Tradition: fire or ash?

What do a French socialist, an Austrian composer, and an American Orthodox theologian have in common?

They all have very similar views about tradition:

Être fidèle à la tradition, c'est être fidèle à la flamme et non à la cendre. [To be faithful to tradition is to be faithful to the flame and not to the ashes.] (Jean Jaurès)

Tradition ist die Weitergabe des Feuers und nicht die Anbetung der Asche. [Tradition is passing on the fire not worshipping the ashes.] (Gustav Mahler)

Tradition is the living faith of the dead; traditionalism is the dead faith of the living. Tradition lives in conversation with the past, while remembering where we are and when we are and that it is we who have to decide. Traditionalism supposes that nothing should ever be done for the first time, so all that is needed to solve any problem is to arrive at the supposedly unanimous testimony of this homogenized tradition. (Jaroslav Pelikan, interview in US News & World Report, 26 July 1989)