Tradition 101: Seminar 1, Footnote 1(c)

'Tradition is the living faith of the dead, traditionalism is the dead faith of the living. And, I suppose I should add, it is traditionalism that gives tradition such a bad name. The reformers of every age, whether political or religious or literary, have protested against the tyranny of the dead, and in doing so have called for innovation and insight in place of tradition. ... (T)he dichotomy between tradition and insight breaks down under the weight of history itself. A 'leap of progress' is not a running broad jump, which begins at the line of where we are now; it is a running broad jump to where we have been to where we go next. ... For during much of our history, insight has often come through the recitation and rearrangement of materials from tradition. .... The growth of insight - in science, in the arts, in philosophy and theology - has not come through progressively sloughing off more and more of tradition, as though insight would be purest and deepest when it finally freed itself of the dead past. It simply has not worked that way in the history of tradition, and it does not work that way now. By including the dead in the circle of discourse, we enrich the quality of the conversation. Of course we do not  listen only to the dead, nor are we a tape recording of the tradition. That really would be the dead faith of the living, not the living faith of the dead.' Jaroslav Pelikan, 1984 The vindication of tradition.