Interaction of tradition and innovation in the cultural process: the protobactrian context

In the cultural process, a stable and functionally balanced structural order can only be formed under conditi ons of coor dinated diversity, that is, a proper relationship between traditions and innovations. If traditions displace innovations, this state can be likened to a structural emptiness with the inherent homogeneity and total community of the collective unc onscious. If innovations displace traditions, everything becomes excessively changeable and blurred, and the cultur al order is shaken. Symbols and rituals reconcile the traditional and the innovative, prepare society to accept new trends to expand the boun daries of culture. But if the confrontation between traditions and innovations in culture drags on and is not resolved, the disintegration of values and the breakdown of familiar foundations begins, and unstructured rela tions run rampant. The opposite re lationship also takes place. Innovation prepares the ground for ritual. But if the ritu alization of social drama does not begin, then culture becomes a victim of external expansion or the internal collapsing development of society. Unlike traditions, which are characterized by increased staticity and immobility, innovations that have not yet had time to take root in culture are highly adaptable and maneuverable. They show a large number of connections, conjugations and mediations. However, all of them are p redominantly unstable, amorphous, transient in nature, since at the stage of innovations, elements of culture are not yet firmly attached to its root system. In this re gard, the objective world of ancient cultures can clarify a lot, especially in the situa tion of changing life cycles of culture, which is most fully and expressively represented in the symbolic practices of complex (potestary) societies, and in par ticular, in various accessories of the funeral rite. This article shows the forms and mechanisms of interaction between traditions and innovations in the cultural process of a changing society using the example of artifacts of the proto Bactrian pre urban civilization.