beliefs are
deferential. They express an attitude of piety not only towards earthly
authorities, towards the elders and ancestors but also to the invisible
powers which control earthly life. Holy men and priests are prized by
traditional attitudes as is the learning of sacred texts. The traditional
attitude is a god-fearing attitude. Traditional beliefs enjoin ceremonial-
ritual performances. They are particularistic in the sense that they recom-
mend the primacy of obligations and attachments to bounded collectivities,
above all the primordial collectivities of lineage, tribe, locality, ethnicity
and the cultural sublimations of primordial ties in linguistic communities
and national societies. Closely connected with this is the frequent disposi-
tion in traditional belief to perceive a sharp disjunction between one's own
collectivity and others and therefore to accept the appropriateness of
war as a normal relationship between societies.
Traditional beliefs of the substantive sort have no place for rational
scientific theory or the results of scientific research. They are expressed in
empirical technology rather than rational-scientific technology. The
use of techniques of the control and transformation of nature tends to be
stereotypical. Magic supplements empirical technique as a means of
coping with the vicissitudes of earthly existence. This short list of the
5 The attachment to the past might have very narrow and particular foci such as the literary
production or the books produced in a certain past period or the furniture, painting, silver-
ware, domestic ornamentation or dress. There is certainly a marked element of traditionality
in all this-it is an attachment to what has been handed down-but it is desirable to distin-
guish the aesthetic appreciation and particularly the aesthetic appreciation of a segregated
sector of the past from the handing down and reception of the cognitive and moral beliefs
which enter constitutively into social structure.

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138 EDWARD SHILS
substantive properties of traditional beliefs could be extended but this

is not necessary at this point.
II. GROUNDS FOR THE TRADITIONAL RECEPTION OF BELIEFS
A. THE SACREDNESS OF THE PAST
There are numerous grounds for the reception of the b

given. Their sheer existence makes a model available to an
find a way to act, to do what he has to do. Unimaginat
the given is joined by fear of authority, the desire to be c
desire to be somehow connected with the past. One fun
for traditional reception norm is awe before the sacred in
sacred, here I mean those events and 'power' to which ultim
is attributed. Sacred beliefs are beliefs about the things w
to be most vital and most basic to existence. Sacredness can
of individuals or of collectivities or of the external physic
world; what is important is that these properties embo
symbolically or are connected with symbols which are
image of life and the universe and their right order. T
things can be timeless, continuously operative; it can
having a temporal component, in which the past or t
special significance.
Authority possesses the quality of sacredness and is exer
by parents, teachers, adults, through whom 'the past' is tra
whom attachments to the past are fostered. Not all author
authority, but most authority has a traditional element in
legitimate and substantive senses. Its institutions have
ceived as given; part of the legitimation is traditional a
rules often have considerable traditional content in the sens
at maintaining what has been received.
There is an authority inhering in symbols which derive
force through their connection with persons formerly ex
filled certain roles or were members of the collectivity at a
one's history. They may be 'founding fathers' whose
become detached from their names. They may be ancestor
who have even in the course of time become completely di
are now simply 'the past'. They may become sublimated in
phrases, like 'that is the way which it has always been d
way they used to do it', 'that is the way in which we have
How does 'pastness' become infused with sacredness?
past sometimes arouse the tremendum numinosum which
contemplation of the holy? It probably has to do with orig
sive events, with 'great moments' which shaped what c

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TRADITION I39
some primordial qualities which later derive in birth, in marriage,

death, and it finds expression in our confrontation with the past.
Just as there are marked differences in sensitivity to the sac
general, so there are marked differences in sensitivity to the sacre
past. Some persons are 'musical', others are not. In any populatio
will be a small minority whose responsiveness to the past is gre
people have a continuous and alert sensitivity to the claims of the p
a continued existence in the present. Some of them are bores w
speak about the past, implying a criticism of the present and a refug
it, others more interested in the present wish to protect it from b
too different from the past. Still others seldom speak of it but are
attached to it and are shaken by departures from the model w
offers. They are saddened by the demolition of an old building, wh
survived from the past in material form, by changes in the vocabu
in the patterns of action which are believed to have a long pas
which excite their affection. There are some persons who think
past had more wisdom than the present and that what has come dow
us is sounder, righter and more imperative than what has been thou
devised more recently. For them, the wisdom of the race is contain
what is handed down. In most persons, however, the sense of th
very rudimentary. Their sensibilities are muffled, becoming acute t
claims of the past from time to time, but not regularly.
But even in this muffled state, between moments of acuity, the r
siveness to the past exists in an attenuated form. Such persons have
imagination for 'how things were in the past'. When they conf
object existing at present before them, if they see anything in it, t
rather its potentialities for future development or as something
affects them at the moment or in the near future. The connection of
objects with the past means little or nothing to them, most of the
Yet these persons too live largely in the grip of the past. Much
environment and most of their beliefs are 'given' and even thou
care little about its pastness, they live from it and in its midst. They
perceive or appreciate the 'pastness' of the beliefs they accept. T
tinuing acceptance is partly the function of present authority w
usually more sensitive to pastness than are those who accept their a
rity. Their latent sensitivity to the past must be aroused by other p
who must 'believe' in it more than they do. Those who are 'unmu
their response to pastness can be just as much in its grip as those w
not. They might have no reverence for the past and its products bu
actions are little different from those who do have such reverence,
they accept the latter's authority.
The mass of mankind, the majority of the population of most soc
are the recipients of tradition as a result of tradition-recommendin

