Notes on Eric Hobsbawm

Notes on select portions of The Invention of Tradition

• Introduction: Inventing Traditions (Chapter 1)
• Mass-Producing Traditions: Europe, 1870-1914 (Chapter 7)
  • French Nationalism
  • German Nationalism
  • USA
  • Labour
  • Middle Class
  • Upper-middle Class/Elite
  • Summary

Introduction: Inventing Traditions (Chapter 1)

• The British monarchy ceremonies feel very ancient, linked to some past. But it was established in late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Happens with many ancient British universities too.
• “‘Traditions’ which appear or claim to be old are often quite recent in origin and sometimes invented”.
• Invented Traditions can be formally invented, or arising through practice over a period of time. Royal Christmas broadcast vs practices associated with the Cup Final in Association Football in Britain.
• ITs often attempt to establish continuity with a suitable historic past:
  • There is always a relevant past, even for revolutions/progressive movements.
  • Almost always, the continuity is largely factitious.
• Tradition ≠ Custom:
  • Custom gives the sanction of precedent and social continuity to the demand for protection and defence of practices.
  • Custom is not invariant. The decline of a custom changes the tradition.
  • Customs are also made for simplification of and efficiency in routine work. These are justified on technical grounds not ideological, hence it is not an Invented Tradition. They are easily modified and abandoned to meet changing practical needs. Eg: you can change military uniform easily with tactical advantage as a justification. You cannot change a hunting costume.
• Objects and practices are liberated for full symbolic use when they are no longer bound by practical use - Cavalry officers’ spurs with no horses, Lawyers’ wigs as significant only when others stop wearing wigs.
• It is unclear how exactly Traditions are invented, either by deliberate repetition or gradual acceptance. Has not been studied too well.
• Invention of Tradition always happens in history. More so in the last 200 years due to the rapid change in social patterns as old patterns are destroyed and new ones created. But ITs are not limited to “traditional” societies, but also in “modern” ones.
• Example: Switzerland creating a nation as Invented Tradition. Modified existing customary traditional practices into rituals for the institutions of the new nation.
• ITs can:
  • Use old materials
  • Invent new languages or devices - like national anthem, national flag
  • Extend the old vocabulary beyond established limits, maybe even faking historical continuity - like Czech manuscripts
• Their histories aren’t always consistent, even among those self-describing as “traditionalists”
• Suggestion: traditions are invented not because the old ways are no longer viable, but in an intentional move to not use or adapt them.
• Three types of ITs:
  • Those establishing/symbolizing social cohesion or group membership in real or artificial communities
  • Those establishing/legitimizing institutions/status/relations of authority
  • Those with the purpose of socialization, and the inculcation of beliefs, value systems, and conventions of behaviour
• A major difference between old and invented practices:
  • Old ones are specific and strongly binding, while new ones are unspecific and vague, invoking ‘patriotism’, ‘loyalty’, ‘the school spirit’:
    • But, practice in nationalism is strict, even if theory is poorly defined.
  • New traditions only fill the public sphere, not private life. Not for public life of a citizen, even those conscious of citizenship remain associated with the symbols and semi-ritualistic practices

Mass-Producing Traditions: Europe, 1870-1914 (Chapter 7)

• Studying a 40 year period. 1870-1914, where many ITs popped up
• This creation was both ‘political’ and ‘social’:
  • Political ones more consciously created
  • Not all mobilised if no public wavelength - William I not accepted as Father of the Nation, but Bismark widely accepted within a year
  • State linked Formal and Informal, Official and Unofficial, Political and Social inventions of tradition
• The convergence of Nation, State, and Society in attempts to legitimize power:
  • Concept of National Economy defining frontiers, and having an impact on citizens
  • Standardization of Education and Administration makes people citizens
  • Politics is nation-wide, inseparable from the State
  • Classes self-identify with nation-wide politics, defined within national boundaries: “Communist Party of India”
• The change to subjects expecting direct relations to the heads of state and proper representation changes the older traditions and requires the formations of new ones to try and subdue the populace.
  • From perspective of formal rulers, new state demands legitimacy in the eyes of the people. No longer older social order and means of subordination are applicable.
  • Less impact and change where social structure changed the least, like Italy. In nations with existing bonds, rulers reached into older symbolism. Only Italy: ‘We have made Italy; now we must make Italians’
  • Even with changing the traditions, nothing is stopping the quest for power among the masses, demand for suffrage.
• SO, the point of all this was the progress of electoral democracy and the emergence of mass politics dominated how invented traditions in this period.
• Another thing: “irrational elements” are important for the maintenance of the social fabric. All of the social sciences (sans economics) retreats from the classical stance of assuming the rational calculation of individual members.

