FOR THE SAKE OF TRADITION An Inaugural Lecture delivered at the University of Ibadan on Thursday, 19 ifay, 19e8 by LOUIS J. MUNOZ Professor Dept. of Modern Zuropean Languages University of Ibadan.FOR THE SAKE OF TRADITION Vice-Chancellor, Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Registrar, Provost of the College of iMedicine, Dean of Arts, Deans of Other Faculties, Distinguished Ladics and Gentlomen: The institution of the inaugural lecture is one of those fow cecasions in which we truly fecl as a "universitas"', a self-ruting corporation of teachers and students: Each Faculty sorving in turn the wider community by highlighting some particular problem or discussing a spocific issue in the language and from the viewpcint of one of its disciplines. In this manner, the University is given a chance to break through the natrow boundaries of specialization, and the Inaugutal Lecture thus becomes a balancing mechanism to the pervading tendency to fragmentation and specialization of academic studies. An effort of this kind seems to me particularly crucial in moments in which universities the world over and-Nigeria is not an exception - are threatened by the ghost of "relevance" and the fear of survival as "universities". Tho familiar motto “publish or perish" is slowly boing modified into "justify your relevance or perish", My predecessor in this podium and celleague in the Department, Professor Abiola Irele, made referencea in his inaugural Lecture to what he called the "ideology of relevance", I believe that in these less happy times of financial constraints anc budgetary stvait jackets his insights have acquired a reinfore My lecture is on the subject of tradition, a topic which, when viewed in the light of this "ideology of relevance", does not rate very high marks. In fact, like the lectures of my distinguished predecessors in the Department, it may alse scem te ge agniust the mainstream of popular opiaicn, cvon among academics, Professor Irclo praised and defended alicnation. Professor Evans cadcd his’ exposition with a ploa for self-knowledge, A conccrn may be appreciated in both my colleagues for what man is, not for what he has or for what he can get. proof; I believe, that, some iconoclastic opinions notwithstanding, the Humanities do still humanize. I have said before, that the rewarding but not easy duty cf. the Inaugural Lectusc, concerns primarily the Faculty on whose behalf the incumbent speaks, then the Dopartment, and only in the last instance the individual scholar. But i believe that » fow remarks should prccede my exposition, where I should try to show what I profess, although it may scund lik. an “apotegin pro vita ia academia". To prefess: thet seems precisely to be the etymclcgy of the term professor. Someone whe not only has something: to say, but who professes scmething. Gilson spelled cut much better what I have in mind, when ho said: "A truc schelar is essentialiy 1 man whese intellectual lifc is pert of his moral life;3. in other words, a man who has decided once and for all, to apply the demands of his moral conscience to his iatellectual life" (Gilson 192%, 2.11), Ifany years back, | wrote: "Modern Languages have been handicapped by not being material in itscli for a specialized branch of scholarship like linguistics, litorature, history, cte., but rather an element in a liberal education". But, since an Honours program in a University requires not only that liberal education but alsc disciplinary training in a specific field of schclarship, a graduate in modern languages ought to Toceive, as I suggested then, a "dual mandate", First, his linguistic skills which he sharos with cther profcssional groups, interpreters, translators, ete. and then, training in an academic discipline, Theso have been traditionally literary studies and philology. The model was clearly that of Classics which aad the benefit of a long schclarly tradition, Later cevelopmonts however broadened the scope of the Departments cf iodern Languages which have thus become Departments of Foreign Cultures, as history and the social sciences have beon added to the acadomic disciplines required by the "cual mandate" of the graduate in the ficld. These are therefore my credentials cr, to use my own words, this is my dual mandate, 1 profess the discipline of Political Science in the Department of Medern Zurcpean Languages in the Faculty of Arts. Lam therefore what one may call @ social soicntist with a rogional bias - French Studies in my caso - and with an inclination and a training4 in the human sciences, I a1 more concerned therefore with what man and the human socicties are than with what they have, ‘This is my stand, this is what 1 profess. My locus standi - % am happy to say so - is the Paculty of Asts, of ancient lineage beth in the original universities, of Bclogna, Paris, Oxford, and in this our promicr university. 