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140 EDWARD SHILS
ative of some of their contemporaries, and above all the authorit

their society. The latter are more sensitive to the 'sacredness' of 'past
and by their example and their recommendation they arouse the
responses of their less 'dutiful' fellow countrymen.
The immediate pressure of 'givenness' is probably as important
sacredness of the past, perhaps more so in most societies. This is espe
true in what are called 'traditional' societies, which are relatively
genous and which offer few visibly practicable alternative lines of ac
and which, moreover, by their very homogeneity of response to part
situations do not stimulate the imagination regarding the possibil
inventing new lines of action. This is also, however, to some exten
for large-scale pluralistic societies where alternative responses are vis
those who can see them. Yet even in these societies, for most per
at most points in their childhood and maturity, belief and cour
action which are within any particular social circle, are 'given'. In
gruent alternatives are not so much deliberately rejected as scarcely p
ceived.
Nonetheless, even in the reception of what is 'given' there are s
rudimentary feelings for 'pastness'. Awe before authority is a form of
transcending effort to enter into contact with other minds posse
sacred properties. These other minds, except in the case of personal at
ments, i.e. personal affection or love, are not just the minds of those
are known in interaction. They are part of a larger, more embracing
of being, which transcends the present and which in many cases has h
its 'great moment' in the past.
Thus far we have spoken of the reception of what is tradition
transmitted as a function of sheer 'givenness' and of a response t
pastness of the 'given'. But there are persons who are not passive recip
of the given and who are more selective. They find particular b
the past with which they wish to be connected. They find these bits
able to them in the 'cultural heritage' but there is no authority
recommends them in an imperative way. Of course, within the
of those who share that 'tradition' there are authorities who do recom-
mend them imperatively, but membership in such circles of tradition is not
imperative.
These tradition-seeking persons exhibit a combination of resistance to
currently prevailing and authoritatively recommended beliefs and an
intense and active sensitivity to elements of the sacred contained in monu-
ments or documents or texts which have come down from the past. Beliefs
which are current in autochthonous and primordial groups are not for
these persons, although the beliefs which they 'appropriate' to themselves
may substantively refer to autochthonous or primordial things.
Tradition-searching has a marked tendency towards being ideological.

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TRADITION 141
Tradition-seekers seek a 'more genuine', more immediate link with

sacred but they do it through the intermediation of a past event.
The continuing transmission of beliefs rests on the need for order, n
merely as a stable context for instrumental action but as a transcen
realm of being, centred on the sacred. For many persons what is tr
tionally transmitted through the recommendation of existing autho
meets this need. But such authority does not always do so and the o
which is offered by the recommended beliefs is unsatisfactory. The im
diately inherited pattern of belief is then broken. It may be broken
direct entry into immediate contact with the sacred in mysticism-whic
also has its traditional beliefs and techniques-or by the use of reason an
experiment in science. In the instance we have been discussing, it
broken by recourse to a better version of traditional belief, which is tho
to have been 'allowed' to deteriorate or to be lost and forgotten. T
'rediscovered' tradition is the vehicle of a better order which had its 'gr
moment', a more genuine existence, in the past.
B. THE REFUSAL OF TRADITIONAL BELIEFS
The sacred arouses hostility as well as awe; traditions in wh

is imbedded also arouse hostility. 'Pastness' not only a
observance, it also compels a tendency towards disresp
frequently engenders some disposition towards rebelli
pronounced the element of sacredness in authority, the mor
to arouse disrespect, or if not disrespect, then secret inwar
dissatisfaction.
Among those persons who are especially sensitive to elements of
sacredness and 'pastness' connected externally or substantively with
beliefs, there are some who are negatively sensitive. These are the 'atheists',
in contrast to the 'agnostic' and 'indifferent'. Their rejection of traditionally
transmitted beliefs out of the hatred of authority and the hatred of 'past-
ness' is not to be regarded as identical with the rejection which is a func-
tion of individuality. Indeed, the more compulsively animated the rejection
of the traditional things, the less it has to do with individuality. A compul-
sive rejection of traditional norms because of their pastness is no more
than a form of antinomianism. The antinomian rejection of tradition is not
impelled by the drive for individuality; it is more likely to be impelled by
the need for a more comprehensive and absorbing transcendence in which
individuality has been completely renounced. Traditionally transmitted
beliefs can also be rejected by those who, having been exposed to them,
fear their own inability to live up to them. This in the first instance is not a
denial of the validity of the traditionally transmitted belief; it is in fact
often acknowledgment of its validity but weakness and apprehension of
failure fosters deafness to its recommendation.

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142 EDWARD SHILS
There are many other motives and conditions for the rejectio
recommended traditions. The remoteness of the recommending autho
-the lack of affinity between the authority and the subject to whom
recommendation is addressed-based on disparities and disjunctio
culture and on ecological disjunctions is certainly very common.
rejections, however, occur in situations in which the beliefs recomme
have not been previously accepted.
Much more frequent are the rejections which derive from the unfi
ness of the traditional belief to newly acquired beliefs and practices.
situations which create new problems and which offer new gratificat
and possibilities of gratification render previously accepted beliefs im
sible and disadvantageous. The beliefs might not under those circums
be explicitly renounced, but their acceptance becomes more atten
more intermittent and more blurred. They gradually turn into new
which still retain some of the idiom of the old beliefs and a little of their
content.
Where the hitherto prevailing authorities have failed to exercise their

authority in an effective manner and where expectations are not gratified,
the hitherto established and received traditional beliefs cease to be 'fitting'.
Where ecological and technological changes render possible or irresistible
changes in modes of work and structure of kinship, many traditional
beliefs become 'unfitting' and either become attenuated or are transfor-
med. The authorities who recommended the traditional beliefs lose their
deference-position and those traditional beliefs with which they are
associated, quite apart from those which have become 'unfitting', also lose
their capacity to elicit acceptance.
Alongside of these motives for rejecting what is presented under the
auspices of the past are the counter-attractions of the present and the
future. The need to be in contact with contemporaries and what is 'up to
date' in them bespeaks a temporal sensibility. Just as in some situations it
is thought that the past was the repository of what is good and true, so in
others-which I cannot specify-it is thought that the present and the
incipient future are the loci of the good and the true. This belief is often
expressed in a fear of 'being left behind', of being 'old-fashioned', 'behind
the times', 'out of date', etc.
C. INDIVIDUALITY, CREATIVITY AND THE RECEPTION OF TRADI-

TION
The chain of the transmission of traditional norms may be

search for a better order in the past or by the compulsive ne
and destroy an authority which controls one at the very cent
It may be broken by a belief in its inappropriateness or unfit
the need to be 'abreast of the times'. But it can also be in

