2 Living in a Post-Traditional Society

Anthony Giddens

In the social sciences today, as i n the social w o r l d itself, we face a new agenda. We live, as everyone knows, at a t ime of endings. There is, f i rs t of al l , the end not just of a century but of a mi l lennium: something wh ich has no content, and which is w h o l l y arbitrary - a date on a calendar - has such a power of reification that it holds us in thral l . Fin de siècle has become wide ly ident i f ied w i t h feelings of disorientation and malaise, to such a degree that one might wonder whether a l l the talk of endings, such as the end of modernity, or the end of history, s imply reflects them. N o doubt to some degree such is the case. Yet i t is certainly not the whole story. We are in a period of evident transition - and the 'we ' here refers not only to the West but to the w o r l d as a whole.

I n this discussion I speak of an ending, i n the guise of the emerg­ence of a post-traditional society. This phrase might at first glance seem odd. Modern i ty , almost by def ini t ion, always stood in oppo­sition to tradit ion; hasn't modern society long been 'post-tradi­tional'? It has not, at least i n the way i n wh ich I propose to speak of the 'post-traditional society' here. For most of its history, modernity has rebuil t t radi t ion as i t has dissolved i t . W i t h i n Western societies, the persistence and recreation of t radi t ion was central to the legit­imat ion of power, to the sense i n wh ich the state was able to impose itself upon relatively passive 'subjects'. For t radi t ion placed in stasis some core aspects of social l i fe - not least the f ami ly and sexual identi ty - wh ich were left largely untouched so far as 'radicalizing Enlightenment' was concerned.^

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Most important , the cont inuing influence of t radi t ion w i t h i n moderni ty remained obscure so long as 'modern ' meant 'Western'. Some one hundred years ago Nietzsche had already 'brought moderni ty to its senses', showing Enlightenment itself to be m y t h and thereby posing disquiet ing questions about knowledge and power. Nietzsche's was, however, the lone voice of the heretic. Modern i ty has been forced to 'come to its senses' today, not so much as a result of its internal dissenters as by its o w n generaliza­t ion across the w o r l d . N o longer the unexamined basis of Western hegemony over other cultures, the precepts and social fo rms of moderni ty stand open to scrutiny.

T h e orders of t r a n s f o r m a t i o n

The new agenda for social science concerns t w o directly connected domains of transformation. Each corresponds to processes of change which , whi le they have their origins w i t h the first develop­ment of moderni ty, have become particularly acute i n the current era. O n the one hand there is the extensional spread of modern institutions, universalized via globalizing processes. O n the other, but immediately bound up w i t h the first, are processes of inten­tional change, w h i c h can be referred to as the radicalizing of mod­ernity.^ These are processes of evacuation, the dis interr ing and problematizing of tradit ion.

Few people anywhere i n the w o r l d can any longer be unaware of the fact that their local activities are influenced, and sometimes even determined, by remote events or agencies. The phenomenon is eas­i ly indexed, at least on a crude level. Thus, fo r example, capitalism has for centuries had strong tendencies to expand, fo r reasons do­cumented by Marx and many others. Over the period since the Second W o r l d War, however, and particularly over the past for ty years or so, the pattern of expansionism has begun to alter. I t has become much more decentred as we l l as more all-enveloping. The overall movement is towards much greater interdependence. O n the sheerly economic level, for example, w o r l d p roduc t ion has increased dramatically, w i t h various fluctuations and downturns; and w o r l d trade, a better indicator of interconnectedness, has g rown even more. ' Invisible trade', i n services and finance, has increased most of all.^

Less evident is the reverse side of the coin. The day-to-day ac-fions of an ind iv idua l today are globally consequenfial. M y decision

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to purchase a particular i t em of clothing, for example, or a specific type of foodstuff , has man i fo ld global implications. I t not only affects the l ive l ihood of someone l i v i n g on the other side of the w o r l d but may contribute to a process of ecological decay which itself has potential consequences for the whole of humani ty . This extraordinary, and s t i l l accelerating, connectedness between every­day decisions and global outcomes, together w i t h its reverse, the influence of global orders over i n d i v i d u a l Ufe, forms the key sub­ject-matter of the new agenda. The connections involved are often very close. Intermediate collectivities and groupings of al l sorts, inc luding the state, do not disappear as a result; bu t they do tend to become reorganized or reshaped.

To the Enlightenment thinkers, and many of their successors, i t appeared that increasing in fo rmat ion about the social and natural wor lds w o u l d br ing increasing control over them. For many, such control was the key to human happiness; the more, as collective humanity, we are i n a posit ion actively to make history, the more we can guide history towards our ideals. Even more pessimistic observers connected knowledge and control. Max Weber's 'steel-hard cage' - i n w h i c h he thought humani ty was condemned to live for the forseeable fu tu re - is a prison-house of technical knowledge; we are al l , to alter the metaphor, to be small cogs in the gigantic machine of technical and bureaucratic reason. Yet neither image comes close to capturing the w o r l d of h igh moderni ty , wh ich is much more open and contingent than any such image suggests -and is so precisely because of, not i n spite of, the knowledge that we have accumulated about ourselves and about the material environ­ment. I t is a w o r l d where oppor tuni ty and danger are balanced i n equal measure.

That methodical doubt - radical doubt - w h i c h paradoxically was always at the o r ig in of the Enlightenment's claims to certainty, becomes thoroughly exposed to v iew. The more we t ry to colonize the future , the more i t is l ike ly to spring surprises upon us. This is w h y the not ion of risk, so central to the endeavours of moderni ty , moves through two stages." First of all i t seems no more than part of an essential calculus, a means of sealing o f f boundaries as the fu ture is invaded. I n this f o r m risk is a statistical part of the operations of insurance companies; the very precision of such risk calculations seems to signal success i n b r ing ing the fu tu re under control.

This is risk i n a w o r l d where much remains as 'given' , including external nature and those forms of social l i fe coordinated by tra­di t ion . As nature becomes invaded, and even 'ended', by human

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socialization, and t radi t ion is dissolved, new types of uncal-culabil i ty emerge. Consider, fo r example, global warming . M a n y experts consider that global w a r m i n g is occurring and they may be right . The hypothesis is disputed by some, however, and i t has even been suggested that the real trend, i f there is one at al l , is i n the opposite direction, towards the cooling of the global climate. Prob­ably the most that can be said w i t h some surety is that we cannot be certain that global w a r m i n g is not occurring. Yet such a condit ional conclusion w i l l y ie ld not a precise calculation of risks but rather an array of 'scenarios' - whose plausibi l i ty w i l l be influenced, among other things, by h o w many people become convinced of the thesis of global w a r m i n g and take action on that basis. In the social w o r l d , where inst i tut ional ref lexivi ty has become a central constituent, the complexity of 'scenarios' is even more marked.

O n the global level, therefore, moderni ty has become experimen­tal. We are al l , w i l l y - n i l l y , caught u p i n a grand experiment, wh ich is at the one t ime our do ing - as human agents - yet to an imponder­able degree outside of our control. I t is not an experiment i n the laboratory sense, because we do not govern the outcomes w i t h i n fixed parameters - i t is more l ike a dangerous adventure, i n which each of us has to participate whether we like i t or not.

The grand experiment of moderni ty , f raught w i t h global hazards, is not at a l l what the progenitors of Enlightenment had i n m i n d when they spoke of the importance of contesting t radif ion. N o r is i t close to what Marx envisaged - indeed, among many other endings today we may speak of the end of Prometheanism. ' H u m a n beings only set themselves such problems as they can resolve': for us Marx 's pr inciple has become no more than a principle of hope. The social w o r l d has become largely organized i n a conscious way , and nature fashioned i n a human image, but these circumstances, at least i n some domains, have created greater uncertainties, of a very consequential k i n d , than ever existed before.

The global experiment of modern i ty intersects w i t h , and i n f l u ­ences as i t is influenced by, the penetration of modern institutions into the tissue of day-to-day l i fe . N o t just the local communi ty , but intimate features of personal l i fe and the self become in ter twined w i t h relations of indef ini te time-space extension.^ We are al l caught up i n everyday experiments whose outcomes, i n a generic sense, are as open as those affecting humani ty as a whole. Everyday experiments reflect the changing role of t radi t ion and, as is also true of the global level, should be seen i n the context of the displacement and reappropriation of expertise, under the impact of the intrusiveness of

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abstract systems. Technology, i n the general meaning of 'technique', plays the leading role here, i n the shape both of material technology and of specialized social expertise.

Everyday experiments concern some very fundamental issues to do w i t h self and identi ty, but they also involve a mul t ip l i c i ty of changes and adaptations i n dai ly Ufe. Some such changes are lov­ingly documented i n Nicholson Baker's novel The Mezzanine (1990). The book deals w i t h no more than a f ew moments i n the day of a person w h o actively reflects, i n detail , upon the minutiae of his life's surroundings and his reactions to them. A paraphernalia of i n ­trusion, adjustment and readjustment is revealed, l inked to a d i m l y perceived backdrop of larger global agencies.

Take the example of the ice-cube tray:

The ice cube tray deserves a historic note. At first these were alu­minium barges inset with a grid of slats linked to a handle like a parking brake - a bad solution; you had to run the grid under warm water before the ice would let go of the metal. I remember seeing these used, but never used them myself. And then suddenly there were plastic and rubber 'trays', really moulds, of several designs -some producing very small cubes, others producing large squared-off cubes and bathtub-buttoned cubes. There were subtleties that one came to understand over time: for instance, the little notches de­signed into the inner walls that separated one cell from another allowed the water level to equalise itself: this meant that you could f i l l the tray by running the cells quickly under the tap, feeling as if you were playing the harmonica, or you could turn the faucet on very slightly, so that a thin silent stream of water fell in a line from the tap, and hold the tray at an angle, allowing the water to enter a single cell and well f rom there into adjoining cells one by one, gradually filling the entire tray. The intercellular notches were helphil after the tray was frozen, too; when you had twisted it to force the cubes, you could selectively pull out one cube at a time by hooking a fingernail under the frozen projection that had formed in a notch. If you couldn't catch the edge of a notch-stump because the cell had not been filled to above the notch level, you might have to mask all the cubes except one with your hands and turn the tray over, so that the single cube you needed fell out. Or you could twist all the cubes free and then, as if the tray were a frying pan and you were flipping a pancake, toss them. The cubes would hop as one above their individual homes about a quarter of an inch, and most would fall back into place; but some, the loosest, would loft higher and often land irregularly, leav­ing one graspable end sticking up - these you used for your drink.'

What is at issue here is not just, or even pr imar i ly , technology, but more p ro found processes of the reformat ion of dai ly l i fe . Tra-

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di t ion here w o u l d appear to play no part whatever any more; but this v iew w o u l d be mistaken, as we shall see.

Insulting the meat

A m o n g the !Kung San of the Kalahari desert, when a hunter returns f r o m a successful hunt his k i l l is disparaged by the rest of the communi ty , no matter h o w boun t i fu l i t may be. Meat brought in by hunters is always shared throughout the group, but rather than being greeted w i t h glee, a successful hunt is treated w i t h ind i f fe r ­ence or scorn. The hunter himself is also supposed to show modesty as regards his skills and to understate his achievements. One of the !Kung comments:

Say that a man has been hunting, he must not come home and announce like a braggart, ' I have killed a big one in the bush!' He must first sit down in silence until I or someone else comes up to his fire and asks, 'What did you see today?' He replies quietly, 'Ah, I 'm no good for hunting. I saw nothing at a l l . . . maybe just a tiny one'. Then I smile to myself because I know he has killed something big.

The t w i n themes of deprecation and modesty are continued when the par ty goes out to fetch and d iv ide u p the k i l l the next day. Gett ing back to the village, the members of the carrying group loud ly comment upon the ineptness of the hunter and their disappointment w i t h h i m :

You mean you have dragged us all the way out here to make us cart home your pile of bones? Oh, if I had known it was this thin I wouldn't have come. People, to think I gave up a nice da/ in the shade for this. At home we may be hungry, but at least we have nice cool water to drink.^

The exchange is a r i tua l one, and fo l lows established prescriptions; i t is closely connected to other forms of r i tua l interchange i n !Kung society. Insul t ing the meat seems at first sight the perfect candidate fo r explanation i n terms of latent functions. I t is a slice of t radi t ion wh ich fuels those interpretations of ' t radi t ional culhires' wh ich understand ' t rad i t ion ' i n terms of funct ional conceptions o f soli­dari ty. I f such notions were va l id , t radi t ion could be seen essentially as un th ink ing r i tua l , necessary to the cohesion of simpler societies. Yet this idea w i l l not w o r k . There is certainly a ' funct ional ' angle to

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insul t ing the meat: al though i t also leads to conflicts, i t can be seen as a means of sustaining egalitarianism in !Kung (male) community . The r i tualized disparagement is a counter to arrogance and there­fore to the sort of stratification that might develop i f the best hunters were honoured or rewarded.

Yet this ' funct ional ' element does not i n fact operate i n a mech­anical way (nor could i t ) ; the !Kung are we l l aware of what is going on. Thus, as a !Kung healer pointed out to the vis i t ing anthro­pologist, when a man makes many kil ls , he is liable to th ink of himself as a chief, and see the rest of the group as his inferiors. This is unacceptable; 'so we always speak of his meat as worthless. In this way we cool his heart and make h i m gentle'.* Tradi t ion is about r i tua l and has connections w i t h social solidarity, but it is not the mechanical f o l l o w i n g of precepts accepted i n an unquestioning way.

To grasp what i t means to l ive i n a post-traditional order we have to consider two questions: what t radi t ion actually is and what are the generic characteristics of a ' t radit ional society'. Both notions have for the most part been used as unexamined concepts - i n sociology because of the fact that they have been foils for the pr ime concern w i t h moderni ty; and i n anthropology because one of the main implications of the idea of tradit ion, repetition, has so of ten been merged w i t h cohesiveness. Tradi t ion, as i t were, is the glue that holds premodern sodal orders together; but once one rejects funct ionahsm it is no longer clear what makes the glue stick. There is no necessary connection between repetit ion and social cohesion at all , and the repetitive character of t radi t ion is something wh ich has to be explained, not just assumed.'

Repetition means t ime - some w o u l d say that i t is t ime - and t radi t ion is somehow involved w i t h the control of time. Tradi t ion, i t might be said, is an orientation to the past, such that the past has a heavy influence or, more accurately put , is made to have a heavy influence, over the present. Yet clearly, i n a certain sense at any rate, t radi t ion is also about the fu ture , since established practices are used as a way of organising fu ture time. The fu ture is shaped wi thou t the need to carve i t out as a separate terri tory. Repetition, i n a way that needs to be examined, reaches out to return the fu tu re to the past, wh i l e d r awing on the past also to reconstruct the future .

Traditions, Edward Shils says, are always changing;" but there is something about the not ion of t radi t ion wh ich presumes endurance; if i t is tradit ional, a belief or practice has an integri ty and continui ty wh ich resists the buf fe t ing of change. Traditions have an organic

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character: they develop and mature, or weaken and 'die' . The integ­r i ty or authenticity of a t radi t ion, therefore, is more important i n def in ing i t as t radi t ion than h o w long i t lasts. I t is notable that only in societies w i t h w r i t i n g - wh ich have actually become thereby less ' t radi t ional ' - do we usually have any evidence that elements of tradit ion have endured over very long periods. Anthropologists have v i r tua l ly always seen oral cultures as h ighly tradit ional , but i n the nature of the case have no way of conf i rming that the 'tra­di t ional practices' they observe have existed over even several generations; no one knows, fo r instance, for how long the !Kung practice of insul t ing the meat migh t have been in place.