1 am also proud to stand on Schalf of my Department wherc I have becn teaching for more than twenty years, It is my hope that my lecture will convince you of what both my predecessors, Professor Ircle and Professor vans, stated very cloariy: “that Modern Languages is not just teaching lenguages". tam helding a brief for tradition, “By choosing to make 2 case for this misunderstood phenomenon, this bewildering subject, I am aware of the difficultics to be cnccuntered and, in spite of the years I have spent on its study and clucidation, of the insufficiency of my insights. If wisdom, according to the Confucian dictum, Is "to know what one knows and what one docsn't know" perhaps these are my only credentials to attempt to hancic the subjcct before’ this distinguished audience; "that I know how much I don't know", Tradition is a term ‘that is. constantly appearing in our conversations. Only a few wocks ago,‘éyr Faculty preparcé a paper where mention wasmade of tho traditicn of University autonomy. We speak of traditional marriage, of traditivnal rctigion, of cus traditional culture; wo are still debating the role of our traditional rulers in the country. Aftican historians have cnriched their discipline Ly the uso of oral traditions as an important source of historical information, Oral, that is, traditional, literature is a recognized field of rescarch which has opencd new vistas in the understanding of human art. And yet, as Professor Jacob Ajayi recently pointed cut, "the proper role of tradition as a living reality and an important factor in politics and social change remains to be adequately studiod". (Ajayi 1997, p. 15). From a different angle, our Nobel Laureate, Wole Scyinka, has also stated that "the fundamental picblom for the African intoliectual who struggles for a cultural renewal continucs to be that of reconciling tradition and progress", (Scyinka 1983, p. 145). Why is it thoa that, in spite of the lip-sotvice being paid to tradition, particularly within out cultural context, so little is known or said about traditionality, that is, the substance of tuadition itself? Moreover why is it that this misunderstocé phenomencn has acquired such a Pejerative connotation? 'f.5. ‘ioe reminds us that this zerm rarely appears except in a phrasc of consure, It has in fnct become a polemic word rather than an object of anntysis, One takes side for or against it. ‘Traditicn becomes synonymcus with superstition and backwardness, as opposed to modernity, advancement and progress.6 "hedersicy" itself is aot modem, since every age has its modernity, but the clash of modemity is more epparent in some civilizations than in Others, and it has nover boon so acute es it is today. ‘The Grocks, as far back as the IV contury B.C., were described as “lovers of new things" and Gospisers of traditions, unlike the barbarians. Perhaps wo are still tho Soirs icf that of the Groeks in this respect ond our civilization is based on the what is new is gcod by definition, or at icast bettor than the old. Our value jucgements about tradition may be the outcome of this Ptesupposition, ‘racitional, conservative, reactionary, aro not torms we would like zo sec apolied te ourselves. On the other hand, to be Pogressive, moder, radical, revolutionary, displays a certain aura which any theory pretends to possess. The Social Scicnces ¢ have particularly been vory much affocted by this "prosentista anc Mfuturism, They aro in fact mainly concernod either with the presont moment or with the mythical future to which societics seem to be tending, withoet an adequate appr-eciation of the different origins from which all socictica Gepart. And ye thote is ac atteaticn given to origins ther: ean be no understanding of world", traditien and therefore ... 26 understanding of the contorapor Obvicusly, in corde: to oxpinin the phenomenon of cheage one cannot help but to use tho temporal succession beforo-aftor. ‘Phe dichotomy meder traditicnal, however, goes beyond a mere tempera ssewomsian7. "Moder: " means more than actual or consequent, contemporary, it entails a valuc judgment: it is somothi moro ccmpicte, more perfect than what hes come before, "radi means not only whet is previous or past, it means clso wha even retrograde or reactionary, (Gellner 1964, p. 3). i hol a brief for tradition, [Mr Vice-Chancellor: 1 have therefore talon a stand. And not an easy cne, as it socms to go against the commen tronds in my discipline, in the scicnces cf man, and for that matter, ag deeply tntronched foclings end attitudes. By taking a stand on traditicn, | have also taken a stand conceming what i belicve to be the fundamental problem of mankind in tho xxth century: the prodicm of development, namely that of socing identity through considcrable mutations (Guitton 1971, p.03), Oneo tradition is considerec 2s a dynamic factor and net simply as @ point cf ceparture, the clement of duratica, the past, is brought into focus in the understanding of cevclopment as mon and the socictics of men not only change, they aisc last. ‘The real problom is in fact that of the permancace of socicties, rather than why they Go change "To last" means to keep one's idontity through chango and to be enriched by it in ordor te be more oneself, "Do what you b come” said Nictescho. "Beccme what ycu aro", suggests Guitton more profoundly. Developrnont, understood in this mannor, diffors from apparcatisimilar concepts: the dialectic becoming cf Moget and the mochanistic evolution of Spencer, Development in fact is the truc diatcetias that links change and identity, life and truth, For obvious reascns, particularly the spectacular growth of scicneé and tochnclogy in recent yoars, omphasis is being given to chenge at the oxpense of permanence. This attitude, however, is not new. Although of ariciont lincage, it goes back to the great transformation which bogan in 7Hth contury Europe and reachee its climax in the political revolution in Franco and later on in the industrial revolution, The ide ogical load of this movement which the Si&cle des Lumiéros initiated continues to affect cur