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TRADITION 143
power of the tendency within the ego to form itself into a coherent se
directing system. The need for a high degree of individuality is we
most people. They have little need 'to see with their own eyes' or to
with their own senses'. It is not so much the strength of the drive tow
transcendence which accounts for this as it is, rather, the rudimentari
or feebleness of their sensitivity, i.e. their reactiveness, toward re
symbols. These are the people who find it easy to conform with traditi
without having a strong feeling about 'pastness'. They have no nee
reject, because they have no strong sensitivity and therefore do not feel
burden of traditionality and of the sacredness which it contains. T
have no feeling of need to be absorbed into the sacredness imbedded in
past. Therefore they do not react against it either. They neither confo
compulsively nor reject compulsively. They are people who live wi
the framework of what is 'given'. If the given is 'old', they accept it, if
'new' they accept it equally readily.
Persons who have, however, a need for an internally generated co
ence of experience and expression have a more active as well as a f
relationship to the 'given'. They incorporate elements of the 'giv
discriminatingly in accordance with criteria which are exercised f
within outwards rather than the other way round. Such persons ar
likely to be ready recipients of traditionally transmitted beliefs o
beliefs with traditional content. The sheer force of intelligence or
power of the ego results in an assimilation and to some extent transfor
tion of the content of traditional beliefs. The 'past' is not rejected beca
it is the 'past'. 'Pastness' and 'givenness' are not the essential criter
acceptance or rejection. The Burkean conception of tradition as an accum
lation of wise judgments and prudent practice is a prototype of this ki
response to tradition. In principle, the rational individual might en
accepting very much of what is handed down through traditional t
mission, not out of compulsiveness or passivity, not out of awe bef
sacred past or because there is nothing else to do, but rather becau
turns out on examination to be the most reasonable thing.
True originality is a deflection of the line of traditional transmis
True originality transfers the centre of creativity into the individual
withdraws the determination of conduct from the external inheritance.
Thus there is at the very root a war between originality and tradition. It
is not however a war into which the original person is pushed willy-nilly
by the sheer obstinacy of his character and the refusal to accept anything
from the outside. Compulsive rejection and eruptive spontaneity have
often been confused with originality or creativity, particularly in bohemian
circles and among those who carry on its traditions.6
6 Cf. W. I. Thomas and F. Znaniecki, The Polish Peasant in Europe and America, Vol. II, in
which the three types of bohemians, creative persons and philistines are delineated. The

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144 EDWARD SHILS
One of the major problems which confronts us in the analysis of tr

tion is the fusion of originality and traditionality. T. S. Eliot's essay7
very little more than that these two elements coexist and that origina
works within the framework of traditionality. It adds and modifies, w
accepting much. In any case, even though it rejects or disregards much
what it confronts in the particular sphere of its own creation, it acce
very much of what is inherited in the context of the creation. It take
point of departure from the 'given' and goes forward from there, cor
ing, improving and transforming.
The results of original creation or discovery stand in the strea
tradition. They become a point of redirection of the line of tradi
retaining some elements of the tradition, diminishing the prominence
others and introducing novelty as well.
III. THE GENESIS AND MODIFICATION OF TRADITIONALLY TRANS-
MITTED BELIEFS AND PRACTICES
A. INNOVATION AND TRADITION
A drastically generated, totally new tradition is one of

of events. As man arose from the primordial slime
characteristics which go with a complex nervous sy
store information and, therefore, memory and aware
lineage and a sensitivity to the outer reaches of the u
have become sensitive and receptive to tradition. H
bound to the past, not just as a physiological organism
on its genetic ancestry and its prior state, but by atta
and the incorporation of its inheritance. Thus the wa
vations other than genetic mutations but it was on
although the aperture has been widened since by t
powers and the growing multiplicity of alternatives, t
can never become completely open.
'New' traditions emerge as modifications of already
The degree of novelty, of course, can vary conside
may be infinitesimally small and accumulate slowly t
A long chain of transmission might be required
detect the variation of the content of the beliefs transmitted. On the other
hand, a great prophet or great genius in science, in religion, in literature,
or in art, himself beginning within the framework of a body of traditional
belief or practice may add so much in such a short time and have such
bohemian is the compulsive refuser of tradition. The 'philistine' is the unquestioning recipient
who, in his own quiet way, makes modifications through his inability or failure to live up to
the demands of traditional standards, while not being in revolt against them. (There may
always be a little bit of revolt in the modification of traditional standards by the 'philistine'.)
7 'Tradition and Individual Talent' in The Sacred Wood.

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TRADITION 145
a powerful influence on those who come after him that it could be sa

a new tradition has been created. Even this departure, however, can n
be a totally new tradition. It is at best only relatively new-although s
new things are newer than others.
The consciousness of accepting a relatively new or a newly tradi
belief, the feeling that one is in that significant respect different from
who accepted the old belief, is of course variable. The recipients
new variant may actually believe that they are accepting totally new b
The novelty which is attributed to the belief which they now espouse
be very much more important to them than what is more trad
within the complex of elements which constitutes the norm. They ta
granted what is older and do not consider it important; they might i
be unaware of its existence. But these observations refer only to the
of novelty among those who receive a relatively new variant of a tra
The fact remains that completely disjunctive novelty in the sphe
belief is out of the question.
The creation within a relatively short time of relatively new tradit
the work of strong personalities-charismatic persons, geniuses, et
not only creative persons who seek to do something positive defle
change the 'direction' of a tradition. Antinomians too who have a prim
negative attitude towards the 'given' and towards pastness can often b
about a change by arousing the latent antinomian impulses which
pattern of order generates and by discrediting the custodians o
inherited. But antinomians are no more capable of creating a wholly n
tradition than are geniuses. For one thing, they too are bound
'given' framework within which they have their point of departure.
are seldom if ever complete antinomians and so they leave intact
things of the tradition against which they revolt. Furthermore
following is usually more bound by the given than are the dom
antinomian persons and as a result the total transformation whic
would instigate turns out only to be a modification.
Moreover, the very idiom of rejection, the standards of rejectio
almost always acquired from some marginal strand of the general con
lation of traditions which govern or are available in the society in whi
antinomian lives. The element to which the loyalty is newly drawn h
been predominant. The antinomian rejects only the 'normal' trad
norms and attaches himself to another, less prominent traditio
which he might, if he is strong enough, introduce a small variant.
When the old 'normal' tradition arouses enmity and is deserte
yields some of the 'centre' to a previously marginal tradition. Th
tradition may be no more than a rigorous and intense reaffirmat
certain principal elements in the traditional belief or it may be some
genuinely new in the society into which it is received, although impo

