Once I found out a lot of the so called traditions were only made up less than 50 years ago I stopped putting any stock in them at all. And for a lot of traditions once you start looking in to them, they were made up to sell stuff.
And the ones that are older have been heavily modified. Even what we think of as old traditions are usually remarkably new in how they’re done, even if the concept has been around for generations.
When people want “traditional [thing]”, what they usually mean is “I want it like it was when I was a teenager”.
Samichlaus, giving presents and Schmutzli with the rod, to punish bad children. When we still had snow in winter.
Btw, Samichlaus and Schmutzli been christianized (though in november, not christmas like american Santa Claus) but it’s actually a pagan tradition.
Santa Claus
Even Santa Claus coming down the chimney to give presents to children got its real start with St. Nicholas sneaking into people’s houses in Constantinople to leave bags of gold so the parents wouldn’t have to sell their children into slavery.
As a Scot, there’s nothing more disappointing than finding out about the history of kilts.
Can you elaborate? I know very little about the history of kilts
The modern skirt-like kilt only dates to the 1700s, and the association of particular patterns with clans only dates to the 1800s. Braveheart was BULLSHIT. And they didn’t paint themselves blue, either - that was the Picts.
Thanks!
I mean, tradition has its place in human evolution. The elders often did knew better (btw, that’s why humans have grandparents). But in the modern fast-lived world, it’s vastly outdated.
Still, you should learn from the past and live in the present.
edit: though traditions in the form of customs, some of them are nice and should be preserved.
Ideally, tradition and innovation are two parts of a healthy system: Tradition is what had worked so far, but as circumstances change, innovation seeks ways to improve and adapt. Critical reasoning needs to balance them, so that their oppositional forces can pull society towards their shared purpose: prosperity.
The issues arise when the tempering mechanism of critical reasoning breaks.
Without the lessons of the past informing the decisions of the presence, odds are that mistakes will be repeated eventually.
On the other hand, rigid tradition obviously risks failing to adapt to changing circumstances.Where modernity exacerbates those issues is in the sheer destructive power of modern weaponry and the complex infrastructure and administration required to maintain modern population and living standards: errors of either kind can easily become more costly than ever before. At the same time, modern state capacity puts far more power into the hands of those entrusted with it, enabling far greater mistakes. And finally, as you noted, the fast pace and scope of modern developments and changes quickly invalidates many old premises and requires faster adaption.
Not all traditions are bad, but figuring out which ones are and how to fix them is hard to do quickly.
I would say that humans have grandparents due to the nature of human mating and offspring.
Yes, they can help care and give wisdom. Directly linked to why we get that old.
Edit: apparently, other primates have grandparents too.
I think people are misunderstanding your point here. This is an evolutionary advantage because it facilitates the passing of skills and knowledge. Because of that it is, like you said, directly linked to why we get old instead of, for instance, having two dozen kids and dying at 20 like rabbits might. Folks that kept grandparents stayed alive more than ones that didn’t.
Thanks, you explained it better.
Personally, I prefer ‘Tradition is the rotting corpse of wisdom’, but that works too.
Tradition just pressure the is peer from dead
TRADITION IS JUST PEER SIgnal PRESSURE FROM Garage THE DEAD Auto Care
Doesn’t matter who you pray to, only that you’re prayin’!❤️🙏
“All that stuff, tradition and heritage. It’s dead people’s baggage. Quit carrying it.
Did you make it up? No, it was passed down to me. Pass it back.”
- Doug Stanhope
growing up i always heard the quote “tradition is the democracy of the dead”. i wish more people treated it as such. i.e., these dead people said they liked things a certain way, but we can disagree with them, criticize their stupid ideas, and change what we don’t like.
but of course you then have the cringe david brooks republicans who think tradition = good, and then it ends up being that tradition is the autocracy of the dead.
Term limits are just people from the past telling you who you can vote for today.