I shall understand ' t radi t ion ' i n the f o l l o w i n g way. Tradi t ion, I shall say, is bound up w i t h memory, specifically what Maurice Halbwachs terms 'collective memory ' ; involves r i tual ; is connected w i t h what I shall call a formulaic notion of truth; has 'guardians'; and, unl ike custom, has b ind ing force w h i c h has a combined mora l and emotional content.

Memory , like t radi t ion - i n some sense or another - is about organizing of the past i n relation to the present. We migh t think, Halbwachs says, that such conservation s imply results f r o m the existence of unconscious psychic states. There are traces registered in the brain wh ich make i t possible for these states to be called to consciousness. From this point of view, 'the past falls into r u i n ' , bu t 'only vanishes in appearance', because i t continues to exist i n the unconscious."

Halbwachs rejects such an idea; the past is not preserved but continuously reconstructed on the basis of the present. Such recon­struction is part ia l ly ind iv idua l , but more fundamental ly i t is social or collective. I n fleshing out this argument, Halbwachs offers an interesting analysis of dreams. Dreams are i n effect what meaning w o u l d be l ike wi thou t its organizing social f rameworks - composed of disconnected fragments and bizarre sequences. Images remain as ' raw materials' that enter in to eccentric combinations w i t h one another.

Memory is thus an active, social process, wh ich cannot merely be identif ied w i t h recall.'^ We continually reproduce memories of past happenings or states, and these repetitions confer cont inui ty upon experience. I f i n oral cultures older people are the repository (and also often the guardians) of traditions, i t is not only because they absorbed them at an earlier point than others but because they have the leisure to iden t i fy the details of these traditions i n interaction w i t h others of their age and teach them to the young. Tradi t ion,

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therefore, we may say, is an organizing medium of collective memory. There can no more be a private t radi t ion than there could be a private language. The ' in tegr i ty ' of t radi t ion derives not f r o m the simple fact of persistence over t ime but f r o m the continuous 'work ' of interpretation that is carried out to iden t i fy the strands which b ind present to past.

Tradi t ion usually involves r i tua l . Why? The r i tual aspects of tra­d i t ion might be thought to be s imply part of its 'mindless', auto­mation-like character. But i f the ideas I have suggested so far are correct, t radi t ion is necessarily active and interpretative. Ritual, one can propose, is integral to the social f rameworks wh ich confer integ­r i ty upon traditions; r ih i a l is a practical means of ensuring preser­vation. Collective memory, as Halbwachs insists, is geared to social practices. We can see h o w this is so i f we consider not just the contrast between memory and dreaming but the ' i n between' ac­t iv i ty of day-dreaming or reverie. Day-dreaming means that an ind iv idua l relaxes f r o m the demands of day-to-day l i fe , a l lowing the m i n d to wander. By contrast cont inui ty of practice - itself actively organized - is wha t connects the thread of today's activities w i t h those of yesterday, and of yesteryear. Ritual firmly connects the continual reconstruction of the past w i t h practical enactment, and can be seen to do so.

Ritual enmeshes t radi t ion in practice, but i t is important to see that i t also tends to be separated more or less clearly frorn the pragmatic tasks of everyday activity. Insul t ing the meat is a r i tual­ized procedure, and understood to be so by the participants. A r ih i a l insult is d i f ferent f r o m a real insult because i t lacks denotive meaning; i t is a 'non-expressive' use of language. This ' isolating' consequence of r i tua l is crucial because i t helps give r i tua l beliefs, practices and objects a temporal autonomy which more mundane endeavours may lack.

Like a l l other aspects of t radi t ion, r i tual has to be interpreted; but such interpretation is not normal ly i n the hands of the lay ind iv idua l . Here we have to establish a connection between tra­dit ion's guardians and the truths such traditions contain or disclose. Tradi t ion involves ' formulaic t ru th ' , to w h i c h only certain persons have f u l l access. Formulaic t ru th depends not upon referential properties of language bu t rather upon their opposite; r i tual lan­guage is performative, and may sometimes contain words or prac­tices that the speakers or listeners can barely understand. Ritual i d i o m is a mechanism of t ru th because, not i n spite, of its formulaic nature. Ritual speech is speech w h i c h i t makes no sense to disagree

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w i t h or contradict - and hence contains a p o w e r f u l means of reduc­ing the possibil i ty of dissent. This is surely central to its compel l ing quali ty.

Formulaic t ru th is an a t t r ibut ion of causal efficacy to r i tual ; t ru th criteria are applied to events caused, not to the proposit ional con­tent of statements." Guardians, be they elders, healers, magicians or religious functionaries, have the importance they do i n t radi t ion because they are believed to be the agents, or the essential me­diators, of its causal powers. They are dealers i n mystery, bu t their arcane skills come more f r o m their involvement w i t h the causal power of t radi t ion than f r o m their mastery of any body of secret or esoteric knowledge. A m o n g the !Kung the elders are the main guardians of the traditions of the group. Insul t ing the meat may be ' rat ionally understood' i n terms of its consequences f o r the collectivity, but i t derives its persuasive power f r o m its connections to other rituals and beliefs w h i c h either the elders or the religious specialists control.

The guardians of t radi t ion migh t seem equivalent to experts i n modern societies - the purveyors of the abstract systems whose impact u p o n dai ly l i fe Nicholson Baker chronicles. The difference between the two, however, is clear-cut. Guardians are not experts, and the arcane qualities to w h i c h they have access for the most part are not communicable to the outsider. As Pascal Boyer puts i t , 'a t radit ional specialist is not someone w h o has an adequate picture of some reality i n his or her m i n d , but someone whose utterances can be, i n some contexts, directly determined by the reality i n quest ion ' ."

Status i n the t radi t ional order, rather than 'competence', is the p r ime characteristic of the guardian. The knowledge and skills pos­sessed by the expert migh t appear mysterious to the layperson; but anyone can i n pr inciple acquire that knowledge and those skills were they to set out to do so.

Finally, a l l traditions have a normative or moral content, wh ich gives them a b ind ing c h a r a c t e r . T h e i r mora l nature is closely bound up w i t h the interpretative processes by means of w h i c h past and present are aligned. Tradi t ion represents not only wha t ' is ' done i n a society but what 'should be' done. I t does not f o l l o w f r o m this, of course, that the normative components of t radi t ion are necessarily spelled out. Mos t ly they are not: they are interpreted w i t h i n the activities or directives of the guardians. Tradi t ion has the ho ld i t does, i t can be inferred, because its mora l character offers a measure of ontological security to those w h o adhere to i t . Its psychic

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underpinnings are affective. There are ordinar i ly deep emotional investments i n t radi t ion, al though these are indirect rather than direct; they come f r o m the mechanisms of anxiety-control that t radi­tional modes of action and belief provide.

So much for an in i t ia l conceptualizing of t radi t ion. The question of what a ' t radi t ional society' is remains unresolved. I do not intend to deal w i t h i t at any length here, al though I shall come back to it later. A tradi t ional society, inevitably, is one where t radi t ion as specified above has a dominant role; but this w i l l hardly do in and of itself. Tradi t ion, one can say, has most salience when i t is not understood as such. Most smaller cultures, i t seems, do not have a specific w o r d for ' t radi t ion ' and i t is not hard to see why: t radi t ion is too pervasive to be distinguished f r o m other forms of attitude or conduct. Such a situation tends to be particularly characteristic of oral cultures. A distinctive feature of oral culture, obviously, is that communications cannot be made wi thou t an identifiable speaker; this circumstance p la in ly lends itself to formulaic versions of t ru th . The advent of w r i t i n g creates hermeneutics: ' interpretation' , wh ich is first of al l largely scriptural, takes on a new meaning. Tradi t ion comes to be k n o w n as something distinctive and as potentially p lura l . A l l premodern civiUsations, however, remained thoroughly shot through w i t h t radi t ion of one k i n d or another.

If we ask the question, ' i n what ways have modern societies become detraditionalized?', the most obvious tactic i n p rov id ing an answer w o u l d be to look at specific forms of symbol and r i tual and consider h o w far they s t i l l f o r m ' traditions' . However , I shall defer answering such a question u n t i l later, and for the moment shall reorient the discussion i n quite a different way. Tradi t ion is rep­etit ion, and presumes a k i n d of t ru th antithetical to ordinary 'rational enquiry ' - i n these respects i t shares something w i t h the psychology of compulsion.

Repetition as neurosis: the issue of addiction

The question of compulsiveness lies at the o r ig in of modern psycho­therapy. Here is h o w one self-help book of practical therapy begins. 'This is a recording' , i t says, speaking of an indiv idual ' s life-experi­ences - i n our present activities we are constantly ( in a largely unconscious way) recapitulating the past. The influence of past over present is above a l l an emotional one, a matter of 'feelings'.

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Reasons can exist in two 'places' at the same time. You can be physi­cally present with someone in the here and now, but your mind can be miles and years removed. One of our problems in relationships is that 'something' removes us from the present and we are not with whom we were with.

These recorded experiences and the feelings associated with them are available for replay today in as vivid a form as when they hap­pened, and they provide much of the data that determine the nature of today's transactions. Events in the present can replicate an old experience and we not only remember how we felt, but we feel the same way. We not only remember the past, we relive it. We are there! Much of what we relive we don't remember."

Compulsiveness in its broadest sense is an inabi l i ty to escape f r o m the past. The ind iv idua l , w h o believes himself or herself to be autonomous, acts out a surreptitious fate. Concepts of fate have always been closely allied w i t h t radi t ion and i t is not surprising to find that Freud was preoccupied w i t h fate. 'The Oedipus Rex', he observes,

is a tragedy of fate. Its tragic effect depends upon the conflict between the all-powerful wi l l of the gods and the vain efforts of human beings threatened with disaster. Resignation to the divine wi l l , and the perception of one's unimportance, are the lessons which the deeply moved spectator is supposed to learn from the play.

'The oracle has placed the same curse on us',''' he continues, but in our case i t is possible to escape. From Freud onwards, the d i lemma of the modern condit ion is seen as overcoming the 'p rogramming ' bu i l t into our early lives.

Freud of course was much concerned w i t h dreams, 'the royal road to the unconscious'. Freud's theory of dreams may or may not be va l id i n its o w n terms, but i t is wor thwh i l e considering its re­lation to the ideas of Halbwachs. For both Halbwachs and Freud dreams are memories w i t h the social context of action removed. Let me n o w historicize this v iew. The period at wh ich Freud wrote was one at w h i c h traditions i n everyday l i fe were beginning to creak and strain under the impact of moderni ty. Tradi t ion provided the stabil­iz ing f rameworks wh ich integrated memory traces into a coherent memory. As t radi t ion dissolves, one can speculate, 'trace memory ' is left more nakedly exposed, as w e l l as more problematic i n respect of the construction of ident i ty and the meaning of social norms. From then onwards, the reconstruction wh ich t radi t ion provided of

68 Anthony Giddens

the past becomes a more dist inctively ind iv idua l responsibility -and even exigency.

As a good medical specialist, Freud set out to cure neuroses; what he actually discovered, however, was the emotional under tow of disintegrating tradit ional culture. The emotional l i fe of modern c iv i ­l izat ion was essentially wr i t t en out of Enlightenment philosophy, and was alien to those scientific and technological endeavours that were so central to the coruscating effects of moderni ty . Science, and more generally 'reason', were to replace the supposedly un th ink ing precepts of t radi t ion and custom. A n d so, i n a sense, i t proved to be: cognitive outlooks were indeed very substantially and dramatically recast. The emotional cast of t radi t ion, however, was left more or less untouched.'*

Freud's thought, of course, is open to being understood in En­lightenment terms. From this point of v iew, Freud's importance was that he discovered a psychological 'track of development' com­parable to that of the social insti tutions of moderni ty . The 'dog­matics' of the unconscious could be dissolved and replaced by veridical self-awareness; i n Freud's celebrated, perhaps notorious, phrase, 'where i d was ego shall be'. Some, more suspicious of the claims of Enlightenment, see Freud i n a quite contrasting way. Freud shows us, they say, that modern civi l izat ion can never over­come those dark forces w h i c h l u r k i n the unconscious. Freud's o w n line of intellectual development i n fact seems to veer f r o m the f irst v iew towards the second over the progression of his career.

Yet perhaps neither of these perspectives is the most effective way of looking at things. Freud was dealing w i t h a social, not only a psychological, order; he was concerned w i t h a social universe of belief and action at the point at wh ich , i n matters directly affecting self-identity, tradition was beginning to turn into compulsion. Compu l ­sion, rather than the unconscious as such, turned out to be the other side of the 'cognitive revolut ion ' of moderni ty .

Freud's concrete investigations and therapeutic involvements -unl ike most of his wr i t ings - concentrated upon the emotional problems of women, as mediated through the body. Yet the hidden compulsiveness of moderni ty was also manifest - al though i n a different way - i n the public domain. What is Weber's discussion of the Protestant ethic i f not an analysis of the obsessional nature of modernity? The emotional travails of women, of course, have no place in Weber's study - nor do the private or sexual lives of the purveyors of the entrepreneurial spirit. It is as if these things have no bearing upon the demeanour or mot iva t ion of the industrialist: a

Living in a Post-Traditional Society 69

conceptual schism which reflected a real d ivis ion in the lives of men and women.

Weber's w o r k deals quite explici t ly w i t h the transition f r o m tra­d i t ion to moderni ty , al though he does not put i t i n quite those terms. Religious beliefs and practices, l ike other tradit ional activi­ties, tend to fuse moral i ty and emotion. They have, as Weber makes clear, an adequate and visible motivat ional base. Just as w e can quite easily understand the desire to accumulate wealth in the tra­di t ional w o r l d , where i t is used to cultivate distinctive prerogatives, so we can also make sense of religious asceticism and its d r iven quality. The H i n d u ascetic, for example, strives to overcome the toils of the w o r l d and enter a state of religious devotion.

The dr iven asceticism of the entrepreneur has no such obvious origins even though, just as obviously, i t is inspired by passion and conviction. The outlook of the capitalist, Weber says, seems to the non-modern observer 'so incomprehensible and mysterious, so un­w o r t h y and contemptible. That anyone should be able to make i t the sole purpose of his l i fe -work , to sink d o w n into the grave weighed d o w n w i t h a great material load of money and goods, seems to h i m explicable only as the product of a perverse instinct, the auri sacra fames'.''^ Weber himself shared this attitude of something ak in to contempt i n spite of his clarification of the intellectual puzzle posed by the capitalist spirit . Once the fu l f i lmen t of the call ing of the entrepreneur 'cannot directly be related to the highest spir i tual and cultural values', and is not the result of sheerly economic constraint, 'the ind iv idua l generally abandons the attempt to jus t i fy i t at a l l ' . A n d so fo l lows the famous quotation f r o m Goethe: 'Specialists w i thou t spirit , sensuahsts w i thou t heart; this nuUity imagines that i t has attained a level of civilisation never before achieved.'^"

What Weber calls 'economic tradit ionalism' is i n his v iew charac­teristic of the vast bu lk of economic activity i n premodern c iv i l iz ­ations. Economic tradit ionalism quite often recognizes material gain as a legitimate motive, but always grounds i t i n a wider mora­l i ty , and includes, usually, a not ion of excess. This was true both of Lutheranism and of all varieties of Puritanism. Luther, for example, understood w o r k as a calling i n a traditionalistic way , as part of an objective historical order of things governed by God.^' The obsessional pursui t of d iv ine grace has been part of many religions, but Lutheranism preserved some of that relatively relaxed atti tude towards day-to-day l i fe characteristic of non-monastic Catholicism. Puritanism is more dr iven. I t was antagonistic towards most forms of tradit ionalism and more or less eliminated r i tua l

70 Anthony Giddens

w i t h i n the rehgious sphere; i t was also hostile to all types of sensu­ous culture.