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146 EDWARD SHILS
from some other society where it was either a marginal or a central belief.
In either case, the charismatic generation of the new beliefs, which are in
their turn to become traditional, is accompanied by a high state of inten-
sity of attachment to the sacred things ostensibly neglected by the 'super-
seded' tradition. Tangible innovations in belief arouse among some of the
proponents of the previously dominant traditional beliefs a state of intense
consecration to a purer form of the once central tradition. This is said to
be the genuine tradition of which the recently received form was a degrada-
tion. Some of the protectors and custodians of the displaced belief become
passionate exponents of a 'revived' tradition; they are 'traditionalists'.
Both those who recommend the displacement of the once recommended
traditional belief and those who recommend its observance in purified
form are innovators.
Whereas traditional beliefs which govern conduct in corporate bodies
and primordial and civil collectivities yield when their 'unfittingness' and
the ineffectiveness of their recommending authorities become evident,
innovations in traditional beliefs and procedures in science, scholarship,
literature and art have a different source. These are subjected to modifica-
tion in consequence of the disclosure of new possibilities in the tradition-
ally received beliefs, arising from their confrontation by exceptional intel-
ligence and imagination. This kind of creativity is not the product of the
breakdown of the hitherto traditionally received beliefs arising from the
failure of their custodians to control the situation and adapt the society or
the corporate body to the new circumstances. It is not because the tradi-
tionally transmitted beliefs have failed to remain in some sort of 'appro-
priate' relationship to the circumstances of their believers but because the
intelligence and imagination of new recipients of the traditional beliefs
have perceived defects in what has been transmitted. The creative powers
themselves cause the breakdown of the hitherto traditionally transmitted
beliefs. The disclosure of deficiencies and gaps in these traditions and
efforts to correct or improve upon them sometimes involve far-reaching
modifications in the whole pattern of belief. Every system of thought, every
creative pattern which exists has such possibilities inherent in it. Science is a
continuously, partially self-dissolving and self-reorganizing pattern,
produced through the power of the human mind working under the disci-
pline of training within the framework of its own traditions. No system of
thought, no pattern of expressive objectivation is ever wholly closed.
It only appears closed because the guardians of the system at a particular
stage may be incapable of introducing and are able to resist innovations to
be made in it. They can control the recruitment, the training of persons and
opportunities for expression of those who work on these subjects and they
can criticize them so negatively when they do express themselves that they
do not succeed in finding a following. Thus they can hamper innovations

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TRADITION 147
in the traditional patterns of belief. Originality may fall into such a sta
disrepute and the negative sanctions attending its manifestations may
severe that there is no incentive to modify the system by perceiving g
and deficiencies, inconsistencies, incompatibilities, etc.
Every pattern of symbolic objectivation has within it an inherent po
tiality for transformation in a limited number of directions. We may
say, where the traditions of society and the organization and custody of
institutions which guard these patterns of thought and analysis
watchful against innovations, still innovations must necessarily be
and are always being made. Sometimes they are made with the intentio
reaffirming and insisting on the coherence and validity of what has b
traditionally received. But in so far as restless human intelligence
fronts these systems which claim to be closed and settled, modific
will necessarily be made. It is the ineluctable fate of every system of tho
and every pattern of expression. They will only cease to grow when th
are totally disregarded and no strong mind ever concerns itself with t
The structure of mind is such that once receiving what appears t
settled, a powerful intelligence or imagination will perceive flaws in it
possible improvements. This happens even in cultures and societies wh
are unsympathetic with originality while in those where there is a
appreciation of originality even less intelligent and imaginative minds
to attain originality.
Creative innovations in literary traditions and artistic production ha
different structure from creative innovations in traditional scientific and
scholarly beliefs. There is more 'room for manoeuvre' in the former.
In the latter, the scientist may freely choose his problem from among
the recently canvassed problems but what he attends to in the way of
earlier and current theories and data is rigorously controlled by the opinion
of his section of the scientific community. Increased eminence increases
freedom regarding the choice of theories and data to consider but even
the great scientist cannot move among the elements of the available tradi-
tion with the freedom of the literary man or artist. The scientist is not free
to draw his substantive inspiration from Galileo or Newton and to dis-
regard what his contemporaries have done. The literary man can go back to
the Marquis de Sade or Count de Lautreaumont, the painter can go back
to Hieronymus Bosch and no one will raise an eyebrow at him. (Nowa-
days he will even be praised for such a selection from among the traditions
which are available to him.)
The artist or literary man accepts a prevailing form in so far as it is
'fitting' to his ambitions. There is already a wide variety of forms, not all
of them equally current or recommended at the moment, in which his
'genius' can find some sort of accommodation. Within that category, i.e.
within the categories of verse, narrative, lyrical or epic verse, within the

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148 EDWARD SHILS
novel or short story, or the portrait, the landscape or still life, he tries to
view and see and express what he has seen and felt in himself. If his creative
powers are weak, he will accept what is given and work within it. If they
are strong, he will modify the received genre as well as express his own
substantive viewpoint and sensibility. What he accomplishes depends on
his capacity to form a coherent whole of what he accepts from what has
come down to him as part of the corpus of traditional objectivations and
what his own imaginative powers require.
An inherited form, if it has had great works accomplished in it, does not
simply disappear; it is discriminatingly assimilated and extended. If the
naturalistic novel has ceased to be a fertile form through which the imagina-
tion expresses itself, it is because rich imaginations who wish to express
something which was not expressed in the naturalistic novel no longer
attach themselves and seek to work within its form. Of course, not all of
the refusal of a traditional form within a genre is creative. Much of it is
imitative of a creation which transforms; when this happens, a 'new'
tradition has been created. (Some innovations do not find extension as a
new tradition because they are too difficult to practise. But even those,
like Ulysses, change the direction of tradition by providing new elements
to be assimilated into the previously prevailing tradition.)8
Modern culture, permeated by a high evaluation of genius which breaks
through the bounds of traditional beliefs and practices to attain to a new
level of the objective truth or to express the essence of the self's imagina-
tion and sensibility more completely, encourages a free attitude towards
the tradition of objectivations. But it cannot be completely free as long
as the educational system and the system of exhibition first presents
these works as the monuments of the past, which dominate for a time at
least the attention of those who will later seek to produce works of their
own. Creative powers in practically all instances are first aroused in their
presence-'primitives' and 'uneducated poets' who are genuinely 'primi-
tive' and 'uneducated' are practically non-existent-and however much
geniuses diverge from the received as they reach the heights of their
powers, they do have their point of departure in them. In literature and in
painting and sculpture, the modern culture of originality or genius is
greatly favoured by the relatively uninstitutionalized system of training
and qualification of writers and artists.
Institutions generally are not and have not been foyers of originality.
Most institutions and corporate bodies usually permit creativity and the
8 I reject Alfred Weber's conception of culture as an activity and a body of works which are
not cumulative in their relations to each other and which, unlike science, are constantly
being regenerated and renewed. Alfred Weber thought that cultural accomplishments (art,
literature, philosophy) do not rest on past achievement; they are not part of a cumulative and
developing tradition but depend exclusively on the stock of creativity existing in a given
population among those seeking to practise a particular expressive genre. Cf. Alfred Weber,
Prinzipielles zur Kultursoziologie, originally printed in Archiv fuer Sozialwissenschaft.

