The Inner Conflict of Tradition: Essays in Indian Ritual, Kingship, and Society c5.45

c5.45

To conclude: successful modernity does not mean the supersession of tradition or the superimposition on it of a different order. It means that the inner conflict of tradition is now fought within the confines of an expanded reality that transcends the limits of the “little kingdom” so as to include ultimate authority and legitimation themselves. Authority and legitimation are no longer transcendent and safe in an ultramundane sphere but part of reality—and therefore constantly called into question. In contradistinction to tradition, modernity must valorize change because the authority of its code of abstract rules and principles no longer transcends reality. Modernity has not solved the inner conflict of tradition, nor can it ever do so. But it has fundamentally changed it by carrying it over into the sphere of a single explosive reality.