Tradition  

From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia

1872 photograph of the western face of the Greek Parthenon

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The word tradition comes from the Latin word traditio which means "to hand down" or "to hand over." It is used in a number of ways in the English language:

1. A meme; beliefs or customs taught by one generation to the next, often orally. For example, we can speak of the tradition of sending birth announcements.
2. A set of customs or practices. For example, we can speak of Christmas traditions.
3. A broad religious movement made up of religious denominations or church bodies that have a common history, customs, culture, and, to some extent, body of teachings. For example, one can speak of Islam's Sufi tradition or Christianity's Lutheran tradition.

However, on a more basic theoretical level, tradition(s) can be seen as information or composed of information. For that which is brought into the present from the past, in a particular societal context, is information. This is even more fundamental than particular acts or practices even if repeated over a long sequence of time. For such acts or practices, once performed, disappear unless they have been transformed into some manner of communicable information.

See also

• Tradition and the Individual Talent, T. S. Eliot