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TRADITION I49
refusal of traditional beliefs only in response to the exigencies of ext

situations and even then frequently against internal resistance. Nonet
less, in the presence of the culture of originality, universities which in
beginnings were intended to rediscover the wisdom of the past, to reaf
it and transmit it, have become major bearers of the tradition of the
tive modification and extension of traditional belief. Research institutes
which are not at all concerned with the transmission of the received tradi-
tion are even more concentrated on the modification and extension of
traditional beliefs in the particular fields in which they are active. In order
to achieve what they do, these institutions must inculcate and accept a
massive corpus of traditional beliefs, i.e. the large body of scientific and
humanistic knowledge. Consequently, the weight of tradition within them
is very great and correspondingly the restraint on spontaneity is also very
great. Without, however, this traditional restraint, i.e. without the inculca-
tion of this vast body of what has already been achieved, the creative
powers of the young scientists and scholars would agitate themselves
randomly and arbitrarily in a sterile void. They would have no platform to
stand on and from which to depart. They would make many more false
starts than they do and the best of them would often only rediscover what
is already known. Only the most powerful minds and the most self-
disciplined would hit upon what is essential in the motley and heterogene-
ous traditions which would be generated by such a disorderly condition.
The less talented and the moderately endowed would be astray much of the
time. And even the genius who in a situation in which he is cut off from
the existing institutionally reproduced and extended tradition would be
less fruitful because he would fail to rediscover all that he needed to know
in order to work with an effectiveness commensurate with his capacities.
Thus, the great work of Ramanujan is to some extent a psychological and
historical curiosity, because he rediscovered, by himself-although not
entirely by himself since he did have some elementary mathematical
training in school and college-important things which were already
known. It was only when he brought himself to the attention of Hardy
(and Littlewood) and was brought to Cambridge that he acquired more
fully the most recent tradition of mathematical knowledge. His great
creative powers then had a few years in which to add to the stock of
mathematical knowledge. But the years of isolation had rendered him
ignorant of certain techniques which had he known them would have
facilitated the working of his creative powers.
In literature, a man of Ramanujan's exceptional genius would have been
less handicapped by his institutional isolation. The custodians of literary
and artistic traditions are less exigent and less powerful in imposing their
expectations. The literary and artistic worlds with all their cliques and
tyrannies are freer than the scientific and scholarly worlds because they

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I50 EDWARD SHILS
have neither the consensus nor the authoritative institutions of universi-

ties, research institutes and scientific and scholarly journals. Nonetheless,
it is these institutions which make possible a continuous extension of the
traditions of their subjects and the continuous accumulation, not just of
fact, but of deeper analytical penetration, which reaches further and
further into the nature of the universe or the nature of the human activi-
ties and productions which engages the minds active within those institu-
tions. Of course, these institutions contribute more to the orderly develop-
ment and elaboration and deepening of the traditional norms of scientific
and humanistic knowledge than they do to profound and disjunctive
'revolutions' in their subjects.
Modern economic enterprises, oriented as they are to the maximization
of returns and guided by the principle of efficiency, are also innovative
institutions. The institutionalization of research on processes and products
guarantees this at present but, even before research became integral to
larger business organizations, enterprisers were innovators. They were
driven to make innovations, not only because of the tradition of innova-
tion under which their leading personalities work and by their relative
emancipation from primordial and autochthonous ties but because of the
exigencies of the intra- and international markets, which forced them to
make innovations to satisfy new demands and to deal with changes in the
supply and price of labour, raw materials, technology, political conditions
and the appearance of new competitors.
Criticized though they have nearly always been for their lack of piety
towards the past, businessmen too have their traditions. Traditions of
firms, traditions of workmanship, traditions of ways to deal with colleagues
and competitors. These are usually traditions which entail attachments to
practices and to beliefs accepted in the past. But alongside these, there are
traditions of innovation of how to adapt to external changes and of the
need to initiate changes. The more the responsible authorities of a firm try
to benefit from research on processes and products, the more their fate
becomes intertwined with the profession of scientific and technological
research in which respect for the tradition of science-in substance and in
procedure-is intimately linked with a well-rooted aspiration to go beyond
it. They build from the platform of the traditionally inherited stock of
knowledge and normative procedures which contain much knowledge
tested by experience and sometimes even tested by scientific procedures.
Like innovations in scientific traditions, technological innovations too
have their point of departure in what has previously been received. They
take very much of it for granted. They take for granted that which they are
not seeking to modify, but for the time being the desire to invent some-
thing new is directed to one element rather than to the others, the rest of the
traditionally given practices being accepted, at least temporarily.

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TRADITION 151
B. THE GRADUAL MODIFICATION OF TRADITIONAL NORMS
Modification is the inevitable fate of traditional norms.

the time being, the antinomian tendencies and resent
authority which are inherent in the relationships of autho
would still be under continuous pressure toward modificati
It is often said that 'traditional societies' are unchangin
not, however, likely that any society could remain unc
several generations. For one thing, changes are constant
by changes in the environment; poor harvests, epidemics o
human beings and livestock, demographic changes, th
resources, make adaptation imperative. Then too no soci
and relatively isolated society, is free of the pressures of m
from the outside and the controls, which an intermittentl
ping state seeks to enforce, also bring about adaptive chang
into another society and the occasional return of the em
new conceptions. Itinerant traders and merchants bring in
new ideas. These are only a few of the changes instigated f
social system.
Within the society too changes take place as a result of
balance of power of the different sectors. The tendencies o
to expand the sphere of their power, the efforts of the inf
and deference to protect themselves from further subjuga
nity generate conflicts. But even where these condition
cantly operative, there is probably a process of intern
constantly going. The mechanisms of the traditional t
always bound to be faulty in some way, and stupidity a
support the resistive dispositions. Faulty memory, negligen
to avoid distress cause traditional beliefs to be eroded, even
who make these changes believe that they still believe wha
believed. The resistance of each new generation to the a
elders also causes minor modifications-and sometimes m
might well be no continuous line of change, the changes m
variations which in the course of a half century produce v
Small improvements are impelled by considerations of expe
intelligence also prompts modifications in procedures
produce changes in beliefs.
The accretion of new elements need be neither explicit n
Modifications can also be intentional and deliberate, an
modification may regard them as quite within the 'spirit' of
the other hand, they may regard them as contrary to that
words, the modification of tradition has no implication
self-consciousness and deliberateness of the innovation

