Traditionism (original) (raw)
This essay aims at conceptualizing—and naming—a certain, rather popular, stance toward tradition, that fits neither of the polar opposites of the secularist– rationalist vs. religious–conservative dichotomy. Arguing that this stance should be viewed as a “stranger” (following Zygmunt Bauman’s conceptualization of the term) that challenges and threatens the binary constructs which are central to positivist notions of modernity, tradition, and secularism (such as the “modern vs. traditional” and “religious vs. secular” binaries), the essay highlights the ways in which this stance embodies a more nuanced understanding of the very concept of tradition. The essay does so by both studying the phenomenology of this stance (both con- ceptually and through the socio-historical case of its appearance in a Jewish–Israeli context), and developing a view of tradition that transcends the above-mentioned dichotomies. It also highlights the distinction between this stance and another, dominant phenomenon of professed loyalty to tradition, namely conservatism.
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If we define tradition too hastily we leave to one side the question of what the relevance of tradition is for us. Here the concept of tradition is opened up by considering the different views of it taken by Hannah Arendt, Michael Oakeshott and Alasdair MacIntyre. We see that each has put tradition into a fully developed picture of what our predicament is in modernity; and that each has differed in their assessment of what our relation to tradition is or should be. Arendt sees tradition as something which no longer conditions action, Oakeshott sees tradition as something which conditions all action, and MacIntyre sees tradition as something which should condition right action. In each case, the view of tradition is clearly one element in an attempt to see how the most important constituent elements of human existencevariously called the human condition, human conduct, or human virtue-should be understood in a modernity which is ours because it has put the traditional concept of tradition into question.
Introduction to Perceptions of Tradition
Biblische Notizen : aktuelle Beiträge zur Exegese der Bibel und ihrer Welt., 2021
The need for this thematic issue arose from the realization that the term "tradition" has become one of the key terms employed in biblical studies in recent years, yet what is meant by it is rarely explicitly discussed. There appears to be a true need in the field for a concept that allows scholarship to explore, for instance, the transmission and reception of literary works, themes, concepts, and literary figures in a way that would reflect their complex historical, cultural and social settings in an appropriate manner. There does not appear to be an overarching reason for this seemingly rising awareness of a need for a concept like tradition in the field of biblical studies. It is rather a result of many different fundamental advances made in recent decades of biblical scholarship. One of these advances is surely the plurality of scriptural and other literary works that has confronted scholars, especially after the full publication of the Dead Sea Scrolls. It has become abundantly clear that only a part of the literary evidence has survived and that transmission processes are much more complex than previously realized. Mapping and evaluating direct literary dependencies between all these works is not possible nor does this approach exhaustively reflect the diverse ways different authors and editors used and adapted their literary heritage to answer the fresh needs of various user communities. But this is not the only avenue of investigation that has led to the need for a more flexible concept, able to cover and reflect such complex phenomena. There has been an increasing need to find ways to place material evidence-like individual manuscripts or iconographic evidence-and the role of oral transmission and performances in their appropriate roles in this broader constellation of transmission, reception, use and practices reflected by the source material. This widening of perspectives likewise relates to the growing number of fruitful studies that have been conducted on scriptural and other early Jewish writings in relation to the diverse communities reflected in them as well as their constant interaction with the literary, social, and cultural customs and developments in wider cultural spheres, be they Near Eastern, Hellenistic, or Roman. Together with the realization that there was no "bible" in Second Temple Judaism, such studies have demonstrated the need to consider an ever-widening corpus of source material and to appropriately categorize their shared elements as well as their important differences. These preceding examples do not in any way represent all the recent developments in the scholarly discussion that have given rise to a more
Critique for a Postsecular Age: Making Room for Tradition as a Medium
Journal of Cultural and Religious Theory , 2020
The post-secular age, or event, is a unique opportunity for critical theory to reflect on critique, as it re-directs attention to the relations between critique and tradition. This article is part of a project that examines the potential of various non-antagonistic relations between these concepts. Juergen Habermas opened this path in the last two decades. However, I argue that he misses its potential. He approaches tradition instrumentally by focusing on traditional contents that modern societies can use in order to realize the project of modernity. What he disregards is the significance of tradition as a medium of transmission and transformation. In my reading of Walter Benjamin's early writings on Kant and correspondence with Scholem I develop this alternative. If a common conception of Kant thinks of critique as liberating from the yoke of tradition, Benjamin practically inverts this view. Rather than liberating from tradition, critique ascertains a place for tradition as a medium in modernity, one that puts transformation and discontinuity at the center of the political act of gathering. Even Benjamin's later writings suggest that adopting this medium in modernity, with all its problems, turns to a condition for the critique of modernity.
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