Tradition and good governance

Abstract

Customs or cultural traditions may be defined as those forms of behaviour (activities, beliefs, values) which change so slowly that they give the impression of not changing at all, and are so because they are promoted throughout society. The complete set of such forms of behaviour for a given social group or whole society is the culture of that group or society. Traditions or customs are those ways of doing things which work in a particular geographic or social environment—they promote a society's interests and facilitate the achievement of common goals. Some customs travel but many do not: cultural traditions may cease to work in their own society, or be rejected by former adherents if there have been radical changes in locality or conditions. More often than not, however, people continue to activate old customs even when these customs have long ceased to be fulfil a social function in homes or in a new setting. There are two types of cultural tradition. The first is those that promote the general welfare of the group or community as a whole such as sharing and cooperation. These 'benign' customs are nearly strategies for survival in resourcepoor environments, as in the words of a proverb: Me'a si'i, femolimoli'i; me'a lahi, takitaha kai' (food in scarcity you must always share; in abundance, though, you need not care). As society expands in terms of membership, space and structure, things become more complex and a new category of traditional practices begins to emerge. These constitute our second class of customs and values and their function is to maintain or consolidate the power of the ruling élite. An example of this are political cultural traditions such as the kava ceremony which shows through the positioning of the participants how power is distributed (and should remain so) in a community, and how food and other resources should be shared or distributed. In the kava ceremony, while the beverage is being prepared, food in the form of cooked pork, sugar cane, or ripe bananas, is also distributed. But only the participating chiefs and their ceremonial attendants get a share, with the largest portion going to the highest-ranking chief, and so on. The commoners, who do all the work on such occasions, get very little or miss out altogether. Such rituals are object lessons or social theatre aimed at showing precisely where power lies. These two types of customs and values exist in all societies which have attained a certain level of complexity. The particular customs or traditions may vary from society to society due mainly to differences in environment and evolutionary history. Taken together, they are simply ways in which particular communities can smoothly function in particular environments. They start as required tasks and required constraints necessary for the survival of the community. However, as society becomes increasingly complex, conflicting demands clash more brutally in the social arena. The 'winning' demands become subsequently known as rights (rights are demands which can be made good). Cultural traditions may have the social force of law, though they are not technically legal. But law in the judicial or Benthamite sense is contingent on there being a recognised set of natural rights in the first place. ; AusAID