Cultural power operates through a constantly shifting boundary of what counts as tradition

Evidence

We need to expand and develop this rudimentary schema. The important thing is to look at it dynamically: as a historical process. Emergent forces reappear in ancient historical disguise; emergent forces, pointing to the future, lose their anticipatory power, and become merely backward looking; today’s cultural breaks can be recuperated as a support to tomorrow’s dominant system of values and meanings. The struggle continues: but it is almost never in the same place, over the same meaning or value. It seems to me that the cultural process—cultural power—in our society depends, in the first instance, on this drawing of the line, always in each period in a different place, as to what is to be incorporated into “the great tradition” and what is not. — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 1016

The important thing is to look at it dynamically: as a historical process. Emergent forces reappear in ancient historical disguise; emergent forces, pointing to the future, lose their anticipatory power, and become merely backward looking; today’s cultural breaks can be recuperated as a support to tomorrow’s dominant system of values and meanings. The struggle continues: but it is almost never in the same place, over the same meaning or value. It seems to me that the cultural process—cultural power—in our society depends, in the first instance, on this drawing of the line, always in each period in a different place, as to what is to be incorporated into “the great tradition” and what is not. Educational and cultural institutions, along with the many positive things they do, also help to discipline and police this boundary. — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 1016

Categorization

• DEFINE: Explains how ‘tradition’ and cultural incorporation function dynamically across periods, giving teeth to emergent/residual/incorporated terms.
• XREF: Connects to Gramsci’s hegemony and institutional boundary-policing ideas, and parallels Bourdieu’s symbolic classification of culture. — connects to: Long-standing village institutions function as dynamic hybrids of modern and traditional elements. — Emil Sandström and Ann-Kristin Ekman and Karl-Johan Lindholm, Commoning in the periphery – The role…, 60; Invented sacred territorial traditions serve elites while ruining the nation — Nadim N. Rouhana and Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, When Politics Are Sacralized:…, 1568; Taken-for-granted cultural narratives exert the most power — Andrew L. Whitehead, American Idolatry, 143 (+1 more)
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 1016