The word tradition comes from the Latin word traditio which means "to hand down" or "to hand over." It is used in a number of ways in the English language:
However, on a more basic theoretical level, tradition(s) can be seen as information or composed of information. For that which is brought into the present from the past, in a particular societal context, is information. This is even more fundamental than particular acts or practices even if repeated over a long sequence of time. For such acts or practices, once performed, disappear unless they have been transformed into some manner of communicable information.

Beliefs or customs taught by one generation to the next, often orally. For example, we can speak of the tradition of sending birth announcements.
A set of customs or practices. For example, we can speak of Christmas traditions.
A broad religious movement made up of religious denominations or church bodies that have a common history, customs, culture, and, to some extent, body of teachings. For example, one can speak of Islam's Sufi tradition or Christianity's Lutheran tradition. Traditions and stylings of the mannerism
The idea of tradition is important in philosophy. Twentieth century philosophy is often divided between an 'analytic' tradition, dominant in Anglophone and Scandinavian countries, and a 'continental' tradition, dominant in German and Romance speaking Europe.

Philosophical tradition
In the Roman Catholic Church, traditionalism is the doctrine that Sacred Tradition holds equal authority to Holy Scripture. In the Orthodox Church, scripture is considered to be the core constituent of a larger tradition. These views are often condemned as heretical by Protestant churches, who hold the Bible to be the only valid tradition. Inspired by the Protestant rejection of tradition, the Age of Enlightenment began to consider even the Bible itself as a questionable tradition.
Traditionalism may also refer to the concept of a fundamental human tradition present in all orthodox religions and traditional forms of society. This view is put forward by the Traditionalist School.
Traditionalist Catholic refers to those, such as Archbishop Lefebvre, who want the worship and practices of the church to be as they were before the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965).
"Radical Traditionalism" refers to a worldview that stresses a return to traditional values of hard work, craftsmanship, local culture, tribal or clan orientation, and non-material values in response to a perceived excess of materialism, consumerism, technology, and societal homogeneity. Most Radical Traditionalists choose this term for themselves to stress their reaction to 'modern' society, as well as an equal disdain for more 'recent' forms of traditionalism based on Judeo-Christian and early-Industrial Age values. It is often allied with branches of Paganism that stress a return to old cultural values that predated the existence of the state system.
In Islam, traditionalism is the orthodox form, which places importance on traditional forms of learning and acknowledges different traditional schools of thought.

Archaeological meaning
Destruction is part of nature according to the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. Nietzsche claims that entities that reinterpret the world again and again are strong. That way sorrow and loss which is linked to trying to keep tradition can be avoided. Nietzsche wants his readers to open up and accept nature as it is in all its manyfold appearances. In order to be able to interpret nature it is mandatory to imagine. It is weak to claim that your imagination is the only truth. That could get you destroyed. A strong person is someone who is ready to change in order to avoid self-destruction.

See also