{
  "id": "tradition.kept",
  "term": "tradition",
  "sense": "kept",
  "pos": "noun",
  "status": "published",
  "level": 19,
  "domain": "agency",
  "style": "window",
  "definition": "A pattern of acting that a collective self keeps because it reads the pattern as part of what it has always been.",
  "folk_gloss": null,
  "emergence": {
    "components": [
      "collective-self.shared",
      "pattern.regularity",
      "act.deed",
      "keep.maintenance",
      "read.information",
      "always.temporal",
      "narrative.self-story",
      "part.relation"
    ],
    "interaction": "A group's narrative marks some patterns as belonging to it from the start; keeping them is then maintenance of the collective self itself, which is why a tradition is defended harder than its practical value explains.",
    "novel_properties": [
      "maintenance of a self through a practice",
      "value read from age, not use"
    ]
  },
  "examples": [],
  "relations": [
    {
      "id": "habit.grooved",
      "type": "contrasts-with",
      "note": "a habit runs without the self model reading it; a tradition is kept because the self model reads it"
    },
    {
      "id": "the-way-we-have-always-done-it.path-dependence",
      "type": "contrasts-with",
      "note": "that phrase mistakes past persistence for necessity; tradition keeps the pattern knowingly"
    }
  ],
  "used_by": [
    "proud-tradition.standing"
  ],
  "forms": [
    "tradition",
    "traditional",
    "traditions"
  ],
  "closed": true,
  "provenance": {
    "author": "claude-opus-5-5:hand-curated",
    "date": "2026-09-29",
    "confidence": 0.85,
    "sources": [
      "schema/power-agency-phase.md"
    ]
  },
  "canonical": "https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-tradition.kept"
}