Tradition! While sometimes the focus of a song from a Jewish theatre play, every tradition on our planet has been forged through hundreds to thousands of years of evolution, experimentation and general brouhahas (the technical term, of course) that have shaped the lives of us and our forebears. Though, there is an argument to be made for retaining the presence of established traditions, and rather than building atop them, venerating them as they are for a stable societal medium. While this is somewhat of a Confucian view, with ritual, tradition and learned experience over youthful explosionism, no tradition has a monopoly on self-praise.
Traditions are, of course, established with someone at some point doing something and everyone else starting to do it. Then, their kids (or some adoring fans) copied from them and passed it on ever further and further until it reached our thick skulls. And of course, they emerged unchanged, right?
Aye sir, thence the perils of time hath none impact upon language. Forsooth, those thoughts of our ancestors haven’t been alter’d a whit! I nary say, dearest reader of thine, how grateful I am that we speak in such an antiquated manner!
Everything changes. Languages change, people change, ideas change. While core tenets will often remain the same, interpretations will change. Take the United States, for example. When the country began, only white, wealthy and male landowners could vote. Now, all American citizens, regardless of race and gender, are technically permitted to vote. Should we revert back to that original interpretation, or should we maintain the spirit of the message adapted to a more modern understanding with actual different perspectives? If you do believe that it should be reverted, then I ask you to please put down the paper or select the X button in the upper right hand corner of the window on your computer.
All things in life can and do change. Some for the better, and some for the worse. Regardless, however, every person in that long chain of traditions changes it in their own way, adapting it to themselves and their surroundings even slightly, and they add their own mark unto it. In that manner, it gives traditions their genuine credibility — the wisdom of thousands who came before us being somehow imparted through our common traditions.
Yet… should we actively change them? Not impart some implicit change due to environment or tendency but an active and conscious alteration to these time-honored traditions for what we believe is right?
My answer… is yes. Traditions should evolve, but the world is speeding up. As our ancestors artificially selected which crops should be cultivated and continued, thus giving us our modern varieties of fruits and vegetables and grains, we too need to choose which parts of our traditions are genuinely valuable for the future and which should be relegated to preservation in a museum. That part is key — not that we eliminate and forget all that came before, but choosing to recognize which parts of our heritage we wish to preserve for our future generations and which sections we believe they would be better without.
While tradition provides a fabric from which morality and procedure can be created and followed, it can also carry poisons along from eras wherein evil roamed freely. And if what we are now will be seen by our descendants as evil, then should they not feel free to alter our tradition for themselves? Should we not have the freedom to choose the path we wish to follow? Or would you rather your great-great-great-grandchild shaves themselves bald because your hairline receded after puberty and you became a respected figure?
It is our duty to build anew, with input from the past. Not to be controlled by the skeletal hands of our ancestors. We can learn from not only our mistakes, but from the mistakes of our ancestors. We are all human, on this vast and grand journey, and we should see our path as such.