In a similar manner we may see that conventions must also be traditions. The new fashions are adaptations of old ones, and there are no really new ideas of any sort, only a gradual transformation of those that have come down from the past.
In a large view, then, tradition and convention are merely aspects of the transmission of thought and of the unity of social groups that results from it. If our mind is fixed upon the historical phase of the matter we see tradition, if upon the contemporary phase we see convention. But the process is really one, and the opposition only particular and apparent. All influences are contemporary in their immediate origin, all are rooted in the past.
What is it, then, that makes the difference between an apparently traditional society, such as that of mediæval Europe, and an apparently conventional society, like that of our time? Simply that the conditions are such as to make one of these phases more obvious than the other. In a comparatively small and stable group, continuous in the same locality and having little intercourse with the world outside, the fact that ideas come from tradition is evident; they pass down from parents to children as visibly as physical traits. Convention, however, or the action of contemporary intercourse, is on so small a scale as to be less apparent; the length and not the breadth of the movement attracts the eye.
On the other hand, in the case of a wide-reaching group bound into conscious unity by facile communication, people no longer look chiefly to their fathers for ideas; the paternal influence has to compete with many others, and is further weakened by the breaking up of family associations which goes with ease of movement. Yet men are not less dependent upon the past than before; it is only that tradition is so intricate and so spread out over the face of things that its character as tradition is hardly to be discovered. The obvious thing now is the lateral movement; influences seem to come in sidewise and fashion rules over custom. The difference is something like that between a multitude of disconnected streamlets and a single wide river, in which the general downward movement is obscured by numerous cross-currents and eddies.
In truth, facile communication extends the scope of tradition as much as it does that of fashion. All the known past becomes accessible anywhere, and instead of the cult of immediate ancestors we have a long-armed, selective appropriation of whatever traditional ideas suit our tastes. For painting the whole world goes to Renaissance Italy, for sculpture to ancient Greece, and so on. Convention has not gained as against tradition, but both have been transformed.
In much the same way we may distinguish between traditionalism and conventionalism; the one meaning a dominant type of thought evidently handed down from the past, the other a type formed by contemporary influence—but we should not expect the distinction to be any more fundamental than before.
Traditionalism may be looked for wherever there are long-established groups somewhat shut out from lateral influence, either by external conditions or by the character of their own system of ideas—in isolated rural communities, for example, in old and close-knit organizations like the church, or in introverted nations such as China used to be. Conventionalism applies to well-knit types not evidently traditional, and describes a great part of modern life.
The fact that some phases of society are more dominated by settled types, whether traditional or conventional, than others, indicates, of course, a certain equilibrium of influences in them, and a comparative absence of competing ideas. This, in turn, is favored by a variety of causes. One is a lack of individuality and self-assertiveness on the part of the people—as the French are said to conform to types more readily than the English or Americans. Another requisite is the lapse of sufficient time for the type to establish itself and mould men’s actions into conformity; even fashion cannot be made in a minute. A third is that there should be enough interest in the matter that non-conformity may be noticed and disapproved; and yet not enough interest to foster originality. We are most imitative when we notice but do not greatly care. Still another favoring condition is the habit of deference to some authority, which may impose the type by example.
Thus the educated classes of England are, perhaps, more conventional in dress and manner than the corresponding classes in the United States. If so, the explanation is probably not in any intrinsic difference of individuality, but in conditions more or less favorable to the ripening of types; such as the comparative newness and confusion of American civilization, the absence of an acknowledged upper class to set an authoritative example, and a certain lack of interest in the externals of life which our restlessness seems to foster.[152] On the other hand, it must be said that the insecurity of position and more immediate dependence upon the opinion of one’s fellows, which exist in America, have a tendency toward conventionalism, because they make the individual more eager to appear well in the eyes of others. It is a curious fact, which may illustrate this principle, that the House of Commons, the more democratic branch of the British legislature, is described as more conventional than the House of Lords. Probably if standards were sufficiently developed in America there would be no more difficulty in enforcing them than in England.
Perhaps we should hit nearest the truth if we said that American life had conventions of its own, vaguer than the British and putting less weight on forms and more on fellow-feeling, but not necessarily less cogent.