present understanding of socioty. | beliovs, however, that we are not simply dealing with an intelicctual tre: ition, We are rather confronted with a “scicntitic paradigm", to use the concept masterly developed by Professor “ubn for the hitory of scionce, ‘We can therefore arguo for the existence of a paradigm concerning the picecss of human development which, for brevity sai, could be desctiscc as that cf "the progress of mankind". It is based ca the belicf in the perfoctibitity of man and in the unavoidable progress of mankind, in a vision of social change, as a dialectic process, where the past, namely tracition, is replaced by tho present, that is modernity.rizavi Several sir: nés converge in the formation of the paradige: as it Still affects us tocay, Perhaps, ! shoulc take first the most acclecesé and yet pethe 9s the most func cntai, Fer practical purposes, it may be calice the "scoularization of the visica of the world", ch, sicaply implies a sclf contained Interpretation of the world with ac room The anthropceentrism of this ideclogy of progress anc its blindness in regare to the transcendental dimension of human cxistence havo iGerably affected our vision cf time and ovr attitude towards its flow. it has been mastetiy said: "If we koop the scnso of eternity, we é¢ not lose sight that today or ncw are tempora! advorbs and chronological criteria, not necessarily of validity" (Gscriva do B.). In fact, once that "sonse of cternity is gone, namely, the Christian meaning of histery, the universai vision of man goes as woll, This is duc, as Yoogetin has sightiy romarkcc, to the fact that “e meaningful constructicn of history from 2 sccular, intremundane position vacs 2 whole. § aresuppescs thet history is ino ince history is knows only for th. past, nust be dcrived from petspcetive of the A clever deviee is thon fcund, ior which Voltaire tas sot the model, ‘The historian sciccts a partial strvetuie of mean is, Ceclazes it to be total1d, and arranges his historical materials around this center, For Voltaire this is, in his ovm words, "the oxtinetion, tho ronaissance and the Progress of tho human spirit", His categories, as it con ba observed, are clearly Christian analogues. ‘he oxtinction corresponds to the Pali, the renaissangc to tho Redemption, the progress to a third Realm of spiritual perfection, One can sec in all those conceptions different levels of construction, They con ia first a “thesis of generality", Namely, their Sequence of evolutionary phascs is the general pattorn of human history into which all orapirical data can be fitted, Model construction comes second, quite often the result of a correct empirical analysis. The third level is constituted by "intramundane religious sentiments" which range from the deification of reason and intellect (Liesprit_humain) to the Ceification of the animal basis of existence. The selected models have by virtue cf the thesis of generality the samo function in the Sccularistic context as tho "sacred history" in the Christian conception, (Voogelin 1975, p. 12), Whet wo sce therefore is 3 process whore "dream life (usurps) tho place of wake life, when reason turn loose from its meorings in the ground of being socks tc create man-made constructions of reality in place of the mysterious roality of God's creation", "yrhat starts out in the so-called Age of Enlightenmeut as nothing incre formidable than a droam..ii, tums out in the 20th century to be a living nightmaro". (Hallowell 1975, P. ix). ‘The process is worth cxpioring, The three categories mentioned above provide the basis for its analysis, The Progress of Mankind ‘The explanation of the phenomenon of change, such as it affects the world of today, is the outcome of a concrete intellectual tradition, ideologically ecloured and based on culture-bound premises, which ignoros its limitations in its dosire to cxplain "sciontifically" the universal phenomenon of human change. in cthor words, the tradition of the progross of mankind, In its American version, tho theory of modernization repeats tho idcological premiscs of the philosophes of the XVIII century: the inovitability of the cvolutionary process and the convergence of the different socicties towards a total transformation which would reflect the Anglo-Saxcn model. According to this intellectual traditicn, "developing" socictics ought to follow the road opened by the "doveloped" socicties of Western Burope and North America, That is the fallacy of "recapitulation". We are hore far from the cyclical theory of Greeks and Romans or from the Christian eschatological version, We have instead. before us an unilinear and unlimited evolution whore there is no room for degeneracy‘This is the consequence of the process of the sccuiatisation of .stern thought. Faith in progress aow becomes the secular subst tute fer the previous bdief in Provi¢enec, as we are fronted fact ith an inverted theodicy, ny he impact cf as in's ideas shcvic also be acknowledged, social scientists, bevolltting from their poptlarity, ccapted them to thei: fielé in what later hes beon kaown as “social carvinism". Other aspects of Darwin's ccnstrcticn have also boon highly © selceticn of the species, in influcntial. ‘Thus, th its crudcst form of tost", applied to social life, Ns came to ist theories and, via Margaret Sanger, found its way intc the phi y of tho Planned Pareathcod bovemer fe is not choi Sco surprising that this intelicctual horitngo is Ath uso still alive in spite of its boing