Tradition: A Matter of Pride.

Talha Iftikhar
Lecturer of Philosophy
IMCB-H 9

Now days its a common observation that Tradition and traditional values that has been
developed by our fore fathers are weakening up. Usually the argument is that traditional values
are not compatible with the modern world and are hindrance to our way to Progress. It seems
that the form of the social fabric of Pakistan, i.e. Traditional outfit, is rapidly changing but the
rhetoric is that the change is not from inside rather its a consequence of the influence of Western
Modernity and Enlightenment.
The basic thesis of this article is to see the importance of Tradition and Traditional Values from
the perspective of Hans Georg Gadamer but before inquiring the subject at hand from Gadamers
perspective it would be beneficial to first excavate whats the meaning of Enlightenment, though
very briefly, as per Modern thinkers.
Immanuel Kant explains what does it meant by Enlightenment very succinctly in his most
influential and famous article What is Enlightenment that he produces at the most mature level
of his thought. Kant believes that enlightenment means to act according to ones reason or
rationality devoid of all authorities including Tradition.
Kant argues that man should take all his decisions of life using his/her own reason, he believes
that man has such a faculty of Reasoning that if man use it freely than it can guide man in all
matters of life. Furthermore, man having faculty of reason and still took his/her decisions in a
any matter of life using tradition or any other authority than its mans self imposes immaturity as
per Kant.
Maturity, according to Kant, is to take his decisions as per the guidance of his reason alone and if
such is the case than this would be an enlightened individual. Kant believes that enlightenment
means to break the shackles of authorities, tradition or religion and to be able to decide on your
own.

One can find consensus among all the major thinkers of modern west that for them tradition and
traditional values are something that is negative and traditional values would lead one toward
error. Though one took Descartes, Locke, Kant and even Husserl all of them sees tradition as
something deviate one from the path of absolute, universal Truth. All of major modern thinkers
took tradition as something prejudiced.
Modern west has sacrificed their traditional values since following traditional values would not
lead them toward Objective, Absolute and Universal Truth. Modernity believes that Human
reason has such capability that it could unveil all the secrets of reality without any foreign help
from Tradition. In short, Modernity has given a negative connotation to Tradition.
Third World developing countries in general and Pakistani Society in particular look toward West
in all aspect of life and adopt their life world, they idealize modernity and in this blind adaptation
they also scarifies their historical traditional practices. Developing societies considers that there
is only one conception of development and that is western conception of development.
Furthermore, it seems that developing societies in their blind obedience to modernity are very
rapidly forgetting their ultimate source of Knowledge i.e. Tradition.
It is the very nature of Enlightenment not to accept any authority and to decide everything before
the judgmental seat of Reason and it further believes that written tradition if scripture cant claim
any absolute validity (The Hermeneutics Reader: Text of German Tradition from Enlightenment
to the Present, Ed. Mueller, Kurt) and its not tradition, but reason that constitute the ultimate
source of all authority (ibid). Therefore, if one ought to find ultimate, absolute and universal
truth than one ought to use Presupposition less reason i.e. devoid of any prior traditional
guidance.
Gadamer considered that historical collective prejudices are not always erroneous as considered
by modernity. In other words tradition is not something that needs to be abandon rather tradition
and historical traditional experiences are the very base of ones meaningful existence. According
to Gadamer, our historical traditional experiences gave us the very sense and the meaning of the
world around us. Its tradition where ones conscious life starts and from here one learns the
meaning of the life and the world around. Gadamer emphasis that reason cannot work in vacuum
rather it needs premises on which it can contemplates and Tradition provides those premises

upon which reason and work. Traditional experiences provide the material upon which ones
reason can work on. In simple words Tradition provide the content to the faculty of reason and it
this content would not be provided to reason than it cannot work properly.
Therefore, tradition provides the very foundation for the possibility of understanding and one can
say that tradition constitute those conditions for the possibility of mans understanding and
meaningful experience. Hence outside tradition truth cannot be found.
Tradition is dying in Pakistani society. Our traditional historical practices that have collective
wisdom of all our fore fathers are vanishing. Youth seems to be at distance from these
fundamentals. This means that we are by ourselves destroying the very foundation upon which
we are standing. Following tradition does not mean to be backward rather tradition is something
upon which we should look on and learns the lessons from them. If we lose our tradition than its
consequence will be nothing but detachment of ourselves from our Civilization.
Language dies when individual stop speaking that language. Dress code disappears when
individuals stop wearing them. Similarly we can lose our traditional values if we stop following
them. One should note that Tradition is that which attaches individuals from their history. Hence
Tradition and following traditional values does not means backwardness rather it connect us to
our History. Hence Tradition is not a matter of prejudice rather it is a matter of Pride!