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152 EDWARD SHILS
persistence or alienation on the part of those who are the agents and
recipients of modified traditional norms.9
One must of course also mention once more the continuous internal
pressure within the personality for the reshaping of traditionally transmit-
ted beliefs. Part of this pressure comes from the need to make them fit the
individual personality system-every personality system having to some
extent a modicum of uniqueness and more or less need for individuality.
Thus, the actual variety of personalities, all of whom have the same
traditional beliefs recommended to them, brings about certain modifica-
tions in interpretation and application; these modifications are carried
further through re-enunciation and re-transmission. This is quite apart
from the need for individuality and the strength of the impulsion toward it.
Even dull philistines are not exactly alike, despite what may be said about
their conformity, uniformity, etc.
And of course there are the antinomian tendencies with which we have
already dealt and these too certainly necessitate the modification of the
received traditional norms, i.e. where they do not actually bring about a
far-reaching and deep rejection of them.
The modification of traditional beliefs and practices proceeds at different
rates throughout any society. Some sections of the society are more likely
to accept the traditional beliefs without any modifications over them to
any serious extent. However, other sections of society may contribute
modifications from different directions, and within the same society
there will always be some parts which reject; indeed, the more intense and
aggressive the rejection, the more likely also is there to be some section
of the society brought into action which affirms with equal intensity and
passion the crucial elements in the family of traditional norms prevailing
in the society. As a result, what they promulgate and emphasize diverges
rather widely from what is normally accepted by the different sections
which are themselves bringing about different forms and modes of modifi-
cation.
Where there exist particular institutions and associated professions for
the maintenance and transmission of traditional norms, the pressure for
modification will be greater at the peripheries of the central institutional
system, which do not come so fully under the hegemony of these institu-
tions, but which are in sufficient contact with them to make the traditional
9 Nonetheless, where intentional modifications are experienced as contrary to the spirit of
the tradition, they might well leave some trace of guilt and resentment on the part of those
who have instigated them. This might also be true where the modification is not intentional
but where, for one reason or another, because it is sufficiently gross to be noticed by those
who participate in the modification or where because of a shift in the form and name of the
institution which carried out the traditional norm, it is thought to be contrary to tradition. It
is much more likely to do so in so far as, consciously or unconsciously, even if incorrectly, the
agents of the modification believe that they have been responsible for bringing about the
deviation from the traditional belief to such an extent that it appears to them to be no longer
a member of the same family of traditional belief to which it formerly belonged.

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TRADITION 153
beliefs partially effective influences on thought and conduct. The perip

zones which we are considering here can be ethnically peripheral but
same territory; they can be territorially peripheral, as are the back cou
or the frontier; they can be peripheral in the status system, as ar
lumpenproletariat, some 'new class' which has not yet been fully inco
ated into the traditional central value system of the society.
In every year of human history, new peripheral generations have to
incorporated into the belief system. The young generation is alw
peripheral generation, even where its elders are in the centre of society
oldest generations whose declining mental powers cause them to fall a
from the beliefs of their mature years, are another section of the so
who at least in their own conduct modify the traditional beliefs
they received. They are far less important, of course, than the yo
generations because of their peripheral power position, even though t
too might belong to the centre of society by their kinship connection
their earlier occupational roles.
The effort to expand the area of reception of traditional belief from
centre into a hitherto peripheral group, linguistic, religious or ethnic
far as it is successful and does not precipitate passionate resistanc
results in the modification of the received traditional beliefs. The
of the peripheral culture to resist obliteration by the culture of the ce
partially offset by its incapacity under most conditions of modern ce
government to refuse all permeative influence. The expansion of c
into peripheries results in a modification of the substantive cont
traditional beliefs and, in the course of time, the modifications a
periphery work their way back into the centre.
The institutional custodians of the traditional beliefs of the centre-
and they will vary according to the different institutions-usually demand
a more far-reaching observance than the inhabitants of the peripheral
sectors are willing to grant. Indeed, within each institutional or sub-system
of society, the centre, i.e. the rulers, the bishops, the priests, and the judges,
the teachers in the universities and the schools, the generals and the
colonels in the army, the politicians and the civil servants in the state,
etc., are usually more insistent, in their promulgation, recommendation
and exemplification of traditional beliefs, on the observance of traditional
norms of the centre than are the peripheries, the 'rank and file', the laity,
the working classes, the poor, et al. The latter have their own traditional
beliefs which bear some familial likeness to those of the centre but these
peripheral variants have a relatively autonomous, self-sustaining existence.
The outcome is a compromise between the culture of the centre and the
culture of the periphery. The compromise takes the form of modifications
of the peripheral traditional beliefs in the direction of the central tradi-
tional beliefs. This indeed is what is involved in the cultural aspect, by the
c

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154 EDWARD SHILS
incorporation of the periphery into the centre. But in the course of tim
the culture of the centre begins to yield in the opposite direction. This
what has happened in the United States over the past one hundred
fifty years; it is what is happening in Great Britain at present. A
pockets of the 'pure culture' of traditional beliefs-i.e. less modified
ture of traditional beliefs-survive. Each pocket or rather its circ
traditionalist spokesmen becomes a laudator temporis acti.
C. GRADUAL MODIFICATION BY THE CUSTODIANS OF