It is tempting to l i nk Weber's discussion of Puritan asceticism to psychological repression and many have i n fact done so. Puritanism - and, f o l l o w i n g this, capitalism as an economic system - might seem to maximize self-denial. The pursui t of material gain on the part of the entrepreneur, after a l l , goes along w i t h a f ruga l lifestyle and a horror of hedonism. I n fact, some commentators have suggested that there have been t w o phases i n the development of modern institutions over the past three centuries or so. The first was marked by the dominance of discipline and repression, the second by an upsurge of hedonism, perhaps associated w i t h the rise of the consumer society.^ Yet we migh t interpret the implications of Weber's w o r k i n quite a d i f ferent fashion. The core of capitalist spiri t was not so m u c h its ethic of denial as its motivational urgency, shorn of the tradit ional f rameworks wh ich had connected str iving w i t h moral i ty .

The capitalist, so to speak, was p r imed to repetition wi thou t -once the tradit ional religious ethic had been discarded - having much sense of w h y he, or others, had to r u n this endless treadmill . This was a positive mot ivat ion, however; success brought pleasure rather than pain. Hedonism differs f r o m pleasure enjoyed in much the same w a y as the s t r iving of the entrepreneur differs f r o m economic tradit ionalism. I n other words, almost by def in i t ion it too is obsessional: this is w h y i t is much more closely related to the traits upon wh ich Weber concentrated than may seem the case at first blush.

Modern i ty as compulsive: what does this mean and what are its implications? A l t h o u g h the connections need to be spelled out i n greater detail, as w i t h Freud we are speaking here of an emotional drive to repetition, w h i c h is either largely unconscious or poorly understood by the i nd iv idua l concerned. The past lives on, but rather than being actively reconstructed i n the mode of t radit ion it tends to dominate action almost i n a quasi-causal fashion. Compul ­siveness, when socially generalized, is i n effect tradition without traditionalism: repetit ion which stands i n the way of autonomy rather than fostering i t .

Freud spoke of obsession or compulsion; today we more com­monly speak of addictions. The terminological difference is impor­tant, and helps b r ing out what is at issue. Compare the anorectic i nd iv idua l w i t h Weber's entrepreneur. Each is dr iven by a this-w o r l d l y asceticism. Anorexia, however, is seen as a pathology, and

Living in a Post-Traditional Society 71

(at present at least) is concentrated main ly i n young women. I t seems o d d at f i rs t to regard anorexia as an addiction, because i t appears more as a f o r m of self-denial than as being 'hooked' on pleasure-giving substances. I n this respect, however, i t is no d i f fe r ­ent f r o m the capitalist spiri t , and the point made about hedonism applies. I n a w o r l d where one can be addicted to anything (drugs, alcohol, coffee, but also work , exercise, sport, cinema-going, sex or love) anorexia is one among other food-related addictions.

Add ic t i on , i t has been said, 'is anything we feel we have to lie a b o u t ' I t is, one could say, repetition wh ich has lost its connection to the ' t ru th ' of t radi t ion; its origins are obscure to the i nd iv idua l concerned, a l though he or she may lie to others too. Thus alcoholics often hide their addict ion even f r o m those to w h o m they are closest, as part of denying i t to themselves. Add ic t ion , the author quoted above (a therapist) says, 'keeps us out of touch w i t h ourselves (our feelings, moral i ty , awareness - our l i v i n g process)'; the indiv idual ' s relations w i t h others also tend to be obsessional rather than freely entered into. 'Ingestive addictions' (to food or chemicals) can be psychologically based, but addict ion is p r imar i ly a social and psy­chological phenomenon rather than a physiological one. Thus i n the f ie ld of alcoholism, a w e l l k n o w n syndrome is that of the 'dry d runk ' , a person w h o exhibits most of the traits of the alcoholic, but w i thou t using the chemical. M a n y people, at least for some whi le , become more compulsive about their behaviour patterns after giv­ing u p alcohol than they were before^"

W h y juxtapose addict ion and tradition? There are two reasons. One is to focus on the compulsive traits of moderni ty as such, a matter to wh ich I shall re turn later. The other, more impor tant at this juncture, is because the topic of addict ion provides an in i t ia l i l lumina t ion of characteristics of a post-traditional order. I n pre­modern societies, t radi t ion and the rout inizat ion of day-to-day conduct are closely tied to one another. I n the post-traditional soci­ety, by contrast, rout in iza t ion becomes empty unless i t is geared to processes of inst i tut ional ref lexivi ty . There is no logic, or moral authenticity, to do ing today what one d i d yesterday; yet these things are the very essence of t radi t ion. The fact that today w e can become addicted to anything - any aspect of lifestyle - indicates the very comprehensiveness of the dissolution of t radi t ion (we should add, and this is not as paradoxical as i t seems, ' i n its t radit ional fo rm ' ) . The progress of addict ion is a substantively significant fea­ture of the postmodern social universe, but i t is also a 'negative index' of the very process of the detradit ionalizing of society.

72 Anthony Giddens

Family and marriage counsellors sometimes use 'genograms' i n helping individuals get along w i t h - or split u p f r o m - one another. A genogram is very much l ike an anthropologist 's map of a lineage i n a t radi t ional culture, save that i t concentrates on the emotions. I t traces out the emotional attachments of, say, the partners i n a mar­riage backwards i n time, reaching into the parents' and grand­parents' generations. A genogram supposedly allows us to see how the emotional l i fe of the present-day indiv iduals recapitulates that of past generations - and provides the possibili ty of f r u i t f u l l y escap­ing f r o m this 'inheritance'.

One therapist, w r i t i n g of experience w i t h genograms, says ' I became aware, over and over again, of how tenaciously the past searches fo r its expression i n the present'.^ Most of the connections involved, again, are emotional and unconscious. Consider the case of T o m and Laura, described b y Maggie Scarf.^* Scarf began to construct a genogram for the couple by first of al l asking what attracted the t w o to one another. Tom was a person w h o kept his emotions to himself, and he believed that this self-sufficiency was one of the things that Laura in i t ia l ly f o u n d attractive about h i m . Yet Laura's ideas about the relationship stressed 'sincerity', 'openness' and 'making oneself vulnerable' . ' I t was as i f each of them'. Scarf says, 'had found , i n the other, a missing aspect of something lacking i n his or her o w n inner being. ' Each had unconsciously recognized a complementary need i n the other - the one for emotional communication, the other for independence of m i n d .

Repetition as disclosed by f a m i l y analysis is often s tr ikingly l i t ­eral. Thus, for example, a w o m a n whose upbr ing ing has been af­fected by the fact that her father was an alcoholic marries a man w h o also turns out to be an alcoholic; perhaps she then divorces h im , on ly to repeat a similar pattern. More commonly, the 'mode of being w i t h the other' rephcates wha t has been transmitted f r o m the f ami ly context of chi ldhood. As i n the case of t radi t ion, this is not a passive process but an active, albeit mainly unconscious, act ivi ty of recreation. Scarf observes:

To some large or small degree, when we attain adult status, most of us have not put our childhood things behind us. In the very process of choosing our mates, and of being chosen - and then, in elaborating on our separate, past lives in the Ufe we create together - we are deeply influenced by the patterns for being that we observed and learned about very early in life and that live on inside our heads. The fact that there may be other options, other systems for being in an intimate relationship, often doesn't occur to us, because we don't

Living in a Post-Traditional Society 73

realise that we are operating within a system, one which was internal­ised in our original families. What has been, and what we've known, seems to be the 'way of the world'; it is reality itself.

Repetition is a way of staying i n 'the only w o r l d we know ' , a means of avoiding exposure to 'alien' values or ways of l i fe . Laura's parents had each been marr ied before, but she d idn ' t find this out un t i l she was i n her early twenties. The discovery was a shocking one; she felt that they had deceived her previously. A l t h o u g h she was an outgoing person on the surface, she maintained an attitude of inner reserve. I n her relationship w i t h her husband, she seemed to want complete closeness and integrity, but actually they had an unconscious 'arrangement'. When she made a move towards close­ness, he w o u l d react by asserting his autonomy. She depended upon h i m to preserve a necessary distance between them, w h i l e she expressed emotions i n a public way wh ich he could not do. H e saw his o w n desire fo r emotional closeness to her as her need, for he seemed emotionally self-sufficient.

Going back through the relations between their parents and grandparents, parallel forms of symbiosis came to l ight - as w e l l as many other similarities. Both had quite ' o ld ' fathers, w h o were i n their early forties when their chi ldren were born. Each had a parent w h o had regularly suffered f r o m depression. These traits also went back a fur ther generation. The relations between their parents 're­versed' their o w n , but otherwise paralleled i t . Tom's mother was the depressed one i n his fami ly , whi le i n Laura's case i t was her father. T o m became an 'outsider', an 'observer', i n his f ami ly , where neither conflict nor attachment between his parents was openly acknowledged; Laura was called upon to express emotions that were displaced on to her du r ing f ami ly scenes.

I am not concerned here w i t h h o w i l lumina t ing the therapist's analysis of the couple's relationship might be, or even whether genograms have any va l id i ty as representations of the past. So far as the post-traditional society is concerned, what is interesting is what I shall call the process of excavation involved. 'Excavation', as i n an archaeological d ig , is an investigation, and i t is also an evacuation. O l d bones are disinterred, and their connections w i t h one another established, but they are also exhumed and the site is cleaned out. Excavation means d igging deep, i n an attempt to clean out the debris of the past.

The factors involved are severalfold: First, as mentioned, the past becomes emotional inertia when t radi t ion becomes attenuated. Sec-

74 Anthony Giddens

ond, as i n premodern societies, however, the past cannot s imply be blanked out (al though some psychological mechanisms have this effect) but must be reconstructed i n the present. Th i rd , the reflexive project of self, a basic characteristic of everyday l i fe i n a post-traditional w o r l d , depends upon a significant measure of emotional autonomy. Fourth, the prototypical post-traditional personal relation - the pure relationship - depends upon intimacy i n a manner not generally characteristic of premodern contexts of social interaction.^^ The succession of the generations is str ipped of the crucial significance i t had i n premodern orders, as one of the most central means fo r the transmission of tradit ional symbols and practices.

Choices and decisions

Let me f o l l o w the theme of therapy just a l i t t le further . Works of therapy almost always emphasize the issue of choice. Choice is obviously something to do w i t h colonizing the fu tu re i n relation to the past and is the positive side of coming to terms w i t h inertial emotions lef t f r o m past experiences. VJho are y o u and what do y o u want?': the query sounds the ul t imate i n specious ind iv idua l i sm. Yet there is something more interesting than this going on, wh ich is essentially a way of looking at the social w o r l d .

The f o l l o w i n g is just a small sample of a very long list of 'choices'

given by one author:

Who you spend most of your time wi th What your favourite foods are Your posture How much or how little you smile How late you stay up at night Whether you smoke Whether you gdssip Who you admire most How calm you are How you spend your holidays How often you feel sorry for yourself How much you worry How much patience you have How happy you are Who to talk to when you have a problem Whether you eat breakfast What you think about just before you go to sleep at night^'

Living in a Post-Traditional Society 75

I n post-traditional contexts, we have no choice but to choose how to be and h o w to act. F rom this perspective, even addictions are choices: they are modes of coping w i t h the mul t ip l i c i ty of possi­bilities w h i c h almost every aspect of dai ly l i fe , when looked at i n the appropriate way, offers. The therapist advises:

Look at what you can do, starting at any time you choose, by making conscious, active choices every time the opportunity comes up. It is what we do with these choices (and many other choices just like them) that wi l l always determine not only how well each day works for us, but how successful we w i l l be at anything we do.^'

The logic is impeccable; for active choice surely produces, or is, autonomy. So w h y does the advice grate somewhat? One reason might be an objection f r o m classical psychoanalysis. Choices are blocked, or programmed, by unconscious emotions, w h i c h cannot f i rs t be thought away by l is t ing indefini te numbers of 'options' . Depending upon h o w f ixed unconscious traits are presumed to be, one's genogram could be seen as setting clear l imi t s to feasible options. To see day-to-day l i fe as an amalgam of free choices thus flies i n the face of psychological reality. Another reason migh t be the inevi tabi l i ty of rout inizat ion. Da i ly l i fe w o u l d be impossible i f we d idn ' t establish routines, and even routines w h i c h are no th ing more than habits cannot be w h o l l y optional: they w o u l d n ' t be rou­tines i f we d idn ' t , at least for longish periods of t ime, place them effectively 'beyond question'.

There is a th i rd reason, however, w h i c h is to do w i t h constraint and power. The choices that are constihj t ive of lifestyle options are very of ten bounded by factors out of the hands of the i n d i v i d u a l or indiv iduals they affect. Everyday experiments, such as I de­scribed them earlier, are ways of handl ing options, and i n this sense are certainly 'active'. Yet the nature of the options i n question is clearly variable. Take the matter of the ice-cubes. The technological changes w h i c h impinge upon people's lives are the result of the int rusion of abstract systems, whose character they may i n f l u ­ence but do not determine. The sh i f t ing design of ice-cube trays presumably responds in some way to consumer demand; bu t the design of the trays, and their construction, are controlled by large industr ia l corporations far removed f r o m the control of the lay ind iv idua l .

In coming to grips w i t h the post-traditional order, then, w e have to make a dist inct ion between choices and decisions. M a n y of our day-to-day activities have in fact become open to choice or, rather.

76 Anthony Giddens

as I have expressed i t previously, choice has become obUgatory. This is a substantive thesis about everyday l i fe today. Analytical ly, i t is more accurate to say that a l l areas of social activity come to be governed by decisions - often, a l though not universally, enacted on the basis of claims to expert knowledge of one k i n d or another. Who takes those decisions, and how, is fundamental ly a matter of power. A decision, of course, is always somebody's choice and in general all choices, even by the most impoverished or apparently power­less, refract back upon pre-existing power relations. The opening-out of social l i fe to decision-making therefore should not be identif ied ipso facto w i t h plural ism; i t is also a m e d i u m of power and of stratification. Examples are legion, and span the whole gamut of social activity f r o m minute features of day-to-day l i fe through to global systems.

Nature and tradition as complementary

In respect of the progression of decision-making, we see a direct parallel between t radi t ion and nature - one that is very important. In premodern societies, t radi t ion provided a relatively f ixed hor­izon of action. Tradi t ion, as has been emphasized, involves active processes of reconstruction, part icularly as f i l tered by its guardians. It is common to see t radi t ion as intrinsically conservative, but we should say instead that i t renders many things external to human activity. Formulaic t ru th , coupled to the stabilizing influence of r i tual , takes an indefini te range of possibilities 'out of play' . Tra­d i t ion as nature, nature as tradit ion: this equivalence is not as extreme as i t may sound. What is 'natural ' is what remains outside the scope of human intervention.