Ciscrocited, survives in exc of the most important countries of the world as en cffictal in an enticuoted Xixeth century foi country, so less important in ho ccrasunity of nations, the idea of progress stili exercises a profound influence, to the extent thet, es 1 heve writton clscwhore, cne can speci: of an American paradigm of mocernizati © the “American paracigin of mocemizaticn” onc could oppose a | They both Giffor substantially in their methods but their ai a¢areatally the seme, as thoy aro both heirs cf the sara intellectual tradition,Thave iccatificc, one cf the strands that constitutes the throsc of the paradigia of the progross of mankiné whethor in its American or in its socialist vorsicn, namely, secularization. Porhans Veogoiin's torm, de-civinization (Zntgétteruny) is not oniy moro forceful, it is also more revealing. So is Nictzsche's cescripticn, “God is dead", T will now attempt to cxpose the seccad strand of the pare: I shall call it sith Voogolin, Sali and ven Hayck "sciontism”. By se E hope to prove that the case of the prcsceution against trecition is untenable, Scicntism Sciontism may well 2 considored as the second and ossontial component of the paradigm of the progress of ni, In spito of its name, it hes nothi @ to co with science, although it ios convoniontly under the cloak of its achicvomonts. it can be , 226). Now philosophies of histcry appoar, fundamentalism thrives, Tho droam of progress turned out to be a nightmare. The crisis of mocomity, kowovor, ike the worm in the apple, was alroacy Coveic; jag uncer the smooth surface of the Ealightonmont, although it vas tc cmorge only in receat times, The critique modernity mey be considered as an act of sclf-Cofense of our civilization but it has nct becn able to stop it from advancing ra; and widely.oe As I said before, we arc in em ofa of transition, the ond of an epoch and the Sari ning of ancther; in other words, wo arc still within the twilight zone. This may explain thoso tonccneios which sno tc coincide in the horizon of the sc-eriled post-modoraity: the accepted Cispersion cf thought and the contral relevance given to marginal cuestions, Hike feminism end veclogy. “acy manifest nct only breakdown cf the »: cig of mocernity but aro signs cf th of an altemative enc, Seienes) admirably sucmarizoc Vico in bis Soicaca Huors (He the process I hav. highlightec, it ts worth cuoting: "ion first focl necessity, thon look for utility, noxt attend to comfort, still latcr amuse themselves with pleasure, thence grow cissolute in iuxury, and finally go mac and waste thoir substance" (View, par. 242). So fer, my ccneora has been with the diagncsis, to certify, so to "ol speak the "macnoss' ‘The cure for madness is another story s being a long affair, it roquires tho atecntion of the specialist. But as tracisional wisdom knows, as stated in the Yoruba provers "lh gic ti vere ba timo wipe wore ai ohun, "When a mace man knows he is mac. his macness has corm: to an enc, She Case for Tradition In the ficld of the sceiai scicneos little attention has beon givento tradition bocauso "to .pursuc a theoretical problem to the peine where th inciples of polities mect with the principles of pailoscphy < history is act custoranty tocay", ( Joegelin # Political scionce, as a discipline, has in dact been particularly affected by the pa gm of moc ity whieh has cxoreed such a “estructive infivence throughout Weston thought and hash. > impaired the uncex: nding £ socicty and of political events overys The cistinction betwcon fect and nature, duc to the prohibition of metaphysical gtestions, the split botwcon political scionce ond political phiicsophy anc the recent emaphasis upon ex pirieal techni 8, are clear manifestations of the influence of tho paradigm on the discipline, As a rcsult, it “hes decn possible to speak of a "decline of political theory". ‘This decline has eon caused by the predominance of coméaitmont to tho Cartesian paracigm, which refuses to accept the existential nature of human cognitic The knower-as-miné has no use for time, space, history or tracition, is cssentially parteliag in the Imowlodge propor to a god. Loree zt, the possibility of universal truth roguized man's becoming cisca: rato anc, by attempting thet, "man has become his own mayeh" (iotin 1905, p, 289). Unless we recover an approciatica of ourselves as persons, unless wo aporceiate in its fulness the historical ané porscual form of the being of men, we will be paying the price,namely, the climi ! the denial ion of an cntire realm of cucstions an of the truth of existence, What is bei Suggested rather than attempted here is thercfore net the building of a new cco orcer and to a reconsideration of its princi; ies. Anc that I bolievo, will not bo an innovation but rather 2 restoration of the cisi In these times of crisis, we san scionee to a description of existing institutions and tho their principles! (Voogetin 1952, p.2). This is why, ifr, Vico-Chaneclic Tam hoic I co believe, with Ace Ajayi, that tradition is “important act only Zor uncerstancing tho past but also essential in scokine: to transforta the Present" (Ajayi 190%, p. 24). ‘This moans to be aware of the flow of time between the past and the pres and the future. it means to locks at tho conzinuity of the sceictics of man in order te soc them as they were and as they aro, rathor than to rely on intelicetual models of our own making, © point neces to be stressed, because’ "those who write on sccici matters have net yct