Tradition refers to adherence to practices and habits that have historically existed in a group and that are tied to rituals and symbolic practices that the members continue for non-rational reasons. People adhere to tradition because those traditions are part of their identities. The trouble is that in communities where people base their lives on tradition tend to be inflexible and intolerant. One of the reasons we emphasize individual free choice in our society is because traditional communities impose social controls and make strong, sometimes arbitrary claims about who is deviant and how they should be controlled. So we are ambivalent about tradition.
Ideology provides another method of generating commitment.
But Selznick tells us that ideologies refer to situations where people adhere to a set of values as absolute truths. That tends to mean that they push for their point of view regardless of how actual experience challenges the assumptions underlying the ideology. When this happens, ideologues tend to challenge or attack others' behaviors in ways that we may perceive as a restriction on freedom. So we can be uncomfortable with both ideology and tradition as sources of commitment. Selznick then says we do not have to see these sources of commitment as so negative.