'Nature ' i n the modern era has become contrasted w i t h the city; i t is equivalent to 'countryside' and quite often has the connotation of a rural i d y l l :

Oh there is a blessing in this gentle breeze A visitant that while it fans my cheek Doth seem half-conscious of the joy it brings From the green fields, and from yon azure sky. Whate'er its mission, the soft breeze can come To more grateful than me; escaped From the vast city, where I long had pined A discontented sojourner.'"

Living in a Post-Traditional Society 77

There is some sense i n such a usage. 'Nature ' means that wh ich lies undis turbed, that w h i c h is created independently of human activity. I n one way the image is quite false, for the countryside is nature subordinated to human plans. Yet 'nature' i n this meaning does preserve traits long associated w i t h its separation f r o m human contrivance. I n many traditions, of course, nature was personalized; i t was the domain of gods, spirits or demons. I t w o u l d be mis­leading to see animism or other comparable outlooks as a merging of the human and natural wor lds , however. Rather, the personaliz­ing of nature expressed its very independence f r o m human beings, a source of change and renewal set o f f f r o m humani ty , yet having a pervasive influence upon human lives. I f nature was determined by decisions, these were not human ones.

One w a y to read human history, f r o m the t ime of the rise of agriculture, and part icular ly the great civilizations, onwards is as the progressive destruction of the physical environment. Envi ron­mental ecology i n the current period has arisen main ly as a response to perceived human destructiveness. Yet the very not ion of 'the environment ' , as compared to 'nature', signals a more deep-lying transition. The environment, w h i c h seems to be no more than an independent parameter of human existence, actually is its opposite: nature as thoroughly transfigured by human intervention. We be­g in to speak about 'the environment ' only once nature, l ike tra­d i t ion , has become dissolved. Today, among all the other endings, we may speak i n a real sense of the end of nature^' - a way of referr ing to its thoroughgoing socialization.

The socialization of nature means much more than just the fact that the natural w o r l d is increasingly scarred by humani ty . H u m a n action, as mentioned, has long lef t an i m p r i n t upon the physical environment. The very invent ion of agriculture means clearing the natural ecosystem so as to create a habitat where humans can g row plants or raise animals as they want . M a n y n o w fami l ia r landscapes of 'natural beauty', such as some of those i n southern Greece, have actually been created by soil erosion f o l l o w i n g the placing of the land under cul t ivat ion i n ancient times. Earlier on, the Sumerians, the originators of agrarian civi l izat ion, had destroyed the very land they had laboured to make frui t fu l .^^

U n t i l modern times, however, nature remained main ly an exter­nal system that dominated human activi ty rather than the reverse. Even i n the most sophisticated of hydraul ic civilizations f loods or droughts were common; a bad harvest could produce devastation.

78 Anthony Giddens

Risk here is of the o l d type. Natura l disasters obviously sti l l happen, but the socialization of nature i n the present day means that a diversity of erstwhile natural systems are now products of human decision-making. Concern over global w a r m i n g comes f r o m the fact that the climate of the earth is no longer a naturally-given order. If global w a r m i n g is indeed occurring, i t is the result of the extra quantities of 'greenhouse gases' that have been added to the at­mosphere over a period of no more than some two hundred years. Energy consumption has increased by a factor of some three hundred i n the twentieth century alone; the f u e l burned to provide the energy releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. A concomi­tant reduction in the wor ld ' s natural 'sinks', wh ich can absorb carbon dioxide, has exacerbated this effect. The overall con­sequence, even should the thesis of global w a r m i n g prove mis­taken, is the creation of new types of feedback effects and system influences.

The International Panel on Climate Change set up four possible emissions 'scenarios' and tried to assess the implications of each.^^ In the 'business as usual' scenario, where there is not much change f r o m what seem to be the trends at the moment, the amount of carbon dioxide i n the atmosphere w i l l double i n about twenty years into the new centiiry. The introduct ion of very tight restrictions, one scenario, w o u l d stabilize the level; i n each of the others, the level of increase w o u l d be geometric. A l l are just that - scenarios - which could reflexively influence what i t is they are about. None of them, however, predicts a reversion. That is to say, henceforth and for the foreseeable future , w i t h a l l its imponderabilities, we are dealing w i t h a human rather than a natural order.

Some have said that the very idea of inanimate nature, so s ignif i ­cant to the outlook and technology of the modern West, should be rejected today. Thus Rupert Sheldrake has suggested that 'once again i t makes sense to th ink of nature as alive'; we might think of 'the entire cosmos' as 'more l ike a developing organism than an external machine'.** This process he specifically connects w i t h the rebirth of t radi t ion and r i tual , as w e l l as w i t h an exploration of religion. ' A number of Westerners, myself included, have rejected the Christ ian rel igion and explored instead the religious traditions of the East, particularly H i n d u i s m and Buddhism; others have attempted to revive aspects of pre-Christian paganism and the rel igion of the goddess.''^ Whether or not such ideas and proclivities become widespread, such a process of selection is not a reawaken­ing of t radi t ion but something new. I t is the adoption of tradit ion as

Living in a Post-Traditional Society 79

itself a lifestyle decision; and no attempt to reanimate nature w i l l reintroduce nature as i t used to be.

The 'externality' of nati jre i n premodern times d i d not only i n ­clude the physical environment. I t concerned also the body and, i n close conjunction w i t h t radi t ion, whatever was counted as part of 'human nature'. A l l cultures have had systems of medicine and regimes of bodi ly training. But i n the modern era the body and its physiological processes have been much more deeply invaded than before. Nowhere is this more evident than i n the sphere of reproduction. The effects of detraditionalization and technology merge quite closely here, as i n many other areas. The decision to have only a f ew children, for example, a demographic change of the first significance i n modern societies i n the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, was part of the dissolution of t radit ional f ami ly systems, not a result of changes in technologies of contraception.

Technical changes, however, together w i t h other innovations i n reproductive technologies, have radically cut into 'external nature'. In vitro fer t i l izat ion and embryo h-ansplantation provide good examples. N o t on ly can an ind iv idua l or couple decide to have a chi ld w i thou t having sexual intercourse, thus making a reality of v i rg in b i r th , but a variety of new possibilities, and dilemmas, open up as regards established k i n categories and identities.

Tradition as contextual

Tradi t ion is contextual i n the sense that i t is guaranteed by a combi­nation of r i tual and formulaic t ru th . Separated f r o m these, t radi t ion lapses into custom or habit. Tradi t ion is unthinkable w i thou t guard­ians, because the guardians have privi leged access to t ruth; t ru th cannot be demonstrated save i n so far as i t is manifest i n the inter­pretations and practices of guardians. The priest or shaman may claim to be no more than the mouthpiece of the gods, but their actions de facto define what the traditions actiially are. Secular tra­ditions have their guardians just as much as those concerned w i t h the sacred; poli t ical leaders speak the language of t radi t ion when they claim the same sort of access to formulaic t ruth .

The connection between r i tual and formulaic t ru th is also what gives traditions their qualities of exclusion. Tradi t ion always dis­criminates between 'insider' and 'other', because part icipation in r i tua l and acceptance of formulaic t ru th is the condit ion fo r its existence. The 'other' is anyone and everyone w h o is outside. Tra-

80 Anthony Giddens

ditions, one could say, almost demand to be set o f f f r o m others, since being an insider is crucial to their character.

Tradi t ion hence is a m e d i u m of ident i ty . Whether personal or collective, ident i ty presumes meaning; but i t also presumes the constant process of recapitulation and reinterpretation noted earlier. Ident i ty is the creation of constancy over time, that very br ing ing of the past into conjunction w i t h an anticipated fu ture . I n all societies the maintenance of personal identi ty, and its connection to wider social identities, is a pr ime requisite of ontological security. This psychological concern is one of the main forces a l lowing tra­dit ions to create such strong emotional attachments on the part of the l^eliever'. Threats to the integri ty of traditions are very often, i f by no means universally, experienced as threats to the integri ty of the self.

Obviously i n even the most t radit ional of societies not al l things are tradit ional . M a n y skills and tasks, part icular ly those more re­moved f r o m r i tua l or ceremonial occasions, are forms of 'secular expertise'. Such skills and tasks may of ten be i n fo rmed by claims to generalizing knowledge, regarded as revisable i n the l ight of new experience or changing conditions of operation. M a l i n o w s k i showed as much many years ago. Yet the major i ty of skills are crafts; they are taught by apprenticeship and example, and the knowledge-claims they incorporate are protected as arcane and esoteric. The mystique demands ini t ia t ion on the part of the f ledgl ing participant. Hence the possessors of craft skills are of ten i n effect guardians, even i f those skills are kept relatively separate f r o m the more overt ly t radi t ional apparitions of the society. A m o n g the IKung, fo r example, hun t ing is a sk i l l developed by practice over many years, protected but not structured by in i t ia t ion rites. A !Kung male can iden t i fy any local species by means of its footprints i n the sand; he can deduce its sex, age, h o w rapid ly i t is travell ing, whether or not i t is healthy, and h o w long ago i t passed through the area.3*

Tradi t ion claims a pr ivi leged v iew of time; but it tends to do so of space also. Privileged space is what sustains the differences of tra­di t ional beliefs and practices. Trad i t ion is always i n some sense rooted i n contexts of o r ig in or central places. H u n t i n g and gathering societies may not have a f ixed place of abode, but the area w i t h i n w h i c h the group circulates is o rd inar i ly accorded sacral qualities. A t the other extreme, the 'great traditions' have created cul tural diasporas spanning very large areas; premodern Christ ianity or Islam, for instance, stretched across massive geographical regions.

Living in a Post-Traditional Society 81

Yet such diasporas remained centred, either upon a single poin t of or ig in - Rome, Mecca - or upon a cluster of ho ly places.

The 'salvation religions' connected privi leged place to quite i m ­permeable cul tural boundaries between insiders and outsiders. One is either a believer or a heathen. Other 'great traditions' , most no­tably the 'exemplary religions' of the East, such as Buddhism or H i n d u i s m , had more f u z z y zones of inclusion and exclusion. Yet the relation between t radi t ion and ident i ty always made the categories of f r i end and stranger (if not necessarily enemy) sharp and distinct. The stranger, i t has been said (by Robert Michels), is the represen­tative of the unknown . A l t h o u g h i t migh t seem that the category of the stranger depends upon the terri torial segmentation of premodern social systems, i n fact i t results more f r o m the pr iv i leged and separatist character of t radi t ional ly conferred identities. The u n k n o w n is that cul tura l ly defined space wh ich separates o f f the outside f r o m the w o r l d of the ' famil iar ' , structured by the tradit ions w i t h w h i c h the collectivity identifies.

Tradi t ion thus p rov ided an anchorage fo r that 'basic trust ' so central to cont inui ty of ident i ty; and i t was also the gu id ing mech­anism of other trust relations. Georg Simmel's def in i t ion of the stranger is somewhat dif ferent f r o m that of Michels: the stranger is someone 'who comes today and stays tomorrow'.^' ' The sh-anger, i n other words , is not just someone w h o belongs to 'the u n k n o w n w o r l d out there' bu t a person w h o , by staying on, forces the locals to take a stand. One has to establish whether or not the stranger is a ' f r i end ' i f he or she does not go away again - wh ich is not the same as accepting the stranger as one of the communi ty , a process that may take many years, or even never happen. The stranger, as has been observed, is someone who :

did not belong in the life-world 'initially', 'originally', ' f rom the start', 'since time immemorial', and so he questions the extemporality of the life-world, brings into relief the 'mere historicality' of existence. The memory of the event of his coming makes of his very presence an event in history, rather than a fact of nature . . . However protected the stay of the stranger is temporary - an infringement of the division which ought to be kept intact and preserved in the name of secure, orderly existence.'*

The problem is: under what circumstances can the stranger be trusted? For tiadition and the struct i i ral elements w i t h w h i c h i t is involved (such as kinship ties) sustain the networks of social re­lations along w h i c h trust flows. 'Famil iar i ty ' is the keynote of trust.

82 Anthony Giddens

which is often sustained by its o w n rituals. Ritual is important to trust because i t supplies evidence of shared cultural community, and also because participation represents something of a public commitment w h i c h i t is d i f f i cu l t later to go back on. In premodern societies, the extension of trust to newly encountered strangers normally takes the f o r m of an extension of the ' famil iar ' , either through r i tua l encounters or through the uncovering of k i n connec-tions.3» A person may be trusted, at least provisionally, i f some k ind of k i n relation, even very remote, is ident i f ied. Institutions like the Kula r ing sustain trust between the different communities involved through r i tua l means, but the r i tua l is bolstered also by a more or less deliberate fo rg ing of k i n bonds.

As Hans-Georg Gadamer has quite r ight ly stressed, tradit ion is closely bound up w i t h authority. 'Au thor i ty ' has a double sense: it is the authori ty w h i c h an ind iv idua l or group has over others, the capacity to issue b ind ing commands; however, i t means also a reference-point of knowledge. Sometimes the two become merged, a matter of ideology or as a means of impersonalizing power; a directive w i l l say 'issued by authori ty ' . O n the other hand, where an ind iv idua l , for whatever reason, loses the aura wh ich authority conveys, he or she is seen as charlatan. The t w o are therefore inevi­tably interdependent. A person w h o wields effective authori ty holds the aura of 'authori ty ' i n its more impersonal sense; corre­spondingly, of course, 'authori ty ' must take the empirical forms of the g iv ing of directives or judgements on the part of specific individuals .

Guardians and experts

I n general we can make a dist inction between rulers or officials (who give commands) and guardians (who supply interpretations), al though the t w o categories are quite often merged in the same person. Max Weber was much concerned w i t h the role of expertise in modern societies, but the contrasts he drew between tradit ion and expertise were pr imar i ly to do w i t h the legitimacy of command systems. Those he discusses under the category of ' traditional authori ty ' are main ly rulers rather than guardians, save in the context of his sociology of religion. Tradit ional authority is where 'masters are designated according to tradit ional rules and obeyed because of the tradit ional staUis'. Trust is generated not just by these tradit ional rules but by personal loyalty. The ind iv idua l w h o has

Living in a Post-Traditional Society 83

authori ty over others is, i n Weber's words, a 'personal master' rather than a superior, one reason w h y tradit ional authori ty cannot be understood in terms of ' fo rmal procedures'. Tradit ional rules are rarely clearly specified and always a l low the master a wide area of f reedom to do wha t he likes; he is free to do good hirns fo r his subordinates, i n return for gif ts or dues. Household officials and favourites are of ten hed to the ruler i n a patr imonial way, as slaves or dependants.

A u t h o r i t y i n its more generic sense, i n tradit ional cultures, is however the province of the guardians, and about this Weber says li t t le . Those w h o ho ld authori ty - or effectively 'are' authori ty - i n this way do or are so i n vir tue of their special access to the causal powers of formulaic t ru th . 'Wisdom' is the characteristic term w h i c h applies here. The wise person or sage is the repository of t radi t ion, whose special qualities come f r o m that long apprentice­ship w h i c h creates skills and states of grace. A u t h o r i t y i n its non­specific meaning is clearly a generative phenomenon. Whatever degree of trust may come f r o m personal loyalty, the stabili ty of tradit ional leadership depends i n a much more integral way upon access to symbols wh ich perpetuate the necessary 'aura'. Rulers may tu rn on their sages, Weber says, kings on their churchmen, because at any given point the masters possess greater secular power; but were the influence of traditions' guardians dispelled altogether, the power of a chief or prince w o u l d quickly come to naught.

