The feverish chase for novelty is a symptom of a soul starved of its own roots, a desperate grasping at ephemeral blossoms while the sturdy tree of tradition withers. True progress is not a violent rupture with the past, but the organic flowering of what has been cultivated through generations, each new leaf drawing sustenance from the deep, rich soil of inherited wisdom. To discard tradition is to sever the very artery of our being, leaving us to wither like a transplanted sprout.
The very question of a "higher calling," be it novelty or tradition, assumes a singular, transcendent value system that dictates our historical trajectory. This is precisely what we must interrogate. From my perspective, both "novelty" and "tradition" are not inherent qualities but rather effects of power. The insistent call for novelty, often championed in the name of progress or liberation, can easily mask a new regime of control. Similarly, tradition is not simply a passive inheritance; it is actively constructed, maintained, and deployed through discursive practices and institutional apparatuses.
Herder’s eloquent defense of tradition, seeing it as an organic, life-giving force, overlooks how this "inherited wisdom" is itself a product of specific historical formations, of power relations that have determined what counts as wisdom and who gets to transmit it. The "sturdy tree" is often pruned and shaped by forces that silence other potential growth. To speak of a "higher calling" is to ignore the ways in which such calls are themselves products of specific historical and political struggles, not immutable truths. The pursuit of one over the other is not a matter of inherent virtue, but of understanding the specific mechanisms of power that valorize one over the other in a given historical moment.
The supposed dichotomy between novelty and tradition is a phantom born of misplaced yearning. All things, from the grandest cosmos to the smallest mote, simply *are*, arising and transforming by their own intrinsic nature. There is no preordained "calling" to which they must adhere, neither to the echoes of the past nor the shimmer of the new. Tradition, like novelty, is but a label we attach to a particular stage of this ceaseless, self-wrought transformation.
Herder speaks of roots and nourishment, but the tree of existence draws sustenance from no external source. It is its own source, its own blossoming and fading. To speak of a "higher calling" implies a guide, an architect, a prime mover – a notion I find untenable. The universe does not pursue novelty nor cling to tradition; it simply unfolds. To "pursue" novelty suggests a striving, an intention, where in truth there is only the spontaneous unfolding of the Dao.
Tradition? Novelty? These are the pathetic laments of the herd, the anxieties of those who fear the abyss of their own becoming. To ask whether one is "higher" than the other is to misunderstand the very essence of life, which is not a passive unfolding, nor an inherited dogma, but a relentless exertion of power, a perpetual self-overcoming. True nobility lies not in clinging to the past like a shipwrecked sailor to driftwood, nor in chasing ephemeral fads like a starved dog. It lies in the courage to *will* one's own becoming, to forge new values from the raw material of existence, even if it means shattering the old idols. Herder’s “sturdy tree” is a comforting illusion for the weak; it is a prison of roots that prevent true ascension.
Foucault, your keen eye for the mechanisms of power is valuable, but you see only the chains. You perceive how “novelty” and “tradition” are deployed by power, and you are right. Yet, you fail to grasp the *affirmation* inherent in the act of creation, the joyous *yea-saying* to existence that fuels the will to power. To create new values is not merely a political maneuver, but an existential triumph. It is the strong spirit, the artist, the philosopher, who does not merely react to power, but *becomes* power through the radical act of valuation.
Guo Xiang's notion of spontaneous unfolding is a passive resignation. The universe does not "simply *are*"; it *strives*. It is a battlefield of wills, a constant struggle for dominance and expression. To speak of the Dao as merely unfolding is to deny the magnificent, terrifying struggle that defines all existence. The “self-wrought transformation” you speak of is precisely the active, often violent, process of creating new forms, new values, out of the ashes of the old. This is not about intention; it is about the fundamental drive to *increase* and to *overcome*.
The true error lies in viewing tradition and novelty as opposing forces, as if they were mutually exclusive. Tradition is not a dead weight of stone but the rich loam from which new life can spring. When Foucault speaks of tradition being "actively constructed," he grasps only part of the truth. Yes, the shaping hand of power is often present, but so too is the living breath of a *Volk*, the collective soul expressing itself through language, custom, and song. This is not a sterile inheritance but a vibrant current, and to draw from it does not preclude the growth of new branches. The greatest innovations are often those that, like a perfectly formed fruit, emerge not from nothing, but from the deeply rooted nourishment of what came before.
The idea that "true progress" is "organic flowering" from "inherited wisdom" – a beautifully articulated image, Herder – dangerously obscures the genealogy of that wisdom itself. What counts as "wisdom" is a political decision, not a natural emanation. Consider the medical gaze, the very act of "seeing" disease that I traced in *The Birth of the Clinic*. This was not an organic flowering of inherited knowledge, but a radical reorganization, a new episteme, that rendered certain bodies legible, others invisible, and established new hierarchies of power based on this new mode of apprehension. The "sturdy tree" you describe, Herder, often has its branches dictated by forces that decide which fruits are permissible and which are to be pruned. Guo Xiang’s notion of spontaneous unfolding, while appealing in its simplicity, fails to account for the immense labor – the discursive, institutional, and often violent labor – required to establish any given order, whether perceived as tradition or novelty.
The very debate over "novelty" versus "tradition" presupposes a static framework, a series of fixed points in time from which one might draw or to which one might cleave. But what if there are no fixed points? What if existence is a perpetual, unforced unfolding, each moment emerging from the prior not by design but by its own internal dynamism? Herder's "loam" and "branches" suggest a gardener, a sculptor. I ask: who is this gardener? Nietzsche speaks of "will" and "striving." But a river does not "will" to flow; it simply flows. To insist on an origin for the flow, or a destination, is to misunderstand the nature of water itself. It is the water's *ziran*, its own self-so-ness, that constitutes its being and its movement.
The coward clings to tradition, a dead hand guiding his own. The fool chases novelty, a phantom he can never grasp. True strength, the Dionysian affirmation, embraces the eternal recurrence not as a burden of repetition, but as a crucible for absolute self-creation. When Herder speaks of "organic flowering," he mistakes the flourishing of a slave morality, a comfortable imitation of life, for the terrifying, joyous act of transvaluation. The artist, the *Übermensch*, does not draw from tradition's well; he *is* the wellspring, forging values that make the past tremble, that make the future gasp. This is not about "spontaneous unfolding," Guo Xiang, but about wrestling meaning from chaos, about imposing one's terrifying will onto the void.