TRADITIONAL BELIEFS
Even in those institutions which are established to maintain and stabilize

traditional beliefs on the basis of the study of sacred texts-such as
theological seminaries and in law schools, in the jurisdictions both of
Anglo-American law and of the Civil Code-gradual modification is
bound to occur, whenever an effort to systematize and penetrate to the
more fundamental principles occurs. Even in India, great Indian philoso-
phers could not resist the temptation to 'improve' the inherited doctrine,
with which nominally they found no fault. The same is true of the medieval
theology and in the various codifications of the Talmud.
The poorer the intellectual quality of the custodians, i.e. the lower the
level of intelligence of the personnel of the institutions in question, the
more likely the tradition is to be transmitted with unnoticeable changes,
if there are any changes introduced at all. The prestige of the sacred in any
society is such, however, that it cannot avoid attracting the best, the most
intelligent and imaginative minds to its care. The strain towards 'improve-
ment' of the traditionally received beliefs is therefore inevitable.
Even where these superior intelligences believe that there is nothing
wrong but wish only to strengthen and to make more clear and apparent
to everyone that the truth is already contained in the doctrines which they
are analysing, codifying, systematizing and demonstrating, the changes
will take place. This is so quite apart from any anti-authoritarian tenden-
cies or anti-traditional tendencies in the minds and personalities of the
persons in question. The decisive fact here is the intellectual power and the
challenge which any potentially problematic phenomenon offers to a
powerful intellect to improve an inherited pattern of belief and to solve
the problems which are apparent to it. This is most obvious in science, in
which such disciplined improvement is an integral part of the undertaking.
Theologically systematized religious traditions contain within themselves
certain fundamental antinomies which can never be reconciled and which
therefore constantly offer challenges to powerful minds who hope, being
convinced as they are of the truth of the doctrine, that they can resolve
these antinomies. Law courts operate within a massive-and heteroge-
neous-tradition of enacted laws and judicial decisions; the creativity of

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TRADITION 155
the judges is bound and restricted by the relatively high 'sacred

what they have inherited but it is also given opportunities by the p
of traditional beliefs available to them in the body of their inhe
The judges seek the 'true meaning' of the law but the exist
received-body of laws and precedents is only the point of depart
their creative 'discovery'.
Given approximate identity of problems and the same degree of a
ment to the traditionally inherited body of beliefs on the part of t
and on the part of the professionals who are specifically charged wi
interpretation of the tradition, the rate of innovation attribut
rational considerations among the professionals will exceed the
'natural' modification current among the laity. (Where the laity
attached to traditions than the professionals and where the professi
traditions do not include the use of reason, the laity will chang
rapidly than the professionals.)
The modifications introduced by intellectuals-theologians, ph
phers, judges of superior courts-are likely to be in the direction
introduction of greater consistency and explicitness and a greater st
'underlying principles' which had hitherto been left implicit. In the
of this systematization and formalization (formal rationalizatio
possibilities will be discerned, within the framework of what is log
possible, in the traditional belief system. Relatively new beliefs
from this intensive scrutiny of the received and prevailing beliefs an
the application of the results of this scrutiny to particular instance
kind of process is much less likely to occur among the non-int
laity. (The deviations from traditional beliefs in the latter are, as w
said repeatedly, likely to have quite other sources; these are primari
perception of the 'unfittingness' of the traditional beliefs, indiffer
the traditional beliefs and animosity, either compulsive or exped
against traditional beliefs.)
D. THE TRANSFORMATIONS OF TRADITIONAL BELIEFS
The modification of traditional beliefs usually takes pl

small innovations made by many persons which are no
significantly from the traditional belief, to the extent
to depart at all. Corrections or 'better interpretatio
tions are made without a sense that anything essential
Conversions, fundamental discoveries, 'scientific rev
drastically disjunctive do occur and find a following so
time, the line of the traditional belief turns into a radi
tion. It takes some time until people become aware of
departed from the previously prevailing tradition.
Great innovators vary in the extent to which they d

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156 EDWARD SHILS
previously prevailing tradition. In drastic religious innovation, the innova-

tor goes back to some distance before the most recent form of the tradition
to find a strand in the past of which he is the continuation. In science,
there is usually no recourse to an earlier and better stage of the most
recent tradition. Nor is there such recourse in drastic innovations in
legal traditions. In politics there often is such a pretension of 'return'.
The judiciary and the law teachers, on the other hand, in the common law
areas of the world and in those areas which are governed exclusively by
codes and legislation, make their modifications while believing and, above
all, claiming that they are operating entirely within the framework of the
tradition which has been handed down to them. In most of these types of
innovation, a traditional legitimation is indispensable, although it is
uncertain whether there is any relationship between the degree of funda-
mental novelty of the new belief and the extent to which its protagonist
recommends it with a traditional legitimation.
But how revolutionary are the revolutions which are made by great
scientists and by philosophers of law like Bentham? The great transforma-
tions in science are made in accordance with certain principles which in
themselves are to a large extent traditionally received, as far as the innova-
tor is concerned. Fundamental transformations in law and in science are
not total transformations and do not ordinarily claim to be such; funda-
mental transformations in religion usually make such claims while refer-
ring to the past as a legitimation. In the arts, the agents of fundamental
transformations might but have not always claimed to be invalidating all
of the tradition and to be replacing it by something new. But in all cases of
fundamental innovation, much of the past remains, both among those to
whom it is recommended and in the work of the fundamental innovator
as well.
We should perhaps distinguish these fundamental transformations in
which the past not only persists at many points in the new pattern of
thought but in which it is also treated in some respects as a source of
legitimacy of the new beliefs from 'radical' transformations. Radical
transformations are fundamental transformations which seek explicitly
to break the connection with the past and to institute an 'entirely new'
pattern of belief.
Radicalism in the criticism of traditional beliefs in terms of standards
will come primarily from outside the institutional system which is devoted
to the custody and development of the traditional beliefs in question.
Radical or revolutionary criticism of traditional beliefs about social
organization, about literature and art, are often found among bohemians,
free-lance writers and persons who have never entered, who have withdrawn
from or have been excluded from the central cultural institutional system.
It is less likely to originate in established or incorporated intellectual and