leamed to imitate the physicists by always inclucing timc among the dimensions" (C5, Lowis 1947, p. 69).25. A society Coos not censist only of a set cf contemporary telationshigs. !t cannot be considerec as timeiess or indépencent of time, but it must in some way be scen as a histérical process, Our sccietics live in time, they last: their history is at the same time Permanence anc change. ‘This is what Yoruba oral traciticn maintains, as Soyinka has shown, and what Burke rhetorically exprossed in his description of a society as: "A partnership not only between those who are living but between those who are living, those who are ccad and those who are to be bo", (Burke) As I said before, we need to stress cur concern with the beginnings because "so long as there is no attention given to origins, there can be no understanding of tradition ané therefore w... no understancing of tho contemporary world", A cooper uncerstanding of the process cf tradition is necessary for a fuller understanding of our present cay reslity, As lawyers leve to say, the whole truth, nothing but the truth. And wo should also Keep in mine the original rcot of the Greck word for truth, "Alctheia", which means "do not forget". The sole cf traditions which, in Shils ‘apt formula, aro “belicts with a sequential social structure" (Shils 1971, p. 129) must be soon preciscly in this context, in the interrelation of generations which constitute a society in its continuity through time, Tradition establishes in fact a relationship between past and present by means of a temporal26, link and a mece of action which we call transmission, a term which incluces precisely this temporal quality. Transmission and not creation is therefore the central social action as far as tradition is concerned. ‘Transmission however Coes not exhaust the concept of tradition; otherwise all clements of sccial life would be traditional except for a relatively few novelties (Radin). ‘Transmission acquires meaning only whon there is reception and acceptance of its contents, as a result of 8 value judgement on its traditicnality. For this rcascn, tradition does not consist of repetition, simple uniformity or icentity in time, Its rccurronce in the past is certainly a constitutive clement but this is not cnough to define a belicf or an institution as tracitional. There must be a causal connection between its existence in the past and its acceptance in the present. As i have said elsewhere, this is why certain pericdical phenomena are not traditions like the number cf people getting crowned in the Bar-Boach Curing the Easter holicays, ‘These events are only statistically precictable consequences of a tra ional acticn: going for a picnic tc the beach on Hastcr Monday. Uniformity is nct a criterion of traditicnality cithor. Otherwise, as Boas has remarked, the perfect traditicn would be like that of the Japanese, who every twenty years Cestroy the temple of Ise in order to rebuild it exactly as it was (Boas 1960, p.76). ‘Tradition is not archacology, Traditicn, therefore, is more than pure transmission, As it is2, evident that cnly scme of the institutions and customs inherited are tracitions, it moans that tracitions are nct simply determined by their recoption. Those practices, instituticns cr beliofs, we call traditional, must also be accepted and since others are not, there must be a process of selection according to certain criteria, We are far from a purely automatic or unconscicus action, from « "noutral! process. Transmitted traditions are accepted, not oniy because they. exist, because they azo there, but because they respond to certain requisites, In other words, tracition implies a value judgment about the clement being handed on, which gives it an intermediate meaning between the unccnscious custcm and these ideas which could be established as a proposition. (Kubawara 1962, p. 144). What is really tradition is not the institution in itself but the belief in its value, ‘This belicf is the cutcome of what I have called elsewhere a judgment of traciticnality (Tradition as a process), which then determines a given institution ns a traciticn (Traciticn as a procuct), I think this is what Professcr Echeruo hac in mind in his inaugural lecture for this Faculty a few years back when ho said that “a past does not belong to a people by "fiat"; each member has to ciscover it for himself anc incorporate its meaning into his own being" (cheruo), “if ycu want it, added 7.S, Blict, you must cbtain it by great labour".28. To define tracition, in fact, cne must go from the present to the past. Tracition is not a force whese effects we are subjected to, but rather a vicwpcint from which we leck at the past, To be conscious of a tracition is to find an inheritance in the past and te accopt the criteria of this inhcritance as one's own, Tradition therefore is an inverted filiation: the son, in this case, begets the father and for this reason he may have several fathers. (Pouillon 197, p. 79). This is what Alfrot Vigny forcefully expressed in his verses: "Ctest ca vain que cloux tous le sang m'a fait descencre, Si j'écris lour histcire ils descendront do moi" "it Coes not matter-if blood makes me cesceud from them, I€1 write their story they will cescené from me" (A. co Vigny). Since I am holding a brief for traditicn, Mr. Vice-Chancelior, T would like to point cut one of the main reasons, in my opinicn, beth for its necloct and for its rejection, These scem to me cue to the almost exclusive