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In shaping a democracy of the living, the U.S. Constitution itself was a conscious reaction against the tradition of monarchial government. The rejection of tradition was equally important in building the American economic system; the interchangeable part, basis of all mass production, was invented because a Yankee engineer named Eli Whitney refused to accede to the European notion that even a rifle was an individual creation that could only be handcrafted by a skilled gunsmith. Later, in its relations with the rest of the world, the ever more powerful U.S. had to abandon both the Machiavellian tradition of old Europe and its own tradition of isolation; only a nation uninhibited by conventional thinking could have conceived the Marshall Plan.
A Faith in Flux
The U.S. has always combined its readiness to innovate not only with a strain of political conservatism—stronger at some times than at others—but with an unshakable confidence in the American idea. American politics have changed profoundly. While the Senate may retain its quill pens and snuffboxes as hallmarks of tradition, a whole world of florid political oratory, provincialism and paternalism has given way to a youthful, hard, professional approach. Still, such major innovations as the New Deal were possible only because they could take place within the framework of basic American tradition. Some of the most drastic recent changes in American life—the emergence of unprecedented strong federal authority, the growth of what is in effect a welfare state, the election of a Roman Catholic to the presidency—could have torn or distorted the fabric of less firmly based societies. In the U.S. they were possible without major upheavals precisely because the underlying tradition of freedom under law and of responsible citizenship is so strong. Despite the disappearance of so many familiar landmarks, Sociologist David Riesman sees "incredible durability and tenacity" and suggests that tradition is strongest when it is least self-conscious or ideological: "If you're in it, you're not self-conscious."
Not all changes are breaks with tradition; some represent the discarding of a recent for a much older tradition. In religion, for example, some new trends have been startling and even disturbing. Yet such drives as the ecumenical movement and use of the liturgy in the vernacular are really intended to recover the forms of an older, deeper Christianity. From the churches to the laboratories, change itself has become the only constant. Says Stanford's Dr. Dwight Allen: "We are not shifting from one sort of tradition to another; we are in flux for keeps. We have to adjust institutions, attitudes, professions to the fact that change is here to stay."
In the classic context, tradition tends to embalm the moment in time when the culture feels it is at its peak. British sovereigns ride to their coronations in an 18th century coach with an escort of cavalrymen wearing plumed helmets, and the guards at the Vatican are still dressed in the costumes Michelangelo reputedly designed for them. It is impossible to imagine a guard of honor for a U.S. President dressed as Minutemen. For Americans believe profoundly that the best is yet to be; that whatever it is—a building, a custom, an institution—they can do it better next time.