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Why do we embrace tradition, especially in the west?

Ostronomos

Well-Known Member
Is it a character flaw? Or does the need to embrace tradition run deeper?

Upon self-analysis. Can one say that it is purely psychological? Who decides why we do the things we do? Is it the subconscious?
 

Twilight Hue

Twilight, not bright nor dark, good nor bad.
Is it a character flaw? Or does the need to embrace tradition run deeper?

Upon self-analysis. Can one say that it is purely psychological? Who decides why we do the things we do? Is it the subconscious?
Tradition is something you can share the same experience with those of the past as mentioned.

It's a valuable connection if one so desires to partake in it.
 

idea

Question Everything
Is it a character flaw? Or does the need to embrace tradition run deeper?

Upon self-analysis. Can one say that it is purely psychological? Who decides why we do the things we do? Is it the subconscious?

My oldest just moved in with her parter, they were showing me around their cute little house - same sex couple, they will not have kids, are breaking some traditions... but as they showed me around, in bathroom they started fussing over the towels, and my daughter explained how to fold the towel "correctly" - generations of women in my family folding towels the same way rushed through my mind, I saw my great-grandmother, granny, mom, and myself all folding towels the same way, and here my lesbian daughter was carrying on the tradition in her non-traditional home. Some things change, other things - you don't even realize what behaviors have been passed down. Zealous Christian to lesbian athiest, folding towels the same.
 

Ella S.

Well-Known Member
Sunk cost fallacy (we've been doing it for this long so there must be a reason), genetic fallacy (this is the way my ancestors did it and they probably knew what they were doing), and appeal to the status quo (why fix what ain't broke?).

In other words, tradition is only important because of cognitive bias
 

Ella S.

Well-Known Member
Tradition is something you can share the same experience with those of the past as mentioned.

It's a valuable connection if one so desires to partake in it.

I don't think so. What we call "traditions" are usually a lot newer than pop culture would have us believe, or are otherwise in a drastically more modern form than we realize.
 

Twilight Hue

Twilight, not bright nor dark, good nor bad.
I don't think so. What we call "traditions" are usually a lot newer than pop culture would have us believe, or are otherwise in a drastically more modern form than we realize.
Well, traditions have to start someplace as well.
 

Glaurung

Denizen of Niflheim
Especially in the west? The modern west has more or less abandoned its traditions to varying degrees.
 

Notthedarkweb

Indian phil, German idealism, Rawls
I think I agree with most of the comments here that it is not particularly the West alone that adheres to tradition, but disagree with the idea that it doesn't in comparison with other "cultures" (whatever that means with respects to some faux-unified "West"?.)

Gadamer points out that Kant claims in his Third Critique that reflective judgement is a foundation for all empirical cognition insofar as any new cognition requires the faculty of judgement finding a universal in a new particular that hasn't been discerned before by the cognizer, as opposed to determinate judgement which just requires bringing already-intuited objects under the categories of the understanding. The former requires discovering something new while the latter just requires re-application of the concepts. How is the former possible? Gadamer with Kant endorses the aesthetic judgement, which claims for itself universal validity for the judgement of beauty in an object, as a paradigmatic example of such a reflective judgement.

The point I am driving at here is the point that reflective judgement being determinative of cognition-in-general and the basis of objectivity means that cognition is intrinsically limited since it will always come up with situations where it will require discovering new universals, new ways of applying the categories to intuited objects, etc. Gadamer explains this with reference to a juridical model, where a judge has to decide a new case for which there is no precedent. He cannot do it with the rationality of the courts already provided, he cannot apply the rules of reason mechanically to decide the case. He will have to take a plunge here that will decide a new rule, and will probably be broken and revised when another unique particular case presents itself to him.