concern with tradition as a product. As a result, their substantial content ~ the traditions - have bon the subject of many stucics, while tho mo¢es anc mechanisms of the tracitional reproduction of beliefs have becn left unexamined, ‘The 'traditionality' of traditional societies is thus simply assumed, without reference to the ways in which tradition determines them. ‘This is clearly the case within our Nigerian context. Ajayi makes very well this point, referring to the caso cf African historians, who have29. concentrated on "the reccrding and expicitation of oral ore and not necessarily the nugget of gold itself", He recalls the fear frequently expressed in the 1950s that with each old person that died in Africa perished a library. "This was true, he adds, of ofal traditions as thoy existed at particular moments of history". "But tradition itself as a philesophy of history, as a factor of continuity and change, he concludes, is not ephemeral". (Ajayi 1987, p. 15). Interestingly cnough, I came across the same experience in my wort on African tradition in the Americas, an exciting ficld which has occupied me for the * last few years. An Afro-Americanist had this cbscrvation to make, "Perhaps the difficulty in uncovering African culture ‘traits in the US has been in looking for the small details rather than for tho larger structures", To put it bluntly, in Africa we have been recording genealogies anc myths; in America we have been looking for the survival of words and artifacts; in the process, we might have forgctten tradition as such, The Process of Tradition We sloulc take therefore a closer look at the process of tradition. When speaking about its temporal character, | discarded those actions whose statistical recurrence in the past Coes not ccnstitute a ° tradition, because they cither lack the ca¥gal link manifested in a temporal reference or they lack the ccncitions of voluntarinoss neoded to30. become a celiberate action, In fact, tradition as a process is a deliberate and voluntary act, a, rational act, Following the cistinction, well known in moral philosophy, it is a human act, not simply an act of man, Tradition, when concjeptualized, happens to be a mental structure extremely complex, within which, as Pocock romarks, take place multiple Cialogues, a whole series of intelloctual operations. ‘This very complexity of tracitionality makes its understancing difficult te the exent that it has been said: "Tradition is everything that has been attributed to it", ‘The main task should thon be a deeper analysis of tradition, as part of the problem lies in its being treated as a “blanket term", Tradition, put si ply, is communication between generaticns, Its foundation is therefore the assumption that a given sccicty exists in time. A fully tracitional society is then that society "which conccives inheritance as its sole mede of reception, transmission as its sole mode of action and presumption as its sole mode of knowledge", (Pocock 1966, p. 213), More specifically, a tra nal belicf, mcce of behaviour or institution, would be therefore one that is known by presumption and accepted as inheritance as transmitted from the past. ‘The relation - Between past and present coulé then in a first approximation be sketched like this:C UOISSIWSUDJ J i 4) uondwnsold || SoUD}WSUU|DIL Py LSVd | | yNTI TWeOdWaL | | uondwinsei| AYU‘The diagram is clearly over simplificé, Each cno of its parts is of extreme complexity and requires further analysis. Let me give you whet I bolieve is a mote complete picture of the totel process, before i try to shed some light cn its cifferent intollectual operations, We are now i aa better pesition to sce the complexity of tracitionality It wouid bo impossible for me tc summarize in this lecture the attompts anc rosults of the many yoars { have dedicated to the elucidation of tradition, I will therefore limit myself to a number of cbservations which I think arc32, relevant tc my brief on behalf of tradition. Even at a su.crficial glance, this ciagram, dissecting tho process of tradition, shows its coliberate and voluntary character, as exom by the difforent mental perations of Teception, presur matics aid accoptance, In other worés, the rational character of tracition, As this scoms to contradict the imp: ications of ‘Veber's dichctomy between tracitional and rational action which has so much influcnce¢ present cay literature on Cevelopment, I believe it 1s worth stove ing to consider this point. The Rationality of Tradition “he Rationality of Tradition The rational character of tradition is fundamentally expressed ay its being base’ on a value jucgement, which is being assorted precisely by its Permanence in timo, ‘Chis is why tracition is cescrib as "receptive affirmation” or as "affirmative attachment". The simple reception, namely the realization cf the existence in tho past and in the prescat of a certain practice cr belief, is not sufficient. Sceial systcms, beliefs, institutions, do nct exist by themsclvos; they are nct just given they must be maintained in existence. As Persons saic: "processes are neeced to maintain the functioning of any sceial system; if its mombers nevor cic anything, a society would vory soon cease to exist". (Parscns 1565, p, 21). ‘Phere aro however certain charactoristies which specify the “taticnatity" of tradition and which explain its being at times considered as an “irrational”33. action, tf I may say so, Mr. Vice-Chancellor, it scems to me that it is