In modernity tradition is justified only by knowledge not derived from tradition.

Evidence

With the advent of modernity, reflexivity takes on a different character. It is introduced into the very basis of system reproduction, such that thought and action are constantly refracted back upon one another. The routinisation of daily life has no intrinsic connections with the past at all, save in so far as what “was done before” happens to coincide with what can be defended in a principled way in the light of incoming knowledge. To sanction a practice because it is traditional will not do; tradition can be justified, but only in the light of knowledge which is not itself authenticated by tradition. Combined with the inertia of habit, this means that, even in the most modernised of modern societies, tradition continues to play a role. But this role is generally much less significant than is supposed by authors who focus attention upon the integration of tradition and modernity in the contemporary world. For justified tradition is tradition in sham clothing and receives its identity only from the reflexivity of the modern. — Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity, 98

Categorization

• DEFINE: Core Giddens definition: how modern reflexivity repositions tradition, which cannot sanction itself after the reflexive turn.
• XREF: Stevens’s appeal to the ‘greatness’ of his father’s generation and Darlington’s authority as tradition resembles ‘sham clothing’—tradition kept alive only because it happens to align with what he can defensibly believe. — connects to: Modern antisemitism is a learned theoretical product, not raw experience. — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 229

Related

• Modernity is defined by wholesale reflexivity, not merely love of the new. (similarity 0.83)
• Modernity’s reflexivity rests on cultural commitment and power, not pure reason (similarity 0.82)
• Modernity’s reflexivity subverts reason’s claim to certitude. (similarity 0.82)
• Modernity’s reflexivity makes its own rational grounds ultimately puzzling (similarity 0.80)