But all cognizers, per Gadamer, are thrown into being (a Heideggerian notion), in Gadamer equivalent to history. History is constituted through tradition(s), and the cognizer is an inheritor of a particular tradition, a particular set of traditions that inherently limit his perspective, but at the same time provide the context by which the cognizer judges a new particular. Recall the juridical example. The judge does inherit precedent, and this precedent will provide a judge with a particular way he goes about judging cases. But now that he's facing a completely new case, he must simultaneously draw upon his past precedent to see how he would have gone about judging the new case as though it were not new, while at the same time taking upon the unique properties of the new case and upon deciding it adding what knowledge he has gleaned from it to his precedent.

This process of revision of traditions for Gadamer is continuous and constant, and inescapable. Tradition here is conceived more minimally as something akin to life-contexts, Gadamer likes to use the term prejudice, but perhaps it is better translated as pre-conceptions. These pre-conceptions about experience are what allow us to act in response to particular experiences in a way thats characteristic of us i.e. what it is to be me as opposed to someone else, but at the same time by ensuring that they are just revisable prejudices with inherently limited perspectives, open us up to other perspectives, other prejudices, other new possibilities.
 

Tinker Grey

Wanderer
The west is known for its widespread influence over most if not all cultures. Hence I immediately think of the west over most all other cultures. Nothing else springs to mind.
So you don't think the east had plenty of traditions adhered to regardless of western influence?
 

Truth in love

Well-Known Member
Is it a character flaw? Or does the need to embrace tradition run deeper?

Upon self-analysis. Can one say that it is purely psychological? Who decides why we do the things we do? Is it the subconscious?

Tradition keeps us doing thing the same way.
Ideally this gets us doing things the right way generation after generation.

reality is not that great, but we try.
 

wellwisher

Well-Known Member
We all have human nature. Human nature is part of the operating system of the human brain common to all humans. It is connected to our human DNA. Traditions are like triggers, than push certain operating system buttons, so we all can be on the same page.

If you took a holographic slide, with can show the world in 3-D, and use a whole punch, the little circle of the slide, that comes from the hole punch, can reproduce the entire 3-D holographic image. Holograms are weird and interesting that way. Traditions allow all the individual holes punched; each of us, from the large social holographic slide; culture, to express the same image, both individually and collectively. It is part of the brain's IT, connected to its 3-D firmware; spatial thinking.

Not all traditions work as well to make all the hole punches, and the entire slide, appear the same. The ancients were better at this since they were more right brained. We modern humans tend to be more differential; ego and this degrades the 3-D hologram to, at best, a 2.5-D spatial image.

The 2.5-D spatial image is less enduring and is not exactly a hologram. A spatial image is like a 3-D image expressed on a 2-D flat surface; cause and affect, using shadowing and highlights. It can fool the eyes but it can not get past the sense of touch.

As an experiment, touch your screen below to see that this 3-D image is actually flat and therefore not a 3-D holograph. A hole punch will only show a part.

depositphotos_26901455-stock-photo-3d-logo.jpg


There is another type of spatial illusion that was expressed in the art of Escher, as show below. This art work below is called Relativity. It shows a 2.5-D spatial illusion that appears to show that all staircases are relative; relative morality. Each staircase and walker, by itself, seems to be fine, but when they are all placed side-by-side, as in the art, they cannot all be right at the same time. In this case, we may use gravity to become the final litmus test, with not all the staircase orientations able to satisfy this primal need. This type of affect is common fad traditions, that may work in the short term. One can come to a focus by suppressing others; look at one staircase, but this won't give the full 3-D buzz that humans crave.

Escher%27s_Relativity.jpg


Christmas is 3-D holographic tradition because it triggers the timeless joy of a new child; part of human nature. This is part of out collective human nature from time memorial. It brings out that need to love, share and protect. The child firmware will also help people tone down the stresses and anger of adulthood, since babies need soft and understanding joy, even under tough conditions for the adults. This was well designed to push buttons for a month, can also unite a huge team, whose little holographic punch out, is part of the same larger collective holographic slide.
 
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