here that the case for the prosecution is basec, # tracition is an irrational attituco, it cught then to be Ciscarced or at iast simply allowed to cxist as a quaint accition to cur more "rational" institutions, The goncral estimation of tradition as felldore scoms to follow this tron. cf thinking, Let us lock at their case. First of all, the transmission of traditional forms is act something decided intentionally. From that viewpoint, my learned opponents are right. ‘Traditions inceec co change. ‘They adapt themselves to different circumstances as woli as to the unique characteristics of cach individ af personality but not as tho result of a conscious acticn. ‘Tracitions develop-truc-but their mecification is usualiy act a conscicus cr voluntary acticn, This transformation, by the passage from one generation to the other, explains why the actions cf a man who moves within a certain tradition are unprecictable, though they romain within it. ‘Traciticn in fact is a term whose function combines freccom anc explicability (iMincgue 1968, p. 302). ‘Two other characteristics may bo added, which I have cisowhore cofined as “unthintiagacss" of acceptance anc ambiguity of content. (Muncz 1981, p 201). Both help to cistinguish traditions from institutions properly speaking. A tradition is in fact a kind of institution, but a "loos34, form of institution, One may therefore concede that there >. solcom is a discursive anc. ex;iicit rearoning in the traditional acceptance of a belief or practice, but this docs not make tracition an “irrational” action, for conceptualization and explicitness, as I have proved ciscwhere (Muncz i981, p. 263), aro not a necessary condition of all human knowle e and the "ratics.ality" of an acticn may simply be found in the action itsclf. The ambiguity which often charactorizes tracition can however be explained because the information, which binds together the successive gonoret ons of a social group anc thus constitutes the besis of its icontity thrcugh time, is, in my opinion, predominantly "tacit knowlecge", eecor § to Polanyi's suggostive theory. It is my contention that the ignorance of this way of knowledge accounts for tho cavalier treatment accorded to tradition by social scientists, as they con't sce it conforming to the patterns of the so-called scientific knowledge. I co not have the time to develop here Polanyi's exciting thesis I wish { had - but since 1 have done so at length elsewhere (Munoz 198}), there miht be no need for it, | would simply make a few remarks pertinent to tho case I am making on behalf of tradition, First of all, it ought to be stated that onc cf the paradoxes of mocern opistemology, is that science has been takcn as the paradigm of35. knowledge and, in spite of that, we insist on a conception of truth as totally explicit. Any disciple must~as we all know-begin by assuming that a teaching which appears to him meaningless has in fact a meaning which wil! only appear to’ him by trusting his master, ic. by accoptil his authority. Watching his mastor, the apprentice reccives unconsciously the rules of his art, including those which the teachor himsclf coos not know oxplicitly. Besides, the methods of scientific rescarch cannot be explicitly formulated either: they can only be transmitted in tho same manner as an art is, by the affiliation of an apprentice to a master, In other wores, “tho authority of scicnee is essentially traditional” (Polanyi 1969, p. 66). Scicnce, in fact, is nct merely constituted by cata. A scientific fact is a fact accepted as such by scicntific opinion, because of the evidence in its favour and because it fits with the scientific conceptions of the moment. Science is a system, based on a scientific interprotation and oncorsed by scientific authority, act a mere colicetion of facts. It can therofore bo gathered from the stucy of the theory of tacit knowledge that the opposition between scientific knowledge ané knowledge by tradition 's based upen false and incomplete premises. The consideration of the "irrationality" of tradition falls by its own weight. In fact, tradition, which comands of us to believe beforo knowing and in order to knoy is basoc on a Geeper vision of the nature of36. kaowiecge than scientific rationalism, which allows us only to holieve explicit ceclaratiors, based on tangible data derived from them by a formal inference and open to repeated verification (Polanyi 1966, p. 6i). ‘racitional knowledge might not be rational knowledge in the sonse of “knowledge through the conceptual, logical anc discursive exorcise of reason" (Maritain 1953, p. 23) but it is intelligent knowledge, “rational in the wider senso of the term. ‘The "wisdoi without reflection’ beth Burke ané Vice spoke abcut. I have stated the case for tho plaintiff by disproving the ptosceution's cont ticn that tradition is sub-rational. To prove my case, Thad to show first the weakness cf the arguments against it, as well as the background - the paradigm of mocdernity-which { believe, has been largely responsible for the distortion, My brief would have just been & pure acacemic exercise, if it wore not for its bearing on important normative probloms. What would be tho outcome, lot me ask, if, for instance, our tural cevelopment cgrammes, our economic ané educational planning, our population policies, our hancling the issues of our religious and cthnic pluralism, our croation of states, our constitution making, ofl tock tradition into consideration? The fact