Since he gives so much emphasis to dominat ion, when he contrasts t radi t ional w i t h more modern forms of authori ty Weber focuses part icularly upon 'rational-legal' authority. The dominance of the expert, i n other words , is largely equated w i t h the replace­ment of pat r imonial ism by bureaucracy. The prototypical expert is the bureaucratic off ic ia l , pe r forming the specialized duties of his office; the Puritan version of the calling played its due part i n this transition. From this interpretation comes Weber's nightmare vision of a w o r l d imprisoned in the 'steel-hard cage' of bureaucratic dominat ion.

Rational-legal authori ty rests upon 'a belief i n the legality of enacted rules and the r ight of those elevated to authori ty under such rules to issue commands'."" Personal loyalty is downplayed as compared to due process of law or f o r m a l procedure. The keynote ins t i tu t ion of rational-legal authori ty is the bureaucratic organiz­ation; discipline and control are characteristic of the conduct of the off ic ia l and the organization as a whole.

84 Anthony Giddens

The contrast Weber draws between t radi t ional and rational-legal authori ty has been justly inf luent ia l , as of course has his theory of bureaucracy. Yet his bureaucratic nightmare has not come to pass and i t is not obvious that the 'o f f ic ia l ' is either the dominant figure of the age or the faceless autocrat whose d i f fuse power Weber feared. The compulsiveness that Weber unearthed i n the Puritan ethic is not coupled to a 'disciplinary society' - whether i n the manner of Weber or of Foucault - bu t to something else.

W e need here to separate the expert f r o m the off ic ia l . Officials are experts, i n a w ide sense of that term, bu t expertise, i n the context of the modern social order, is a more pervasive phenomenon than is of f ic ia ldom. We should not equate experts and professionals. A n expert is any i n d i v i d u a l w h o can successfully lay claim to either specific skills or types of knowledge w h i c h the layperson does not possess. 'Expert ' and ' layperson' have to be understood as contex­tuaUy relative terms. There are many layers of expertise and what counts i n any given situation where expert and layperson confront one another is an imbalance i n skills or in fo rmat ion w h i c h - for a given field of action - makes one an 'authori ty ' i n relation to the other.

When we compare t radi t ion w i t h expertise we find major d i f fe r ­ences, just as i n the case of comparing guardians w i t h experts. We can sum these up , fo r the purposes of the present discussion, i n the f o l l o w i n g way: First, expertise is disembedding; i n contrast to tra­d i t ion i t is i n a fundamenta l sense non-local and decentred. Second, expertise is tied not to formulaic t ru th bu t to a belief i n the corr ig ibi l i ty of knowledge, a belief that depends upon a methodical scepticism. T h i r d , the accumulation of expert knowledge involves intrinsic processes of specialization. Fourth, trust i n abstract sys­tems, or i n experts, cannot readily be generated by means of esoteric wisdom. F i f th , expertise interacts w i t h g r o w i n g inst i tut ional re­flexivity, such that there are regular processes of loss and re-appropria t ion of everyday skills and knowledge.

I n its modern guise at least, expertise is i n principle devoid of local attachments. I n an ideal-typical way, i t could be said that a l l forms of 'local knowledge ' under the rule of expertise become local recombinations of knowledge der ived f r o m elsewhere. Obviously in practice things are more comphcated than this, o w i n g to the cont inuing importance of local habits, customs or traditions. The decentred nature of expertise derives f r o m the traits to wh ich Weber gives prominence, save that those do not concern on ly rational-legal procedures. That is to say, expertise is disembedding because i t is

Living in a Post-Traditional Society 85

based upon impersonal principles, wh ich can be set out and devel­oped wi thou t regard to context. To say this is not to downgrade the importance of art or flair; but these are qualities of the specific expert rather than the expert system as such.

The decentred character of expertise does not preclude the exist­ence of 'authoritative centres', such as professional associations or hcensing bodies; but their relation to knowledge-claims they seek to influence or regulate is quite di f ferent f r o m that of centres of tra­d i t ion i n regard of formulaic t ru th . A l though such might not always happen in practice, i n pr inciple their role is to protect the very impart ia l i ty of coded knowledge. I n many ways expertise thus cuts across the fo rmat ion of the bureaucratic hierarchies upon wh ich Weber placed emphasis. I t has become a commonplace to say as much about the role of professionals, whose global affi l iat ions can­not be contained w i t h i n the hierarchy of command w i t h i n the or­ganization. However , the phenomenon goes we l l beyond this example. I n v i r tue of its mobile f o r m , expertise is as disrupt ive of hierarchies of authori ty as i t is a stabilizing influence. Formal bureaucratic rules, i n fact, tend to deny that very openness to in ­novation w h i c h is the hal lmark of expertise; they translate skills into duties.

Disembedding mechanisms depend on t w o conditions: the evacuation of the t radi t ional or customary content of local contexts of action, and the reorganizing of social relations across broad time-space bands. The causal processes whereby disembedding occurs are many, but i t is not d i f f i cu l t to see w h y the format ion and evol­u t ion of expert systems is so central to them. Expert systems decontextualize as an intrinsic consequence of the impersonal and contingent character of their rules of knowledge-acquisition; as decentred systems, 'open' to whosoever has the time, resources and talent to grasp them, they can be located anywhere. Place is not i n any sense a qual i ty relevant to their va l id i ty ; and places themselves, as we shall see, take on a d i f ferent significance f r o m tradit ional locales.*'

Wisdom and expertise

There were various sorts of communication, but also dispute, be­tween the diverse guardians of t radi t ion in premodern contexts. Wrangles of interpretation were extremely common, and most tra­di t ional symbols and practices, even i n small cultures, had strongly

86 Anthony Giddens

defined fissiparous tendencies. Difference i n the interpretation of dogma, however, is not the same as disputes relating to expert knowledge (or, as should always be stressed here, claims to k n o w l ­edge). The 'natural state' of t radi t ion, as i t were, is deference. Tra­dit ions exist i n so far as they are separated f r o m other traditions, the ways of l i fe of separate or alien communities. The expert purveys universal izing knowledge. Experts are bound of ten to disagree, not only because they may have been trained i n vary ing schools of thought bu t because disagreement or critique is the motor of their enterprise.

We sometimes speak, not w i thou t reason, of ' traditions of thought ' i n academic study, science and other areas relevant to the d is t r ibut ion of expertise. Gadamer has even made t radi t ion, i n his sense, the o r ig in of a l l fo rms of l inguist ic understanding. The debate about 'presuppositions' and the importance of w o r k i n g w i t h i n rela­t ively f ixed perspectives has spilled over into the philosophy of science. Yet the use of ' t radi t ion ' to describe such perspectives, wh i l e justifiable enough as shorthand, is clearly ell iptical . The com­binat ion of scepticism and universalism that characterizes modern modes of enquiry ensures that traditions of thought are understood by sympathizer and critic alike to be relatively arbitrary. Experts trained i n one particular approach may of ten be critical or dismiss­ive of the views of those schooled in others; yet crit ique of even the most basic assumptions of a perspective is not only i n bounds, but called for , expected and responded to.

The point is not just that, as Popper says, everything is open to doubt, fundamenta l though that is not just to intellectual enquiry but to everyday l i fe i n conditions of moderni ty . I t is the mixture of scepticism and universalism w h i c h gives the disputes of experts their particular f lavour . Experts disagree not just because they are de­fending di f ferent pre-established positions but i n the very service of overcoming those differences. Plural ism here has a di f ferent f o r m f r o m the cul tural diversi ty of premodern systems, and is clearly related to broad principles of democratization. Experts f requently disagree, but i n the interests of a universaUsm that lends itself to public discourse. Such discourse is bo th the means of and produced by the conjunct ion of critique and universalism.

Discomforts for expert and layperson come f r o m the very same source. Expert knowledge, and the general accumulation of exper­tise, are supposed to provide increasing certainty about how the w o r l d is, bu t the very condi t ion of such certainty, not to pu t too f ine a point on i t , is doubt. For a long whi le , the tensions inherent i n such

Living in a Post-Traditional Society 87

a situation were masked by the distinctive status w h i c h science, understood i n a specific way, enjoyed i n modern societies - p lus a more or less unquestioned dominance that the West held over the rest of the w o r l d . Furthermore, the very persistence of t radi t ion, especially i n contexts of everyday l i fe , held back processes of evacu­ation that have today become far advanced. So long as traditions and customs were w i d e l y sustained, experts were people w h o could be turned to at certain necessary junchires; and, i n the publ ic eye, at least, science was i n effect not very dif ferent f r o m t rad i t ion -a monol i thic source of 'authori ty ' i n the generic sense. The d i f fe r ­ences between guardians and experts were much less obvious than they have since become.

A non-tradit ional culture dispenses w i t h final authorities, bu t the significance of this fo r day-to-day l i fe was first of al l muted b y the factors described above. Even for those w o r k i n g i n intellectual dis­ciplines, 'science' was invested w i t h the authori ty of a final court of appeal. What seems to be a pure ly intellectual matter today - the fact that, shorn of formula ic t ru th , a l l claims to knowledge are corrigible ( inc luding any metastatements made about them) - has become an existential condi t ion i n modern societies. The conse­quences fo r the lay ind iv idua l , as fo r the cultiare as a whole, are both l iberating and dis turbing. Liberating, since obeisance to a single source of author i ty is oppressive; anxiety-provoking, since the ground is pul led f r o m beneath the indiv idual ' s feet. Science, Popper says, is bu i l t upon sh i f t ing sand; i t has no stable g rounding at al l . Yet today i t is not on ly scientific enquiry but more or less the whole of everyday l i fe to w h i c h this metaphor applies.

L i v i n g i n a w o r l d of mul t ip le authorities, a circumstance some­times mistakenly referred to as postmodernity, is very consequen­tial for al l attempts to confine risk to the nar row conception referred to previously, whether i n respect of an indiv idual ' s life-course or of collective attempts to colonize the futiare. For since there are no super-experts to tijrn to, r isk calculation has to include the r isk of w h i c h experts are consulted, or whose authori ty is to be taken as b inding . The debate over global w a r m i n g is one among an inde f i ­nite range of examples that could be quoted. The very scepticism that is the d r i v i n g force of expert knowledge migh t lead, i n some contexts, or among some groups, to a disenchantment w i t h al l ex­perts; this is one of the lines of tension between expertise and t radi t ion (also habit and compulsion).

Science has lost a good deal of the aura of authori ty i t once had. In some part, probably, this is a result of disi l lusionment w i t h the

88 Anthony Giddens

benefits which , i n association w i t h technology, it has been claimed to b r ing to humani ty . T w o w o r l d wars, the invention of horr i f ical ly destructive weaponry, the global ecological crisis, and other devel­opments i n the present century, might cool the ardour of even the most optimistic advocates of progress through untrammelled scien­tific enquiry. Yet science can and indeed must be regarded as prob­lematic i n terms of its o w n premises. The principle 'nothing is sacred' is itself a universalizing one, f r o m w h i c h the claimed au­thori ty of science cannot be exempt.

A balance between scepticism and commitment is d i f f i cu l t enough to forge w i t h i n the philosophy of science, where i t is end­lessly debated; i t is surely unsurprising, therefore, to find that such a balance is elusive when sought after i n practical contexts of day-to-day l i fe . Aga in this is as much true of the collective efforts of humani ty to confront global problems as i t is of the ind iv idua l seeking to colonize a personal future . H o w can a layperson keep up w i t h , or reconcile the diverse theories about, for example, the i n f l u ­ence of diet upon long-term health? Some findings are at any time quite w e l l established and i t is sensible to act on them; for instance, g iv ing u p smoking almost certainly lessens the chance of contract­ing a specific range of serious illnesses. Yet i t is only fo r ty years ago that many doctors were recommending smoking as a means of enhancing mental and bod i ly relaxation. Many forms of scientific knowledge, part icularly when they are bracketed to observable technologies, are relatively secure; the shi f t ing sand is leavened w i t h a measure of concrete. However, a l l must be i n principle re­garded as open to question and at every juncture a puzzl ing diver­sity of r iva l theoretical and practical claims are to be found in the 'moving ' areas of knowledge.

I n modern social conditions a l l experts are specialists. Specializ­ation is intrinsic to a w o r l d of h igh reflexivi ty, where local k n o w l ­edge is re-embedded in format ion derived f r o m abstract systems of one type or another. There is not a one-way movement towards speciahzation; al l sorts of generalisms ride on the back of the d iv­ision of labour i n expertise. A n example w o u l d be the general phy­sician i n the field of medicine; he or she is a non-specialist i n medical terms, whose role is to know whether a patient needs a specialist and, i f so, of what k i n d . Yet a 'general' physician is clearly a specialist when compared to lay members of the public.

I t is of the first importance to recognize that all specialists revert to being members of the ordinary lay public when confronted w i t h the vast array of abstract systems, and diverse arenas of expertise.

Living in a Post-Traditional Society 89

that affect our lives today. This is far more than just an expansion of the d iv is ion of labour i n general. The guardians of t radi t ion had their specialisms; the skills and posit ion of the craft worker , for example, were usually quite separate f r o m those of the priest. Specialist guardians, however, never became mere 'lay people'. Their possession of 'wisdom' gave them a distinct and general status i n the communi ty at large. I n contrast to wisdom, 'compe­tence' is specifically l inked to specialization. A person's competence as an expert is coterminous w i t h her or his specialism. Conse­quentiy, al though some forms of expertise migh t command wide public esteem, a person's status w i t h i n one abstract system is l ike ly to be completely beside the point w i t h i n another.

This situation decisively influences the nature of trust relations between experts and lay individuals , as we l l as trust i n the abstract systems wh ich the experts ' f ront ' . Trust no longer depends upon a respect for the 'causal relation' believed to hold between a guardian and formulaic t ruth . The skills or knowledge possessed by experts are esoteric only i n so far as they express their commitment to the mastery of a specialism; the i nd iv idua l w h o consults an expert could have sat i n that person's place, had he or she concentrated upon the same learning process. Trust based purely on the assump­tion of technical competence is revisable for much the same reasons as knowledge purchased through methodical scepticism is revis­able; i t can i n principle be w i t h d r a w n at a moment's notice. Hence i t is not surprising that the purveyors of expertise of ten feel led to place a special p r e m i u m on the services they have to offer, or to make particular efforts to reassure patrons at the poin t of contact w i t h them. The degrees and diplomas hung on the w a l l of a psycho­therapist's office are therefore more than merely informat ional ; they carry an echo of the symbols w i t h wh ich figures of tradit ional authori ty surrounded themselves.

