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14 Tradition and Traditions Scripture, Christian Praxes, and Politics Graham Ward What Is Tradition? We need to begin with a series of definitions that will allow us to have the topic of tradition at the center of the chapter clearly before us. Tradition needs to be distinguished from custom and convention. All three are forms of social practice that both produce (that is, give rise to) and reproduce (that is, give continuity to) a given society. The distinctions can never be rigid, as we will see, but they are helpful. Convention is a form of social action governing behavior that has no ritual or symbolic value. In Britain a friend may be greeted with a handshake , in Italy with a kiss, in Japan with a bow. These are actions a specific culture endorses through repetition, that subjects have internalized in a way that demands no reflection. They are habitual forms of social communication , often related to forms of social classification (class structure, income bands, ethnic differences, etc.). Only when the convention is transgressed does their signification becomes apparent. If a person I meet refuses to shake my hand, in that refusal I recognize that the handshake was a gesture of good-will and cordiality, the offer of a relation that is being spurned. Conventions are governed by social mores, which in turn are governed by cultures. For example, think of how adult male behavior toward young children has changed over the last thirty years, following the increasing attention to child abuse and pedophilia. Conventions are ephemeral and culturally specific—they are local knowledges and measures of what is socially acceptable and unacceptable in any community. Conventions are not actions that create the community; rather, they are the internalized rules whereby the social game operative in any community is played. 243 Customs are also forms of social action, but these are more isolatable and observable. Conventions constitute what the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu terms our habitus1 —they are, on the whole, performed unconsciously ; their “naturalness” is assumed. But customs are particular and performed consciously, even conscientiously. In a number of Oxbridge colleges annual feasts are held in honor of certain patrons who have (usually ) been great benefactors in the college’s history. The conclusion of these feasts is often marked by the sharing of a common or “loving cup”— the alcoholic contents of which is often a college secret passed down from head butler to head butler. A highly complex set of gestures is associated with the handing of the cup from one college member or guest to another. These gestures involve standing, bowing to the one from whom the cup has been received, bowing to the one to whom the cup will be given, turning back to first person with the cup held high, announcing “in piam memoriam,” and drinking. This is a customary practice that differs from convention both in terms of its self-conscious formalization and its symbolic weight. The behavior is ritualized. Having been first initiated into the practice, it takes time to learn how to perform it well. This behavior has two social functions, one of which is reflected in the symbolism of the one cup from which all will drink and the other in its ritualization. Convention too has a social function: It helps distinguish those who belong (and know the rules of the social game) from those who do not. Hence, as I said, convention is frequently associated with forms of social differentiation. But convention’s function is unspoken and difficult to appreciate (as anyone entering another language community understands well). The first function of a custom, on the other hand, is dramatically and publicly to constitute a society, to make the many visibly one by participation in a shared performance. For example, after the drinking cup is exchanged and the meal eaten, people will drift away and, finally, leave the college. Each feast, and therefore the sharing of each “loving cup,” will involve new sets of people. The one body the exchange constitutes is an ephemeral one. People are bound by a common gesture for a specific time in a specific locale. Although the group involved in the performance of the custom changes with each performance, the custom itself has been established over time. Its relation to time also distinguishes it from convention. Customs are durable. I doubt anyone could say when the sharing of the cup was first staged at an Oxbridge...

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