that all these areas aro of tremendous relevance, helps, T hope, to make the point that ali I have becn saying is not just for the sake of tracition. Bringing tracition in will froe us from the grip of the37. paradigm of modernity and provide us with an instrument for coming to terms wich genuine social science. To put it briefly, only an understanding of tradition will help us to see ourselves as we really are. It is customary on occasions such as this, Mr. Vice-Chancelfor, to acknowledge publicly those who made us and to show one's gratitude to those who have + st'sih contributed to our life and to our work, It is not an easy task, as I have learnee and am still learning from all of you, colleagues, frionds and students. To all of you I also owe the groat gift of not ever having folt hore as a stranger, not oven as just a welcome guest - alojo = but the joy of having felt at home, in this country, in this city, at this University, I want novortholess to single out uhrec people. First, the man who made me and to whom I owe what I am. He is alsc the one who asked me to come to this country anc told me to be proud of being here. Many of you know of him, the founder of Opus Dei Msgr. Josemaria Escriva, To him incidentally I also owe my first insight into the problom of tradition which I have quoted above, "If we keep the sense cf eternity, we do not lose sight that today or now are only temporal acverbs and chronological criteria, not necessarily of validity". I will atso like to mention - noblesse oblige - Prof. Henri Evans, Emeritus Professor end founcer of my Department. Not only was he my first head of Department at this University, he has also been instrumental38. in my loyalty to anc in my happy Stay in the Department of Modorn European Languages, and the Saculty of Arts, all other circumstances Rotwithstanding, Anc finally, my first friend in this campus, whose funeral 1 celebrated a few yoats ‘back and to whom, being both as we are in the same ficld, I dedicate this brief on tracition: Prof, Billy j. Ductey.39. Inaugural Lectures - U! y_of Ibadan Ducley, Billy }. "Scepticism as vittue”, An inaugural lecture delivered at tho University of Ibadan on 4 April 1975. Echeruo, Michael J.C... "Poets, Prophets and Professors" An inaugural Lecture Celiverec at the University of Ibadan on 29 October 1976. Ekeh, Peter P, "Colonialism and Social Structure". An inaugural Lecture delivered at the University of Ibadan on 5 june 1980, Evans, Henri Gj. “Culture and Civilization"; An inaugural lecture delivered at the University of Ibadan on 23 October 1975. Ikime, Obaro, “Through changing Scenes: Nigerian history yesterday, today and tomorrow", An inaugural Lecture delivered at the University of Ibadan on 26 October 1979. lrele, Abiola “in Praise of Alienation, An inaugural Lecture Colivored at the University of Ibacan., 1982, Izevbaye, Donic! S “In his own Image: Litorceyre and the Recreation of Man". An inaugural Lecture delivered at the University of Ibacan on january 10, 1985. Olatrinji, 0.0. "Beyond the Spoken Word: An African Language Literature Experience", An’ inaugural Lecture delivered at the University of Ibadan cn i4 May, 1967.ACTON, H.B. 1953, "Tradition and Some Other forms of Order", Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 53: 4 - 2a, AJAYI, L.A, 1987. "The Land the Ancestors Built. Traditional theories of historical Change", The Wiles Lectures Gelivered at the Queen's University, Belfast Oct. 6 1907 (typescript). BOAS, GEORGE i960. "Tradit ion", Diogenes, 31: 68 - 79, BURKE, E. 1906, Works, London, ELIOT, T.s. 1951, Selected Essays, London, FRIEDRICH, CARL J. 1972, Tradition and Authority, London, GELLNER, #. i964, Thought and Change, Chicago 1927. GILSON, B. i527, "The Ethics of Higher Studios" Harvard Alumni Bulletin 30 (1927). 127 ~ 130, a GILSON, #. 1982, The Unity of Philosophical Experience, Westinindter (iic}-— os buical Experience GRENE, M. (ec) 1969, Knowing and Being, Essays by Iichael Polanyi, Chicago, GUITTON, JEAN 1971 Ce gue je Crois. Paris, HALLOWELL, 5H. 1975 Preface to From Enlightenment to Revolution, Durham (N.t,), °° rr HAYES FA, von 194i "The Counter-Revelution of Science" Economica., & 9 ~ 36; 119 - 150; 281 ~ 320,HAYEK F.A. von HEISENBERG, W. JAKI, STANLEY, JOHN PAUL It HOOS, IDA R. XOLAKOWSKI, L. KULAWARA, T. KUHN, T.S. LEONTIEFF, W. LEWIS, C.S. MARITAIN, J. MARITAIN, J. MINOGUE, X.R. MUNOZ, L.j. 41, 1942 - 44 "Scientism and the Study of Society! 's Economica 9: 267 - 10: 34 - ; 3 27 = 1974, "La tradicion en la ciencia", Facetas 1347 - 37, 1971 Science and Creation, New York, 1968, Encyclical Letter "Scllicitu¢o rei_scci 1972. Systems Analysis in Public Policy, Borkcley (Cal). 197. "Pho Philosophy of Modernity". Lecture celivered at Castelgandolfo on the 20th August. 1962. "“Vraditicn versus modernization in Postwar Japan", Diogenes 40 : 129 ~ 147, 1962, ‘Tho Structure of Scientific Revolutions Chica. SSSOSCSCSCSCS~ Durham (N.C.). WEBER, MAX. 1958. "Science as a vocation" in from Max Weber, Gerth HH. and C, Wright Mills (cds.) , Chicago. WEIZSACKER, C.F. von 1969. "Die Rolle der Tradition in der Phitosophie und dic Situation unserer Zeit" Universitas, 24, 10 : 1039 1050, WHITEHEAD, A.N. 1929. Science and the Modern World, Cambridge (IMass) WOLIN, SHELDON, 1985. "Postmodern Politics and the absonce of lAyth", Social Research 52, 2: 217 - 239, WHYTE, WH. JR. 1987. ‘The Organization Man, Garden City (N.Y.) WRIGHT MILLS, C., 1970, ‘The Sociolgical imagination, Harmondsworth.