The problematic nature of trust i n modern social conditions is especially significant when we consider abstract systems them­selves, rather than only their 'representatives'. Trust i n a m u l t i ­p l ic i ty of abstract systems is a necessary part of everyday l i fe today, whether or not this is consciously acknowledged by the individuals concerned. Tradit ional systems of trust were nearly always based on 'facework'; because of having special access to the esoteric qual i ­ties of tradit ion, the guardian was t radi t ion made flesh. The disembedded characteristics of abstract systems mean constant i n ­teraction w i t h 'absent others' - people one never sees or meets but whose actions directiy affect features of one's o w n l i fe . Given the

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d iv ided and contested character of expertise, the creation of stable abstract systems is a f raught endeavour. Some types of abstract system have become so much a part of people's lives that, at any one time, they appear to have a rock-like sol idi ty akin to established tradit ion; yet they are vulnerable to the collapse of generalized trust.

O n the level of day-to-day l i fe , for fe i t of trust may take various forms, some of w h i c h are entirely marginal to the persistence of abstract systems themselves. I t does not make much odds, fo r example, i f a f ew people opt out more or less completely f r o m surrounding abstract systems - by, say, estabhshing a small self-sufficient commune i n a rura l area. The fact that Jehovah's W i t ­nesses reject much of the electronic technology of moderni ty has no particular impact on the wider society. Some dislocations or re­lapses i n trust, however, are much broader i n their implications. A progressive acceleration of mistrust i n a bank, or a government, can lead to their collapse; the w o r l d economy as a whole is subject to vagaries of generalized trust, as of course are the relations between nation-states i n the global poli t ical order.

Most impor tant of al l , trust i n abstract systems is bound up w i t h collective lifestyle patterns, themselves subject to change. Because of their local and centred character, t radit ional practices are embed­ded: they correspond to normative qualities that sustain dai ly rou­tines. The not ion of ' l ifestyle' has no meaning when applied to t radi t ional contexts of action. I n modern societies, lifestyle choices are both constitutive of dai ly l i fe and geared to abstract systems. There is a fundamenta l sense i n w h i c h the whole inst i tut ional apparatus of moderni ty , once i t has become broken away f r o m tradi t ion, depends upon potentially volatile mechanisms of trust. The compulsive character of moderni ty remains largely hidden f r o m v iew so long as the Promethean impulse holds sway, espe­cially when i t is backed by the pre-eminent authori ty of science. When these factors are placed i n question, however, as is happening today, the coincidence of lifestyle patterns and global processes of social reproduction come under strain. Alterations i n lifestyle prac­tices can then become deeply subversive of core abstract systems. For instance, a general move away f r o m consumerism i n modern economies w o u l d have massive implications fo r contemporary eco­nomic institutions.

Compulsiveness, I want to argue, is frozen trust, commitment w h i c h has no object but is self-perpetuating. Add ic t i on , to recapitu­late, is anything we have to lie about: i t is the obverse of that

Living in a Post-Traditional Society 9]

integri ty w h i c h t radi t ion once supplied and wh ich a l l forms of trust also presume. A w o r l d of abstract systems, and potential ly open lifestyle choices, fo r reasons already explained, demands active en­gagement. Trust, that is to say, is invested i n the l igh t of the selec­t ion of alternatives. When such alternatives become fi l tered out by unexplicated commitments - compulsions - trust devolves into simple repetitive urgency. Frozen trust blocks re-engagement w i t h the abstract systems that have come to dominate the content of day-to-day l i fe .

Outside areas of compulsive repetition, the dialectic of loss and reappropriat ion offers clear contrasts w i t h more tradit ional social orders. The esoteric qual i ty of traditions is not something w h i c h is communicable f r o m guardians to others; i t is their very access to formulaic t ru th that sets them o f f f r o m the rest of the populat ion. Lay indiv iduals come to share i n this quali ty only inf requent ly - as i n religious ceremonials, where they may temporar i ly have direct access to the realm of the sacred.

This situation is altered i n a basic way when expertise comes w i d e l y to replace t radi t ion. Expert knowledge is open to re­appropria t ion by anyone w i t h the necessary t ime and resources to become trained; and the prevalence of inst i tut ional ref lexivi ty means that there is a continuous filter-back of expert theories, con­cepts and f indings to the lay populat ion. The reappropriat ion of expert knowledge, where compulsive behaviour-patterns do not apply, is the very condi t ion of the 'authenticity' of everyday l i fe . Habits and expectations tend to be reshaped i n terms of the pervas­ive filter-back of in format ion i n a more or less automatic way. However, more deliberate and focused forms of re-engagement are common. As emphasized before, these can be ind iv idua l or collec­tive; they may cover idiosyncratic elements of a person's everyday l i fe or be global i n character.

Tradition in modernity

Modern i ty destroys t radi t ion. However (and this is very important) a collaboration between modernity and tradition was crucial to the ear­lier phases of modern social development - the period d u r i n g w h i c h risk was calculable i n relation to external influences. This phase is ended w i t h the emergence of h igh moderni ty or what Beck calls reflexive modernization. Henceforth, t radi t ion assumes a d i f ­ferent character. Even the most advanced of premodern c iv i l iz -

92 Anthony Giddens

ations remained resolutely tradit ional . Some brief comments upon the character of such civilizations w i l l be wor thwh i l e before taking up direct ly the issue of ' t radi t ion i n moderni ty ' .

I n premodern civilizations, the activities of the polit ical centre never f u l l y penetrated the day-to-day l i fe of the local community."^ Tradi t ional civilizations were segmental and dualisHc. The vast major i ty of the populat ion l ived i n local, agrarian communities making up, as Marx said, 'a sack of potatoes'. Traditions partici­pated i n , and expressed, this dual ism. The 'great traditions' were above al l associated w i t h the rationalization of religion, a process w h i c h depended upon the existence of scriptural texts. Rationaliz­ation here was not in imical to t radit ion; on the contrary, al though the evidence cannot be for thcoming, we may suspect that i t made possible the long-term existence of specific t radit ional forms w e l l beyond anything f o u n d i n pure ly oral cultures. For the first t ime a t radi t ion could k n o w itself to exist ' f r o m t ime immemoria l ' . The great traditions were 'monumental ' - i n a material sense i n so far as they produced great edifices, bu t also i n a more non-physical way i n the sense i n w h i c h their classical texts were a testament to their power.

Because of the structural character of these civihzations, how­ever, the great traditions were communicated only imperfectly to the local communi ty , over w h i c h their ho ld was insecure. Local communities, i n any case, remained oral societies. They bred a variety of traditions w h i c h either remained distant f r o m or actively contested the f i l t e r -down of the more rationalized systems. Thus Weber showed i n his studies of the ' w o r l d religions' that the ration­alization of 'scriptoral t radi t ion ' became recontextualized w i t h i n the communi ty ; magic, sorcery and other local practices broke u p the u n i f y i n g influence of the centralized symbolic order.

A very large part of the content of t radi t ion, therefore, continued to be at the level of the local communi ty . Such ' l i t t le traditions' were of ten influenced by the guardians of rationalized religions (priests, officials) bu t also responded to a variety of local conditions. Of ten there were linguistic differences as w e l l as other cultural schisms between local communities and central eh tes.

As a result of the association that developed between capitalism and the nation-state, modern societies d i f fe r f r o m al l forms of pre­existing civi l izat ion. The nation-state and the capitalist enterprise were bo th power-containers, i n w h i c h the development of new surveillance mechanisms ensured much greater social integration across time-space than had previously been possible.*' I n the early

Living in a Post-Traditional Society 93

modern state, surveillance processes continued to d raw u p o n tra­di t ional sources of legi t imation, such as the d ivine r ight of the sovereign, and his or her household, to rule. Perhaps even more impor tant ly , certainly to m y analysis here, the power system of the early modern state continued to presume the segmentation of the local communi ty . O n l y w i t h the consolidation of the nation-state, and the generalization of democracy i n the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, d i d the local communi ty effectively begin to break up. Before this per iod, surveillance mechanisms were pr ima­r i l y ' f r o m the top d o w n ' ; they were means of increasing centralized control over a non-mobil ized spectrum of 'subjects'. The t ime of the accelerating development of the nation-state was thus also one i n wh ich the general popula t ion became more closely d rawn in to sys­tems of integration that cross-cut the local communi ty level. Insti­tut ional ref lexivi ty became the main enemy of t radi t ion; the evacuation of local contexts of action went hand i n hand w i t h g row­ing time-space distanciation (disembedding).

However , this was a complex process. Early modern insti tutions d i d not on ly depend upon pre-existing traditions but also created new ones. Formulaic t ru th , and associated rituals, were pressed into service i n new arenas - the most impor tant being the symbolic domain of the 'nation' . Eric Hobsbawm, among others, has d r a w n attention to the phenomenon. He notes that nineteenth- and twent i ­eth-century ' " tradit ions" wh ich appear or claim to be o ld are quite often recent i n o r ig in and sometimes invented'.** ' Invented tra­di t ions ' are not necessarily constructed i n a deliberate way, al­though this is sometimes the case. Thus fo r example many nineteenth-century bui ldings i n Britain were pu t u p or rebuil t i n Gothic style. The contact claimed w i t h the past i n invented t radi­t ion, Hobsbawm says, is ' largely facti t ious' - i n contiast tc 'genuine traditions' . Invented traditions, Hobsbawm argues, proliferate i n the context of early modern insti tutions. 'Ancient materials' are used for modern ends - most especially, to create legit imacy for emerging systems of power.

Hobsbawm's substantive thesis may be correct, bu t his concepts are more open to question. ' Invented t radi t ion ' , w h i c h at f i rs t sight seems almost a contradiction i n terms, and is intended to be pro­vocative, turns out on scrutiny to be something of a tautology. For all traditions, one could say, are invented traditions. What gives t radi t ion its 'genuineness', its authenticity, as I have remarked ear­lier, is not that i t has been established fo r aeons; nor is i t anything to do w i t h h o w far i t accurately encapsulates past events. I n those

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most ' t radi t ional ' of al l societies, oral cultures, after al l , the 'real past', i f those words have any meaning, is effectively unknown . Tradi t ion is the very medium of the 'reality' of the past. In societies w h i c h have a recorded history, of course, 'continuity w i t h a suitable past' can be established - and can be dissected by the historian w i t h a critical eye. Yet how far such cont inui ty is ever 'genuine' i n Hobsbawm's sense is problematic and, to repeat, has nothing to do w i t h a tradition's authenticity, w h i c h depends upon the connection of r i tua l practice and formula ic t ruth .

The interconnections between early moderni ty and tradit ion can be br ief ly described i n the f o l l o w i n g way:

First, the fact that traditions, o ld and new, remained central i n the early development of modern i ty indicates again the l imitations of the 'disciplinary model ' of modern society. Surveillance mech­anisms d i d not by and large depend f o r their effectiveness upon the internalization of emotional control or conscience. The emerging emotional axis was rather one w h i c h l inked compulsiveness and shame anxiety.

Second, the legi t imating role of science, generally understood in a positivistic fashion, perpetuated ideas of t r u th which , i n popular culture at any rate, retained strong ties w i t h formulaic t ruth . The struggles between 'science and rel igion ' concealed the contradic­tory character of its claims to unquestioned 'authori ty ' . Hence many experts were effectively guardians and eUcited appropriate forms of deference.

Th i rd , the compulsive nature of moderni ty was not something that remained completely h idden or ururesisted. One way of index­ing this, as Christie Davies has shown, is by reference to common forms of humour and joking. Those places where Calvinism, the 'purest f o r m ' of the capitalist spirit , was strongest (e.g., Scotland, Switzerland, Hol land) also became the but t of a certain style of joking. Jokes about the Scots, f o r example, i n some part belong to a wider category of ethnic joking; b u t such jokes of ten focus f u l l square on the Protestant ethic. A Scot sat at the bedside of an ai l ing f r i end . 'You seem more cheerful, John.' 'Aye , man, 1 thought I was going to die, bu t the doctor cae save m y Ufe. It 's going to cost £100.' 'Eh, that's a terrible extravagance. D o ye th ink it 's w o r t h it?'

What are such jokes about i f not compulsiveness, a rejection of the dogged s tupidi ty characteristic of al l compulsive behaviour? As Davies points out, the central characters i n such jokes act out a caricature of the Protestant ethic - bu t clearly indicate that alterna­tive attitudes are alive and well.*^

Living in a Post-Traditional Society 95

Fourth, the compulsiveness of moderni ty was f r o m its f i rs t o r i ­gins gender-divided. The compulsiveness documented by Weber i n The Protestant Ethic is that of a male public domain. I n those ins t i tu­t ional contexts where the capitahst spirit was dominant , w o m e n were effectively lef t w i t h the emotional burdens wh ich a ' s t r iv ing instrumentaUsm' produced. Women began modes of emotional ex­perimentation that were subsequently to have a great impact.** Yet tradit ional modes of gender difference, and gender dominat ion, were at the same time actively reinforced by the development of newer traditions - inc luding the emergence of an ethos of female 'domesticity' .

F i f th , t radi t ion was called upon part icularly i n respect of the generation, or regeneration, of personal and collective identi ty. The sustaining of ident i ty is t h r o w n up as a fundamenta l problem by the maturat ion of the insti tutions of moderni ty , but - i n tensionful and contradictory ways - this problem was 'resolved' by i nvok ing the authori ty of tradit ion. The 'sense of communi ty ' of w o r k i n g -class neighbourhoods, fo r example, took the f o r m , i n some part, of a reconstruction of tradit ion; as d i d nationalism on the level of the state.

Globalization and the evacuation of tradition

The phase of 'reflexive modernizat ion ' , marked as i t is by the t w i n processes of globalization and the excavation of most tiaditional contexts of action, alters the balance between t radi t ion and moder­ni ty. Globalization seems at first sight an 'out there' phenomenon, the development of social relations of a w o r l d w i d e k i n d far re­moved f r o m the concerns of everyday l ife . To the sociologist, there­fore, i t might appear as s imply another ' f i e ld ' of study, a specialism among other specialisms. The study of globalization w o u l d be the analysis of w o r l d systems, modes of interconnection w h i c h operate i n the global stratosphere. So long as tradit ional modes of l i f e , and especially the 'situated local communi ty ' persisted, such a v i e w was not too far f r o m the t ru th . Today, however, when the evacuation of local contexts has become so far advanced, i t is quite inaccurate. Globalization is an ' i n here' matter, wh ich affects, or rather is dialec-tically related to, even the most intimate aspects of our lives. Indeed, what we n o w call int imacy, and its importance in personal relations, has been largely created by globalizing influences.

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What ties globahzation to processes of the excavations of t radi­t ional contexts of action? The connection is the disembedding con­sequences of abstract systems. The causal influences here are complex, and bound u p w i t h the mul t id imensional character of modernity."' ' 1 shall not analyse this directly here, bu t rather spell out the structural relations concerned. Tradi t ion is about the organi­zation of time and therefore also space; so too is globalization, save that the one runs counter to the other. Whereas t radi t ion con­trols space through its control of time, w i t h globalization i t is the other way around. Globalization is essentially 'action at distance'; absence predominates over presence, not i n the sedimentation of time, but because of the restructuring of space.

Processes of globahzation today s t i l l to an extent f o l l o w certain early patterns established du r ing the in i t ia l phase of modern social development. Capitalist enterprise, fo r example, is a disembedding mechanism par excellence, and is power ing its w a y through pre­viously resistant parts of the w o r l d just as thoroughly as it ever d i d . Paradoxically, state socialism, w h i c h saw itself as the pr ime revolut ionary force i n history, proved much more accommodating towards t radi t ion than capitalism has been.