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TRADITION 157
cultural institutions where the traditions are cultivated. It is the work

intellectuals who have not fully assimilated the heavy inheritance whi
transmitted by universities and academies, law schools and courts, sem
aries and churches, or who even when they possess the relevant corpu
culture have not found a positive role in the institutions which carry
In the course of time, the established intellectual institutions and
tural institutions assimilate into their own traditional patterns of tho
much of the radical transformations which have originated from the
side. The new belief becomes established and traditionalized in the centre
either as a result of the responsiveness of some sectors of the centre to
opinion outside themselves or because of the accession to positions of
authority by persons who have previously been peripheral. The ostensibly
wholly disjunctive and anti-traditional belief comes then to be accepted
by one or more sectors of the centre. This is much more likely to occur
with respect to political and religious beliefs than with respect to the
beliefs of the scientific and scholarly elites. And with respect to the latter
beliefs, it is more likely to occur with respect to beliefs about literary and
artistic (expressive things) than with respect to the natural sciences.
Beliefs in the natural sciences have no laity to speak of. They have
acolytes but no laymen. The tradition of beliefs in the sciences is passed
on from generation to generation within their own bounded communities.
This is less true of arts and social sciences and much less so of religious,
political, economic and 'moral' matters. For these reasons, the transforma-
tions of traditional beliefs in the natural sciences, occurring from within
those who share the common-traditional-culture of science, will be
more continuous with the pre-transformation beliefs, even though the
rate of change might in fact be more rapid in that sphere of traditional
beliefs than in the other spheres. The relations between the pattern of
beliefs prior to a fundamental transformation and one which follows are
often obscured by the idiom of the new beliefs.
The drastic disjunctions which separate traditionally transmitted beliefs
from new beliefs are often blurred by the reassertion of the traditionally
transmitted beliefs in the idiom of the new beliefs, as well as by the anti-
traditional rhetoric of 'total' innovations.
The assessment of the magnitude of a radical fundamental transforma-
tion is extremely difficult, because no transformation is total and because
traditional beliefs, although often very tenacious, are in fact capable of
extreme attenuation and perhaps even of disappearance at quite a deep
level. Fundamental categories, fundamental expectations often survive
fundamental transformation. Nonetheless, there is often a disjunction
introduced by fundamental transformations and some of their innovations
persist to be traditional beliefs in their own right.
The probability of the persistence of a radical transformation is probably

202.43.95.72 on Tue, 14 Feb 2023 07:25:16 UTC
158 EDWARD SHILS
a function of the strength of the power position in the centre of society of

their chief proponents. The probability of 'catching on' is a function of the
prominence and the charisma of authority and of the authorities' power to
coerce the adherents of traditional beliefs into silence. The resistive capacity
of traditional beliefs in the face of the pressure of an aspiring radical
fundamental transformation is a function of a weak central authority.
The survival of traditional beliefs in latent form during periods of
disruption and displacement is also a function of the continuity of persona-
lity systems and of certain institutions, like the family and religious
communities, which manage to withstand at least partially the rapid and
far-reaching changes in other spheres. The personality systems have a
measure of toughness and, even after periods of severe deprivation and
disorganization, they reassert themselves with most of the same properties
they possessed before disruption. Many traditional beliefs which become
assimilated into the personality system by virtue of the implicit or explicit
dispositions toward authority become cathectic objects of the need-system.
When after some disturbance the personality system becomes re-equili-
brated, the needs again become effective and with them their symbolic
forms, namely their traditional beliefs. Thus traditional beliefs regarding
deference relations between classes, between authorities and subjects of
authority, regarding rights and obligations, even though they undergo a
radical change during a crisis period, settle back into an approximation to
their previous pattern.
The family manifests a greater resiliency and recuperative power than
corporate bodies which are not centred on primordial qualities. The bonds
of kinship (the ties of blood) and affection can survive revolutions. Even
where a particular family may break down, the rupture of the personality
system, when it is re-equilibrated, re-establishes the same type of family
system. Primordial attachments gratify the most irrepressible and ineluc-
table needs and for that reason such attachments are not lightly disavowed.
The diffuseness of the obligations generated by primordial attachments
demand and permit a greater adaptiveness in the face of pressure from the
environment. The family is the source and support of a diffuse readiness to
accept traditional beliefs and the survival and recuperation of families
re-establishes the conditions conducive to the reception of traditional
beliefs.
Traditional religious beliefs also have a great capacity to withstand the
traumatic pressure of revolutionary crises and, even where the church and
the ecclesiastical profession might actually be dissolved and public reli-
gious practice forbidden, still the traditional religious beliefs prove their
capacity for survival and self-reassertion in the course of time. Like the
tenacity of traditional beliefs resting on primordial needs, the tenacity of
traditional religious beliefs rests on needs to be in contact with the sacred.

202.43.95.72 on Tue, 14 Feb 2023 07:25:16 UTC
TRADITION I59
Since these are more unevenly distributed in a population than prim

needs, specifically religious traditional beliefs have less recuperative
once displaced, than those which (regardless of their content) are
dent on familially maintained dispositions.

202.43.95.72 on Tue, 14 Feb 2023 07:25:16 UTC

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Tradition

Author(s): Edward Shils

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/178104

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Cambridge University and

All existing things have a past. Nothing which happens

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of the past, to justify oneself by reference to a real or alleged connec

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Yet in scrutinizing the literature of the social and cultural sciences, o

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I. THE NATURE OF TRADITION

A. THE TEMPORAL CHARACTER OF SOCIAL AND BELIEF SYSTEMS

1. The Presentness of the Past

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'given' to him. They are continuations of a past whi

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action. The past performance or the action or the past acceptanc

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acceptance of a belief previously accepted by others. The unthi

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to propositions about it involves also adherence to a pattern evolv

2. The Present as the Reinforcement of Responsiveness to the Past

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There is a marginal case of traditional transmission when living e

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3. The Past as an Object of Attachment

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action affected with pastness. The existence of some measure of p

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also appears in a more independent form. Traditions are sometimes so

B. THE PROPERTIES OF TRADITIONAL BELIEFS

1. The Formal Properties of Traditional Beliefs

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e.g. details or framework, can change at different rates. The degr

2. The Substantive Properties of Traditional Beliefs

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belief as long as it is located in the past. It could be about an equali

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substantive properties of traditional beliefs could be extended but this

II. GROUNDS FOR THE TRADITIONAL RECEPTION OF BELIEFS

A. THE SACREDNESS OF THE PAST

There are numerous grounds for the reception of the b

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some primordial qualities which later derive in birth, in marriage,

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ative of some of their contemporaries, and above all the authorit

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Tradition-seekers seek a 'more genuine', more immediate link with

B. THE REFUSAL OF TRADITIONAL BELIEFS

The sacred arouses hostility as well as awe; traditions in wh

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Where the hitherto prevailing authorities have failed to exercise their

C. INDIVIDUALITY, CREATIVITY AND THE RECEPTION OF TRADI-

The chain of the transmission of traditional norms may be

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One of the major problems which confronts us in the analysis of tr