Petr Hampl: Could it be summed up by saying that we are a young civilisation and that a return to our roots means a return to the ideals of the French Revolution, the American War of Independence or the Enlightenment debates of the 17th and 18th centuries? It would make sense from the point of view that those institutions that we see as traditional (especially a certain form of family) really only came into being in this period.
But on the other hand, we see this as insufficient. We feel that we are heirs of antiquity, even though we know very little about antiquity and use terms like ‘democracy’ more as a metaphor – our democracy is nothing like Athens’. Similarly, we feel that we are inheritors of the Middle Ages, and indeed of pre-Christian pagan tribes.
Is there any way to think about these things properly without falling into chaos?
JJiří Hejlek: When we talk about civilizations, or rather civilizational formations, we must not forget that they are relatively closed formations, but not isolated in the manner of the isolated Amazonian tribes. They are in contact with other civilizations of their time and also with previous formations in their geographical area. It is with them as with peoples who also share certain elements in language and culture with other peoples, and build on earlier predecessors. The Celtic names of rivers and mountains in our country serve as an example. Atlantic civilisation retains many elements of long-vanished civilisations, not only European Christian and ancient ones. Our division of the time stream comes from Mesopotamia. The Babylonian sexagesimal system is still present today, not only in the number of minutes and seconds, but through them it has made its way into the counting of balls in tennis.
The way in which the elements of civilization are transmitted is called tradition. Tradition not only preserves the distinctive elements, meanings and motifs of contemporary civilization, but also conveys to us the heritage of past civilizations. It is not for nothing that we speak of heritage. After all, one can only ever inherit from someone who no longer exists. Tradition is in fact the space of history, and because it transcends individual civilizations, national and state formations, it causes our history not to fall apart. It is a complex phenomenon and not much understood today, although many invoke it. The nuclear family is called traditional, but its tradition does not really go back before the emergence of Atlantic civilisation. However, it is always necessary to say what we mean by traditional. Even a relatively short tradition can be defended against progressivism, which seeks to destroy any semblance of rootedness. On the other hand, not every custom is a respectable tradition. Moreover, tradition is also selective; there are often several possible continuations in a tradition.
Even a relatively short tradition can be defended against progressivism, which seeks to destroy any semblance of rootedness.
The relationship between civilization and tradition is the relationship between a meaning element or motif and its civilizational interpretation or meaning within a given formation. While we are able to understand the elements of our own civilization, we must somehow interpret, translate the elements of other civilizations. Sometimes we naively believe that we understand them. That is why I think it is a mistake to speak of a Western civilisation comprising ancient Greece, the so-called European Middle Ages and contemporary civilisation. In fact, we no longer understand the previous two, and it gives us a great deal of trouble to try to do so. After the civilizational break, there is a relabeling of the meaning of many elements. For example, “justice” has a very different meaning today than it used to. It was once used mainly in the phrase “a just man” and represented a central virtue. Today it is understood as a social relationship (commutative and distributive justice). And yet, it sometimes happens that the older meaning of some concepts emerges.
For those who want to better understand themselves, their nation and the civilisation in which they live, whether they like it or not, the study of tradition and history is essential. Particularly when we feel that our time could mark an important turning point, if not a turning point in history. Exploring the transformations of basic meanings allows us to gain a better insight into the core of our own situation. The peculiarity of this civilization lies not in the fact that it is so, but in the fact that we are aware of it. In fact, almost since its beginning – at least since the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries – leading scholars have understood it as a civilization of crisis.