The first phase of globalization was p la in ly governed pr imar i ly by the expansion of the West, and institutions w h i c h originated i n the West. N o other c ivi l izat ion made anything like as pervasive an impact upon the w o r l d , or shaped i t so much i n its o w n image. Yet, unl ike other forms of cul tural or mi l i t a ry conquest, disembedding via abstract systems is intr insically decentred, since i t cuts through the organic connection w i t h place upon wh ich t radi t ion depended. A l t h o u g h stUl dominated by Western power, globalization today can no longer be spoken of only as a matter of one-way imperial ism. Ac t ion at a distance was always a two-way process; now, increas­ingly , however, there is no obvious 'direction' to globalization at a l l , as its ramifications are more or less ever-present. The current phase of globalization, then, should not be confused w i t h the preceding one, whose structures i t acts increasingly to subvert.

Hence post-h-aditional society is the first global society. U n t i l rela­t ively recently, much of the w o r l d remained i n a quasi-segmental state, i n w h i c h many large enclaves of t radit ionalism persisted. I n these areas, and also i n some regions and contexts of the more indust r ia l ly developed countries, the local communi ty continued to be strong. Over the past f ew decades part icularly influenced by the development of instantaneous global electronic communication, these circumstances have altered in a radical way. A w o r l d where

Living in a Post-Traditional Society 97

no one is 'outside' is one where pre-existing traditions cannot avoid contact not only w i t h others but also w i t h many alternative ways of l i fe . By the same token, i t is one where the 'other' cannot any longer be treated as inert. The point is not only that the other 'answers back', but that mu tua l interrogation is possible.

The ' interrogations' w h i c h the West carried out of other culhires were fo r a long time one-sided - a series of investigations of a cryptic other w h i c h resembled noth ing so much as the queries that men pursued into women. (Indeed there may very wel l have been quite close connections between these two sorts of interrogation.)"* So far as non-Western cultures are concerned, the development of anthropology - a process w h i c h leads towards its effective dis­solution today - gives a rough index of the phenomenon.

Anth ropo logy has passed through three general phases. The first was one of taxonomy of the alien; early ethnography was a sort of coUective voyage of the Beagle, c ircumnavigating the w o r l d i n pur­suit of the classification of exotic species. Taxonomie anthropology was of ten evolutionary. Evolut ionism succeeded beaut i fu l ly as means of categorizing the other as, i f not inert, no more than a 'subject' of enquiry. N o t that the enquiry was ever a casual or part icular ly comfortable one. The alien character of other traditions was a persistent source of compell ing interest, puzzlement and generalized anxiety; any threat to Western dominance was, how­ever, quashed by the neutral iz ing and distant effect of 'nahiralized alienness'. One could say that the alienness of non-Western h'adi-tions was a real counterpart to the 'g iven ' f o r m of nature, an exter­nal environment of Western expansionism to be 'understood' and probably t rampled over i n much the same way.

A new phase was ini t iated w h e n anthropology discovered what relight be called the essential intelligence of other cultures or tra­ditions. The other is discovered as just as knowledgeable as 'us', a l though l i v i n g of course i n d i f ferent circumstances. Realization of such capability, and therefore of the impl i c i t claims to equality of the other, were convergent w i t h the invent ion of funct ionahsm i n anthropology. Functionahsm recognizes the authenticity of other traditions, bu t relates that authenticity only to their inner cohesion, as situated cul tural wholes. The integr i ty of traditions thus becomes acknowledged, bu t the 'dialogic ' relation established is one that presumes the separateness of the alien. 'Intelligence' is entirely contextiial; each culture is adapted to the mi l i eu i n wh ich i t is 'discovered'. The anthropological monograph can be deposited i n the Western l ibrary where i t stands alongside an indefini te array of

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other studies. I n social or material terms the juxtaposit ion of record­ing and real consequences remains cruel: the anthropologist, as Lévi -St rauss sadly remarked, is the chronicler, and even i n some part the causal agent, of a disappearing w o r l d . TTie anthropological monograph preserves, i n much the same w a y as a protected relic does, a testament to a w a y of l i f e to wh ich we can no longer directly bear witness.

Compare the journeys of an itinerant anthropologist today. Nige l Barley carried out anthropological research i n Indonesia.*' Barley's w o r k is di f ferent both i n style and content f r o m orthodox anthro­pology. I t is chatty, w i t t y and in formal ; i t records his o w n feelings, puzzles and mistakes i n his encounters w i t h the individuals whose lives he went to study. He talks of the incidents, f u n n y and danger­ous, wh ich happened dur ing his t ime ' i n the f i e ld ' and of his 'sub­jects' as flesh-and-blood people rather than merely ciphers of a larger collectivity. Interestingly, his books read more like novels than academic texts - the presence of the author creates a biographi­cal style as we l l as a strong narrative f o r m . He is the ingenu, rather than those w h o m he goes to 'investigate'; he is l ike a Lucky Jim of the anthropological w o r l d . As an aside, but a very important one, i t migh t be noted that the recovery of a narrative style here turns structuralism on its head. The 'absence of the author' i n most pre­existing anthropological studies is not a reflection of the fact that texts speak for themselves; rather, the author is absent because such studies are not f u l l dialogic engagements w i t h 'other cultures'.

A feature of Barley's w r i t i n g is that the everyday w o r l d f r o m wh ich he comes is pictured as just as ba f f l ing and problematic as the one he enters i n Indonesia. His attempts to buy cheap air tickets i n London meet w i t h disaster; the only detailed map he can f i n d of the area he is going to visi t dates f r o m the 1940s and the place-names are i n Dutch; the advice he gets f r o m anthropologists w h o have worked i n the area previously is contradictory. His ingenuousness, and puzzled curiosity about the details of everyday l i fe , actually parallel very closely the out look of the hero of The Mezzanine. The alien culture is no more or less i n need of interpretation than is his culture of or ig in ; at the same time, even the most exotic forms of behaviour, when approached i n a determined way, prove to have elements of easy famil iar i ty . Embarrassment and a certain d i f fuse artxiety, occasionally laced w i t h an awareness of danger, emerge as the pr ime negative aspects of the anthropological encounter; on the positive side, along w i t h self- i l luminat ion, there is humour and the pleasures of discovering a common humani ty .

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Wherever he goes, inc luding the most apparentiy isolated of areas, he is never completely out of the tracks of tourists, and sometimes even stumbles across anthropologists. Local customs continue alongside images and in format ion coming f r o m bo th the national society and the wider w o r l d . Barley himself is introduced into the group he came to study as a 'famous Dutch tourist ' , come to 'honour the communi ty and its o ld w a y s ' O n e man w h o m the anthropologist met offered h i m hospitali ty i n a charming tia­di t ional house i n the village; he seemingly had resisted the in t ru ­sions of the modern w o r l d . Of course, i t turned out that he had a degree i n satellite communications f r o m the Massachusetts Instihite of Technology and actually l ived most of the time i n the city, where he had a modern house:

His attachment to the traditional world was just as much an out­sider's as mine was . . . He rubbed salt into my wounds by his relent­less self-awareness: -You see. I only learned to value the old way by going abroad. If I had sat in my village I would have thought of America as the Kingdom of Heaven. So I come back for the festivals'."

Barley's anthropological t r ip was not just a one-way one; a group of his 'subjects' returned w i t h h i m to London. Barley organized the visit by arranging w i t h the Museum of M a n k i n d that they w o u l d b u i l d a t radit ional rice-barn as an exhibit. Unl ike the sophisticated ind iv idua l just referred to, his companions had never previously been far away f r o m their home village. They, presumably, wrote no books on their rehi rn , bu t we get at least some sense of their reac­tions to Barley's o w n mode of l i fe and its wider cultural setting. They had their o w n puzzles, their o w n share of incidents and reac­tions; and, naturally, these only sometimes fo l lowed lines the 'an­thropologist ' expected. Yet their activities i n London fur thered Barley's grasp of their indigenous culhare; fo r the process of b u i l d ­ing the rice-barn a l lowed h i m to document their methods of pro­duct ion i n their entirety and to gather informat ion that w o u l d have been very hard to come by i n 'the field'.

'Return visits ' are by no means u n k n o w n i n anthropology. Franz Boas, for example, once shepherded some of the K w a k i u t i a round N e w York (they were apparently singularly indi f ferent to the gran­deur of the city). Anthropologists have sometimes to ld candid i n ­side stories of their field-work, al though quite often these originated as private diaries, kept separate f r o m their ethnographic reports. Thus Mal inowski ' s field-work diaries of his experiences i n the

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Trobriands (and i n England) remained unpublished un t i l some whi le after his death. Today, however, anthropology is directly embroiled i n the inst i tut ional ref lexivi ty of moderni ty , and anthro­pology thus becomes indistinguishable f r o m sociology. In Brit ish Columbia the present-day K w a k i u t i are busy reconstructing their tiaditional culture using Boas's monographs as their guide, whi le Austral ian Aboriginals and other groups across the w o r l d are contesting land-rights on the basis of parallel anthropological studies.

I n a post-t iadit ional order, i n Richard Rorty's memorable phrase, we see the fo rmat ion - as a possibil i ty rather than a fu l ly- f ledged actuality - of a cosmopolitan conversation of humankind . It is a social order where the cont inuing role of t radi t ion, for reasons I shall go on to mention, is however edged w i t h a potential for violence.

Detraditionalization

I n the post-traditional order, even i n the most modernized of socie­ties today, tiaditions do not w h o l l y disappear; indeed, i n some respects, and i n some contexts, they flourish. I n what sense, how­ever, or i n what guises, do tradit ions persist i n the late modern wor ld? O n a schematic level, the answer can be given as fo l lows. Whether o l d or new, traditions i n the modern w o r l d exist i n one of t w o frameworks .

Traditions may be discursively articulated and defended - i n other words , just i f ied as having value i n a universe of p lura l com­peting values. Tradit ions may be defended i n their o w n terms, or against a more dialogical background; here ref lexivi ty may be mult i layered, as i n those defences of rel igion wh ich point to the diff icul t ies of l i v i n g i n a w o r l d of radical doubt. A discursive defence of tiadition does not necessarily compromise formulaic tiuth, for wha t is most consequential is a preparedness to enter into dialogue wh i l e suspending the threat of violence.

Otherwise, t radi t ion becomes fundamentalism. There is nothing mysterious about the appearance of fundamental ism in the late modern w o r l d . 'FundamentaUsm' only assumes the sense i t does against a background of the prevalence of radical doubt; i t is nothing more or less than ' t radi t ion i n its tradit ional sense', al though today embattied rather than i n the ascendant. Fundamen­talism maybe understood as an assertion of formulaic tiuth wi thou t regard to consequences.

Living in a Post-Traditional Society 101

I n the concluding section I shall return to a discussion of the implications of these observations. For the moment, again i n a rather schematic way, let me indicate some of the relations between tiadition and quasi-traditional tiaits of the post-traditional society. I hope the reader w i l l accept that such a relatively cursory account passes over a great deal wh ich i n another context w o u l d need to be unpacked - especially i f a direct confrontat ion were to be made w i t h some of the claims of postmodernism.

I n the present day, the destruction of the local communi ty , i n the developed societies, has reached its apogee. Lit t le traditions wh ich either survived, or were actively created, du r ing earlier phases of modern social development have increasingly succumbed to forces of cul tural evacuation. The d iv is ion between great and l i t t ie tia­ditions, wh ich i n some premodern civilizations survived f o r thou­sands of years, has today almost completely disappeared. Distinctions between 'h igh and l o w culture' of course st i l l exist, and are associated w i t h the persistence of a certain classicism i n the former as compared to the latter; but this has only marginal con­nections w i t h t radi t ion as I have defined it .

The dissolution of the local communi ty , such as i t used to be, is not the same as the disappearance of local l i fe or local practices. Place, however, becomes increasingly reshaped in terms of distant influences d r a w n upon i n the local arena. Thus local customs that continue to exist tend to develop altered meanings. They become either relics or habits.

Habits may be purely personal forms of routinizat ion. M a n y of the items listed on page 74, fo r example, are today l ike ly to be matters of habit. They are ind iv idua l routines of one k i n d or an­other, wh ich have a certain degree of b ind ing force s imply by vir tue of regular repetition. The psychological significance of such rou­tines should not be underestimated. They are of basic importance for ontological security because they provide a structuring m e d i u m for the cont inui ty of l i fe across dif ferent contexts of action. I n a post-tiaditional order habits are regularly infused w i t h in format ion d r a w n f r o m abstract systems, w i t h w h i c h also they often clash. A person migh t resolutely stick to a certain type of diet, for instance, even though a good deal of medical opinion condemns i t . However , he or she may effectively be forced to shif t i f , as i n the case of the ice­cube tray, manufactur ing or design processes change.

M a n y personal habits effectively become collective as they are shaped by commodif icat ion, or as a result of generalizable i n f l u ­ences of inst i t i i t ional ref lexivi ty . Local customs are more genuinely

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collective habits w^hen they are created by influeiices w i t h i n an area or communi ty ; but those that are remnants of more tradit ional practices are l ike ly to devolve into items in wha t some have called the Jiving museum. Whether they are personal tiaits or more closely connected w i t h social customs, habits have lost al l tie w i t h the formulaic t ru th of t radi t ion. Their bri t t ie character is indicated by the f u z z y boundary w h i c h separates them f r o m compulsive behav­iour; their compell ing force can devolve into compulsive r i tual , i n specific instances into the obsessional neuroses w h i c h Freud was one of the first to describe and t ry to account for .

Artefacts once associated w i t h both great and l i t t ie traditions i n the post- t iadi t ional order tend to become relics, al though 'relic' should be extended to cover more than on ly physical objects. A relic, as 1 use the w o r d here, covers any i tem i n a l i v i n g museum. Relics are not just objects or practices wh ich happen to l ive on as a residue of traditions that have become weakened or lost; they are invested w i t h meaning as exemplars of a transcended past. Con­sider the story of Wigan pier. George Orwel l ' s The Road to Wigan Pier, first published i n 1937, described Wigan as a di lapidated area wh ich bore witness to the evils of industr ial ism. The road to Wigan pier was a personal journey but also described a d o w n w a r d trajec­tory of modern civi l izat ion. Orwel l ' s account of the t o w n was so scathing that i t i n fact aroused a great deal of local resentment.

O r w e l l was disappointed to find that Wigan pier no longer ex­isted w h e n he got to the town . The pier was not actually a wa lkway , st i l l less was i t anywhere near the sea; the te rm referred to an i ron f rame employed to empty coal in to barges along a canal. I t had been scrapped several years before O r w e l l arr ived there. In the 1980s, however, the pier was rebuilt . The surrounding dock and ware­houses were cleaned u p and refi t ted, trees planted, and the area designated as a 'heritage centre'. The centre harks back not to the 1930s but to 1900; an exhibit ion, wh ich recreates a mine and miners' cottages, occupies part of i t . I t invites the visi tor to experience 'the way we were'. Ironically, O r w e l l has been d r u m m e d into service as part of the very 'heritage' he f o u n d so distasteful: visitors can take a d r i nk i n the O r w e l l pub.^^

Relics are signifiers of a past wh ich has no development, or at least whose causal connections to the present are not part of what gives them their identi ty. They are display items i n a showcase, and Wigan pier is i n this respect no different f r o m 'true monuments ' , such as ruins preserved or refurbished palaces, castles and country homes. A material relic migh t seem to be something which l i terally

Living in a Post-Traditional Society 103

'stays i n place' - w h i c h remains untouched by the vagaries of change around i t . I t w o u l d be more correct to say the opposite. A rehc has no effective connection w i t h the area i n wh ich i t exists, but is produced as a visible icon fo r observation by whosoever happens to wi sh to visit. Like other museum pieces, i t may be on the site where i t originated, but whether i t is or not has l i t t ie relevance to its nahire, w h i c h is as a signifier of difference. A relic is l ike a memory-trace shorn of its collective f rameworks .

