The Invention of Tradition by Eric Hobsbawm Summary and Analysis Part- 2

Convention/routine is also different from tradition. He says that conventions do not have any significant ritual or symbolic function. These are social practices carried out repeatedly and are insufficient to deal with unforeseen or inhabitual contingencies but are necessitated by industrialisation. Conventions are technical than ideological and are designed to facilitate readily definable practical operations and are abandoned or modified to meet changing practical needs. Conventions turn inert gradually and people who attached to them resist innovation.

Inventing tradition is essentially a process of formalisation and ritualisation characterised by reference to the past if only by imposing repetition. It is easy to trace traditions when they are deliberately invented, and constructed by a single initiator. The tradition of boy scouts initiated by Badem Powell is an example for this. It is very difficult to trace the origin, place and circulation of tradition when it is partly invented, partly evolved in private groups. Traditions are invented in every historic period and they are more frequent when rapid transformations of society weaken or destroy social patterns. New traditions are invented when the old traditions no longer prove sufficiently adaptable and flexible or they are completely eliminated. The high number of invented traditions in 19^th and 20^th century hint at the rapid social transformations occurred during this period. Traditions associated with the old form of community and authority structure are unadaptable and become rapidly unviable. New traditions form from the inability to use or adapt old ones.

Adaptation takes place for old uses in new conditions and by using old models for new purposes. Ancient materials are used to construct invented traditions of a novel type for quite novel purposes. A large store house of materials needed to invent new traditions is available in all society. There are occasions in which new traditions are grafted in old ones. This is illustrated by citing the example of Swiss nationalists who have modified, ritualised and institutionalised existing customary traditional practices such as folksong, physical contests, workmanship etc...for the new national purpose.

As already stated, invented traditions imply historical continuity and it is largely factitious. At times, historic continuity is also invented by employing semi fiction or by forgery. Hobsbawm cautions readers not to confuse the strength and adaptability of genuine traditions with that of invented traditions. He makes it clear as “where the old ways are alive, traditions need be neither revived nor invented”. The failure of 19^th century liberal ideology to provide for social and authority ties resulted in creating gaps which were later filled by invented practices.

In this part, Hobsbawm makes certain general remarks on invented traditions emerged since industrialisation. They are

a) they establish or symbolise social cohesion or the membership of groups, real or artificial communities

b) establish or legitimize institutions status or relations of authority

c) main purpose is socialisation, inculcation of beliefs, value systems and conventions of behaviour.