French Nationalism

• For the French, they needed “an alternative ‘civic religion’”. They rely not only on new traditions, but also distributional voter politics.
• Internationale over Marseillaise
• Centrist Republic had three inventions:
  • Secular equivalent of the church - primary education, imbued with republican and revolutionary principles and content. Intentional move to turn the peasants into Frenchmen and the Frenchmen into good Republicans
  • Invention of public ceremonies - Bastille Day, 1880. Expression of state pomp and power for the citizen’s pleasure.
  • Mass production of public monuments - Marianne, the bearded civilian notables. Of all shapes and sizes, from the local level onwards. The Monuments can be regarded as visible links between voters and nation.
  • Other notes: Stayed away from history. Few symbols:
    • tricolour
    • republican monogram
    • motto
    • Marseillaise
    • Marianne
  • Only 1 official day, no formal processions or marches.

German Nationalism

• German invention of traditions comes from William II’s era. Two purposes:
  • Establish continuity between Second and First German Empires; establish it as the realisation of the secular national aspirations of the German people
  • Stress the historical experiences linking Prussia to the rest of Germany.
• Both required merging Prussian and German history.
• Problem: Difficult to fit history of Holy Roman Empire of Germany into ant mould. Also, nothing historically suggested it had to happen.
• Two devices to make it possible:
  • Concept of a secular national enemy against whom the Germans had struggled to identify as a State
  • By supremacy, the German nation scattered across Europe could claim the right to be united as a State. Great German?
• They expressed it mostly with buildings and monuments, three monuments taken to heart:
  • Monument to Arminius the Cheruscan
  • Niederwald monument above the Rhine
  • Centenary memorial of the battle of Leipzig
  • Generally, lot of masonry and statuary.
• So what about national symbol. One was Germania, no sculpture but exists in postage stamps. Other: Deutsche Michel. Representation of the people, like goateed Yankee. Essentially an anti-foreign image.
• Bismarckian unification was the only national historic experience shared among the citizens of the new Empire. German ‘national’ tradition: Bismarck, William I, Sedan.
• What makes up for this: lots of ceremonies and rituals. Ten in a space of 7 months, commemorating wars, official handovers, birthdays. Ceremonies in schools, watched by many - anti-French rhetoric, at its heart. References to ‘repel foreign aggression’, and ‘restoration of the Reich’.
• Compared to French:
  • Both stress on the founding acts
  • German stresses on history. As the people before unification have no relation of political unity, all the identification was complex and not very precise. Multiplicity of reference from mythology to folklore, stereotypes, etc. ‘Germany’ was defined more easily by what it was against.
• Marking out the Social Democrats, and less formally the Jews as internal enemies has another advantage.

USA

• Problem: How to assimilate a heterogeneous mass. How to make Americans
• Immigrants encouraged to accept rituals:
  • Revolution and its founding fathers, 4th of July
  • Protestant Anglo-Saxon tradition, Thanksgiving Day
• Immigrant culture absorbed:
  • St Patrick’s Day
  • Columbus Day
• Rituals and traditions created by the education system as political socialization:
  • Worship of the American flag
  • Non-patriotism could be associated with non-Americanism, they might not be a member of the Nation at all
• Immigrants, especially working class, provides the internal enemy

Labour

• May Day

Middle Class

• Costume as demonstration of Class
• Sports

Upper-middle Class/Elite

• Daughters of American Revolution
• Level of education as marker of class
• Greek Letter Fraternities as marker of elite among the mass
• Alumni Societies of Schools for the elite, and Fraternities
• Elite among colleges: playing sports

Summary

• List:
  • Old school ties
  • Royal Jubilees
  • Bastille Day
  • Daughters of the American Revolution
  • May Day
  • The Internationale
  • The Olympic games
  • The Cup Final
  • The Tour de France
  • Institution of Flag worship