A l i v i n g museum is any collage of such 'memory traces' pre­sented fo r public display. In so far as they do not become habits, customs may fa l l into this category. The point about relics today is that only their association w i t h a lapsed past gives them any s ignif i ­cance. Relics were (and are) common i n religious traditions, but there they had quite a d i f ferent significance; they derived their importance not f r o m simple connection w i t h the past but f r o m the fact that they participated i n the domain of the sacred. As D u r k h e i m pointed out, the sacred is indivisible; a small piece of Christ 's cloak IS as ho ly as any other seemingly more impressive religious object or practice.

The advent of modern i ty p la in ly does not spell the disappear­ance of collective r i tual . Sometimes such r i tua l is proclaimed to go back for centuries, or even mil lennia; more commonly i t is a relatively recent invent ion i n the Hobsbawm mode. Max Gluckman makes a useful dis t inct ion between ' r i tua l ism' and the ' r i tualizat ion of social relations' wh ich has some purchase here." 'Ri t i ia l i sm' exists where r i t i i a l activities are bound up w i t h 'mystical notions' , or what I w o u l d call formula ic t ru th . The ' r i tualizat ion of social' relations' is where social interaction has a standardized f o r m adopted as a w a y of def in ing the roles that people have on cer­emonial occasions. Ritual ism persists, or becomes revised, i n some contexts, bu t i n most instances has been displaced by r ihia l izat ion (the two can come into confl ict where, say, a person w h o never attends church wishes to have a church wedding) . Ritual ism and therefore t radi t ion continue to exist and even flourish wherever formulaic t ru th forms a means of constructing interpretations of past time.

A t about the same date as The Road to Wigan Pier was published, a c r o w d of some one hundred thousand people gathered just out­side Pretoria, i n South Af r i ca , to celebrate the laying of the foun ­dat ion stone for the Voortrekker Monument . M e n and w o m e n filmed out i n the Voortrekker dress, fires were l i t and Die Stem, the Af r ikane r anthem, was sung. The Monument was bu i l t to celebrate

104 Anthony Giddens

the anniversary of the Great Trei< undertaken by the Boers a hun­dred years before and the victory of the covered w^agons over the massed forces of the Z u l u army. The r i tual , and the construction of the memorial bu i ld ing , were not just continuations of pre-existing traditions; they actually helped create a new version of Afr ikaner nationalism.

Such examples demonstrate that t radi t ion is not just about cel­ebrating an unchangeable past or defending the status quo. South Af r i ca at that point was s t i l l under the colonial control of the British; the Afr ikaners looked f o r w a r d to the time at wh ich they w o u l d govern an independent country. I n the words of one Afr ikaner polit ical leader: T h e Great Trek gave our people its soul. I t was the cradle of our nationhood. I t w i l l always show us the beacons on our path and serve as our lighthouse in our night.'^*

Tradi t ion, plainly, is bound up w i t h power; i t also protects against contingency. Some have argued that the sacred is the core of t radi t ion, because i t invests the past w i t h a d ivine presence; f r o m this point of v iew poli t ical rituals have a religious quality. However, one should rather see formulaic t ru th as the property wh ich l inks the sacred w i t h t radi t ion. Formulaic t ru th is what renders central aspects of t radi t ion 'untouchable' and confers integri ty upon the present i n relation to the past. Monuments tu rn into relics once formulaic truths are disputed or discarded, and the tradit ional relapses into the merely customary or habitual.

Tradition, discourse, violence

Tradi t ion is effectively a way of settling clashes between different values and ways of Ufe. Ruth Benedict expressed this i n celebrated fashion w h e n she proposed that cultures make a selection f r o m the 'arc of possible values' and outlooks on the w o r l d . O n c e made, however, and notwi ths tanding the changes that might occur, the resultant traditions f o r m a pr ism; other ways of l i fe are distinct, have an alien qual i ty and their o w n centres. Tradi t ion incorporates power relations and tends to naturalize them. The w o r l d of 'tra­di t ional society' is one of tradit ional societies, i n wh ich cultural p lura l i sm takes the f o r m of an extraordinary diversi ty of mores and customs - each of which , however, exists i n pr ivi leged space.

The post-traditional society is quite different . I t is inherently globalizing, bu t also reflects the intensifying of globalization. I n the post-traditional order cul tural plural ism, whether this involves per-

Living in a Post-Traditional Society 105

sisting or created traditions, can no longer take the f o r m of sepa­rated centres of embedded power.

Looked at analytically, there are only fou r ways, i n any social context or society, i n wh ich clashes of values between individuals or collectivities can be resolved. These are through the embedding of tradition; disengagement f r o m the hostile other; discourse or dialogue; and coercion or violence. A l l fou r are f o u n d i n most environments of action, i n al l culhires, at least as immanent possibilities. However , quite di f ferent weightings of these factors are possible. I n those' societies i n wh ich tiadition is a dominant influence, t radit ional be­liefs and practices, as f i l tered through the activities of the guardians, take a great deal 'out of the play' . Embedded power is largely concealed and cultural accommodation takes the f o r m above all of geographical segmentation. Disengagement here is not so much an active process as an outcome of the time-space organization of premodern systems, coupled to barriers which stand i n the way of non-local communicat ion.

W i t h the emergence of moderni ty, however, and part icular ly w i t h the in tensi fying of globalizing processes, these circumstances become more or less completely undermined. Traditions are called upon to 'explain ' and jus t i fy themselves i n a manner already al­luded to. I n general, traditions only persist in so far as they are made available to discursive justification and are prepared to enter in to open dialogue not only w i t h other traditions but w i t h alternative modes of do ing things. Disengagement is possible i n some ways and i n some contexts, bu t these tend to become more and more l imi ted .

The Voort iekker monument subsequently became a symbol of the dominant ideology i n South Af r i ca i n the postwar period. One could see the Apar the id doct i ine fostered by that ideology as a deliberate 'refusal of dialogue' on the basis of enforced geographi­cal and culh i ra l segregation. As of 1993, cential to the possibility of a democratic fu t i i r e fo r South Af r i ca is the question of whether dialogic engagement is possible between Afr ikaner nationalism and other cul t i i ra l groups and power-interests i n the country. I n a per­iod of ethnic revivalism, and resurgent nationalism i n various areas of the w o r l d , the edge between dialogue and potential violence is p la in to see.

Take as another instance the case of gender as tiadition. U p to and we l l beyond the threshold of moderni ty , gender differences were deeply enshrined i n tiadition and resonant w i t h congealed power. The very absence of w o m e n f r o m the public domain sup­pressed any possibility that masculini ty and femin in i ty could be

106 Anthony Giddens

opened out to discursive scrutiny. Today, however, as a resuU of p r o f o u n d structural changes, combined w i t h the struggles of femin­ist movements over many decades, divisions between men and women , u p to and inc lud ing the most intimate connections between gender, sexuality and self-identity, are publ ic ly placed i n question.

To place them i n question means asking fo r their discursive justif ication. N o longer can someone say i n effect, T am a man, and this is h o w men are', ' I refuse to discuss things fur ther ' - statements that are normal ly carried i n actions rather than stated in words. Behaviour and attitudes have to be just i f ied when one is called upon to do so, w h i c h means that reasons have to be given; and where reasons have to be provided , di f ferent ia l power starts to dissolve, or alternatively power begins to become translated into authority. Post-traditional personal relations, the pure relationship, cannot survive i f such discursive space is not created and sustained.

Yet, i n very many cases i t is not sustained. What happens? One possibility, obviously, is disengagement: today w e l ive i n the sepa­rat ing and d ivorc ing society. A person can move on and look elsewhere. Even whole groups of people migh t do so. Where disengagement does not occur, and tradi t ional relations are as­serted, w e enter the domain of potential or actual violence. Where talk stops, violence tends to begin. Male violence towards women today, bo th i n the context of relationships and i n the wider public arena, could be interpreted i n this way.^*

What applies i n the area of personal relations and everyday l i fe apphes also to the global order and al l levels i n between. What I have just described could be seen as a male Clausewitzean theory of personal l i fe: force or violence are resorted to once a 'diplomatic ' exchange of views stops. Clausewitz's theorem st i l l has its defend­ers, as w e l l as its contexts of practical application, i n the relations between states today. Cu l tu ra l clashes i n the global arena can breed violence; or they can generate dialogue. I n general, 'dialogic democ­racy' - recognition of the authenticity of the other, whose views and ideas one is prepared to listen to and debate, as a mutua l process -is the on ly alternative to violence i n the many areas of the social order where disengagement is no longer a feasible option. There is a real and clear symmetry between the possibil i ty of a 'democracy of the emotions' on the level of personal l i fe and the potential for democracy on the level of the global order.

The post-tradit ional society is an ending; but i t is also a begin­ning , a genuinely new social universe of action and experience. What type of social order is i t , or migh t i t become? I t is, as I have

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said, a global society, not i n the sense of a w o r l d society bu t as one of ' indefini te space'. I t is one where social bonds have effectively to be made, rather than inheri ted f r o m the past - on the personal and more collective levels this is a f raught and d i f f i cu l t enterprise, but one also that holds out the promise of great rewards. I t is decentred m terms of authorities, bu t recentied i n terms of opportunit ies and dilemmas, because focused upon new forms of interdependence. To regard narcissism, or even individualism, as at the core of the post-tradi t ional order is a mistake - certainly i n terms of the potentials for the fu tu re that i t contains. I n the domain of interpersonal l i fe , opening out to the other is the condi t ion of social solidarity; on the' larger scale a p ro f fe r ing of the 'hand of friendship' w i t h i n a global cosmopolitan order is ethically impl i c i t i n the new agenda sketched i n r ight at the opening of this discussion.

Potentiality and actuality, needless to say, are t w o very d i f ferent things. Radical doubt fuels anxiety, socially created uncertainties loom large; y a w n i n g gaps separate r ich and poor on both local and more global levels. Yet we can discern clear prospects for a renewal of poli t ical engagement, albeit along different lines f r o m those h i th ­erto dominant . Breaking away f r o m the aporias of postmodernism we can see possibilities of 'dialogic democracy' stietching f r o m a 'democracy of the emotions' i n personal hfe to the outer l imi t s of the global order. As collective humani ty , we are not doomed to irrepa­rable fragmentation, yet neither on the other hand are we confined to the i ron cage of Max Weber's imaginat ion. Beyond compulsive­ness hes the chance of developing authentic forms of human l i fe that owe httie to the formulaic tiuths of t radi t ion, bu t where the defence of t radi t ion also has an impor tant role.

N O T E S

1 U. Beck and E. Beck-Gernsheim, The Normal Chaos of Love, Cambridge-Polity, 1995. ^ •

2 A. Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity, Camhndge-Polity 1990 3 P. Dicken, Global Shift, London: Chapman, 1992. 4 U. Beck, Risk Society, London: Sage, 1992. 5 A. Giddens, The Transformation of Intimacy, Cambridge: Polity 1992 6 N. Baker, The Mezzanine, Cambridge: Granta, 1990, p. 45. 7 R. B. Lee, The Dote IKung, New York: Holt, 1984 D 49 8 Ibid., p. 49. ' f • • 9 P. Boyer, Tradition as Truth and Communication, Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press, 1990. ^

108 Anthony Giddens

10 E. Shils, Tradition, London: Faber, 1981. 11 M. Halbwachs, The Social Frameworks of Memory, Chicago: University

of Chicago Press, 1992, p. 39. 12 Cf. A. Giddens, The Constitution of Society, Cambridge: Polity, 1984, pp.

45-51. 13 Boyer, Tradition as Truth and Communication, chapter 5. 14 Ibid., p. 112. 15 Shils says that there are 'factual traditions', without normative

content. For me these fall into the category of customs. Shils, Tradition, pp. 23-5.

16 A. and T. Harris, Staying OK, London: Pan, 1985, p. 19. 17 S. Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams, London: Hogarth, 1951. 18 Giddens, The Transformation of Intimacy. 19 M. Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, London:

Allen & Unwin, 1976, p. 72. 20 Ibid., p. 182. 21 Ibid., pp. 84-6. 22 See, for instance, D. Bell, The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism,

London: Heinemann, 1979. 23 A. W. Schaeff, Codependence: Misunderstood, Mistreated, New York:

Harper, 1986, p. 21. 24 Ibid., pp. 25-6. 25 M. Scarf, Intimate Partners, New York: AuUantine, 1987, p. 42. 26 Ibid. Quotations that follow are from this source. 27 A. Giddens, Modernity and Self-Identity, Cambridge: Polity, 1991. 28 S. Helmstetter: Choices, New York: Product Books, pp. 100-3. This is a

selection from a Ust of one hundred day-to-day choices in the original. 29 Md., p. 104. 30 W. Wordsworth, The Prelude, Book One, Unes 1-8. 31 B. McKibben, The End of Nature, New York: Random House, 1989. 32 C. Ponting, A Green History of the World, London: Penguin, 1991,

chapter 5. 33 J. Broome, Counting the Cost of Global Warming, London: White Horse,

1992. 34 R. Sheldrake, The Rebirth of Nature, London: Rider, 1990, p. 153. 35 Ibid., p. 154. 36 Lee, The Dobe IKung, pp. 47-8. 37 G. Simmel, 'The stranger', in Simmel: On Individuality and Social Forms,

Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1971, p. 143. On this question see also the important discussion in Z. Bauman: Modernity and Ambiv­alence, Cambridge: Pohty, 1991, pp. 56-61.

38 Bauman, Modernity and Ambivalence, p. 60. 39 M. Weber, Economy and Society, Berkeley: University of California

Press, 1978, vol. I, pp. 226-7. 40 Ibid., p. 215. 41 John Agnew, Place and Politics, London: Allen & Unwin, 1987.

Living in a Post-Traditional Society 109

42 Cf. A. Giddens, The Nation-State and Violence, Cambridge: Polity, 1985. 43 Ibid. 44 E. Hobsbawm, 'Introduction: inventing traditions', in E. Hobsbawm

and T. Ranger, The Invention of Tradition, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983.

45 C. Davies, 'The Protestant Ethic and the comic spirit of capitalism', British Journal of Sociology, vol. 43,1992.

46 Giddens, The Transformation of Intimacy. 47 For a discussion, see Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity. 48 See R. Hyam, Empire and Sexuality, Manchester: Manchester Universitv

Press, 1990. ^ 49 N. Barley, Not a Hazardous Sport, London: Penguin, 1989. 50 Ibid., p. 138. 51 Ibid., p. 142. 52 R. Hewison, The Heritage Industry, London: Methuen, 1987. 53 M. Gluckman, Custom and Conflict in Africa, Oxford: Blackwell, 1970 54 D. I. Kerzer, Ritual, Politics and Power, New Haven: Yale, 1988,'p. 37. 55 R. Benedict, Patterns of Culture. London: Routledge, 1954. 56 Giddens, The Transformation of Intimacy.