How Traditions Fail Us
DOES SOCIETY HAVE A CHOKEHOLD ON US?
Whether its baby tossing in India where newborns are dropped from a balcony to a baby-catcher 30 feet below for good luck or bride kidnapping in Kyrgyzstan to coerce women into marriage or good old fashioned finger amputations in Indonesia to prove grief during funeral ceremonies...
It’s very difficult to shy away from asking … are we social puppets, surrendering our free will and checking our brains at the front door?
The Pernicious Cycle of Tradition
The pernicious cycle of tradition is evidenced in our everyday lives. Right here in our own domestic backyards, we live a dichotomous existence. Claiming to be modernized, free thinkers and advocates of justice … how much have we REALLY progressed?
At the crux of it, most traditions (disclaimer: not all) are by nature inherently dysfunctional. Why, you ask? Well … because they are driven by 3 dangerous factors:
1. Fear
2. Economic greed and/or
3. Commodification of human life
Hazing the Hazy
Let’s take hazing on college campuses. Death from alcohol poisoning. Falling off dormitory rooftops. Waterboarding drownings.
Oh, didn’t you hear? … hazing is STILL legal. In fact, we even promote designated housing for these so-called organizations. More embarrassing than the lack of legislation is that we are swept away by the nostalgia of tradition.
Dare I mention the public indictments and charges for manslaughter against students for hazing? Yet, this so-called Greek life tradition is still protected.
To change, we must first ask ourselves … what do these traditions truly represent at the core? This tradition of acting with reckless disregard to human life is driven by the fear of not fitting in. It’s a buy-in into a social circle even when it doesn’t align with who we are.
Baptizing the Sleepy
Another example at the mercy of tradition is baptisms. Considered an “initiation process,” baptisms are incongruous with the modern ideology that humans must be of competent age to engage in any meaningful relationship with the Church (Stow). Assigning a minor their religious identity is abuse of power as most children fail to be “competent to know Christ” since they are baptized while asleep (Stow).
So, where’s the fallout? Wellllllll…modern society encourages consent and free will while the tradition of baptizing children encourages surrendering those very rights. The fear is driven by the belief that the gates to heaven will be closed for the unbaptized (Stow).
In modern day society, many adults who do not attend church regularly and who have never read a page of the Bible (alright, alright … maybe they read the 1st page) are committing their children to “lead the life of Christ” (Stow).
In the end, most traditions are driven by the fear of being a renegade in the community. And more often than not, the real intention is to host a party … a dog and pony show to display economic status.
A Traditional Recap
Many traditions fail to meet the expectations of modern society since human experience is NOT linear. Respecting the past by reinforcing the outdated is a disservice to humanity’s social-emotional evolution.
Modernized society has introduced core values such as:
free speech,
intuitive decision making, &
unapologetic individuality.
In dire contrast, traditions are based on cult-like characteristics where processes are validated merely because they have existed before. Anything driven by fear, greed, and a lack of empathy for individuality is at odds with modern times.
So I ask you, dear reader, have we been collectively sucked into the vortex of tradition?
Works Cited:
Stow, Kenneth. “Forced Baptisms: Histories of Jews, Christians, and Converts in Papal Rome.” Journal of Religion, vol. 93, no. 2, Apr. 2013, pp. 239–42. EBSCOhost, https://doi-org.ezp.pasadena.edu/10.1086/670788.