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Your response reminds me of the quote: “Tradition is a set of solutions for which we have forgotten the problems. Throw away the solution and you get the proble

Your response reminds me of the quote: “Tradition is a set of solutions for which we have forgotten the problems. Throw away the solution and you get the problem back. Sometimes the problem has mutated or disappeared. Often it is still there as strong as it ever was.” ― Donald Kingsbury Watching our politics speed-run the 60s-80s again reminds me of this every day. Hopefully we hit the 90s soon, those were pretty rad.

darkteflon 4y ago
Indeed, reminded me of this article from a few years back, which left quite the impression: https://scholars-stage.org/tradition-is-smarter-than-you-are/ https://scholars-stage.org/tradition-is-smarter-than-you-are...
- rakejake 4y ago
  Fantastic article. Thanks for sharing.
- steveBK123 4y ago
  Another interesting read with some ideological bends I can't completely buy into is Rob Henderson & his writing on "Luxury Beliefs". Basically the concept you may notice if you are in HCOL blue urban elite circles.. Well to do left of center people who espouse discouragement of / being against many traditional concepts (monogamy, two parent households, kids after marriage, strict discipline, follow the law, being drug-free, going to college for a career, etc) .. but largely actually follow it and is how they / their parents got where they are. And either way they have the means to not be effected by the negative effects of this non-traditionalism. However if you are middle/lower class and follow the same non-traditional path, the personal costs to you & your offspring of frequent drug use, being a single parent, etc are almost insurmountable and are some of the leading causes of generational poverty. That is - it is easy to say "hard work doesn't pay off, do drugs, break the law, and free love" when you are going from an elite (fully paid for by parents) university campus to start your career & live in NYC/SF/LA/Boston (with college & parents helping you with job connections, and parents helping underwrite your housing until you get on your feet). For them the worst cost of failure is moving back with mom&dad to their comfortable leafy suburb.
  - SamBam 4y ago
    > discouragement of / being against... I know lots of liberal elites, and don't know any who are actually against two parent households, kids after marriage, following the law, being drug-free, going to college for a career, etc This is a ridiculous assertion. But I know many of these same people who believe in not judging those who do not follow all of these ideals, and want systems in place that support, say, single mothers or whatever. This is very different.
    - steveBK123 4y ago
      A fair critique I would probably rephrase it as "questioning the value of" rather than "discouraging / being against" x traditional values. And yes, as these people age/mature it usually morphs more into - we should be much more supportive with systems in place to help single mothers, etc. Unfortunately there's limits to what the state can do to replace family, and there are good reasons to encourage people to not fall for the same pitfalls that trap them into cycles of poverty, no matter how much the state does to make that poverty less painful.
lolinder 4y ago
This draws on Chesterton's perspective on tradition. He's most famous around here for his Fence. Past the part that is commonly cited, he says this [0]: > The gate or fence did not grow there. It was not set up by somnambulists who built it in their sleep. It is highly improbable that it was put there by escaped lunatics who were for some reason loose in the street. Some person had some reason for thinking it would be a good thing for somebody. And until we know what the reason was, we really cannot judge whether the reason was reasonable. > ... > If he knows how it arose, and what purposes it was supposed to serve, he may really be able to say that they were bad purposes, or that they have since become bad purposes, or that they are purposes which are no longer served. But if he simply stares at the thing as a senseless monstrosity that has somehow sprung up in his path, it is he and not the traditionalist who is suffering from an illusion. [0] https://archive.org/stream/G.K.ChestertonTheThing/G.K.Chesterton-The%20Thing_djvu.txt https://archive.org/stream/G.K.ChestertonTheThing/G.K.Cheste...
- endemic 4y ago
  Very applicable to programming as well.
- SamBam 4y ago
  Often those traditions may have important, forgotten reasons, but just as often traditions were created to say "we are our people, we're not those other folk." See: dietary laws, circumcision, restrictions on what materials your clothes may be made out of, rules for what hair you're allowed to cut, and when you should or shouldn't cover your head, etc. etc. (And before people jump in with "maybe there was a specific reason for the dietary laws, e.g. pork was unhealthy," that doesn't explain why you'd have peoples living side-by-side with opposing dietary laws.)
  - freahsteaksauce 4y ago
    What kind of fence is it when you think you know why the fence is there but you're obviously wrong?
  - lazide 4y ago
JJMcJ 4y ago
In the same way, N. N. Taleb talks of the wisdom of grandmothers. All the old sayings represent hard earned knowledge. Some traditions are based on superstition, but certainly not all of them.
hcrisp 4y ago
Reminds me of another quote: "Tradition is the living faith of the dead; traditionalism is the dead faith of the living." -- Jaroslav Pelikan (per the web)

darkteflon 4y ago

Indeed, reminded me of this article from a few years back, which left quite the impression: https://scholars-stage.org/tradition-is-smarter-than-you-are/ https://scholars-stage.org/tradition-is-smarter-than-you-are...

rakejake 4y ago
Fantastic article. Thanks for sharing.
steveBK123 4y ago
Another interesting read with some ideological bends I can't completely buy into is Rob Henderson & his writing on "Luxury Beliefs". Basically the concept you may notice if you are in HCOL blue urban elite circles.. Well to do left of center people who espouse discouragement of / being against many traditional concepts (monogamy, two parent households, kids after marriage, strict discipline, follow the law, being drug-free, going to college for a career, etc) .. but largely actually follow it and is how they / their parents got where they are. And either way they have the means to not be effected by the negative effects of this non-traditionalism. However if you are middle/lower class and follow the same non-traditional path, the personal costs to you & your offspring of frequent drug use, being a single parent, etc are almost insurmountable and are some of the leading causes of generational poverty. That is - it is easy to say "hard work doesn't pay off, do drugs, break the law, and free love" when you are going from an elite (fully paid for by parents) university campus to start your career & live in NYC/SF/LA/Boston (with college & parents helping you with job connections, and parents helping underwrite your housing until you get on your feet). For them the worst cost of failure is moving back with mom&dad to their comfortable leafy suburb.
- SamBam 4y ago
  > discouragement of / being against... I know lots of liberal elites, and don't know any who are actually against two parent households, kids after marriage, following the law, being drug-free, going to college for a career, etc This is a ridiculous assertion. But I know many of these same people who believe in not judging those who do not follow all of these ideals, and want systems in place that support, say, single mothers or whatever. This is very different.
  - steveBK123 4y ago
    A fair critique I would probably rephrase it as "questioning the value of" rather than "discouraging / being against" x traditional values. And yes, as these people age/mature it usually morphs more into - we should be much more supportive with systems in place to help single mothers, etc. Unfortunately there's limits to what the state can do to replace family, and there are good reasons to encourage people to not fall for the same pitfalls that trap them into cycles of poverty, no matter how much the state does to make that poverty less painful.

lolinder 4y ago

This draws on Chesterton's perspective on tradition. He's most famous around here for his Fence. Past the part that is commonly cited, he says this [0]: > The gate or fence did not grow there. It was not set up by somnambulists who built it in their sleep. It is highly improbable that it was put there by escaped lunatics who were for some reason loose in the street. Some person had some reason for thinking it would be a good thing for somebody. And until we know what the reason was, we really cannot judge whether the reason was reasonable. > ... > If he knows how it arose, and what purposes it was supposed to serve, he may really be able to say that they were bad purposes, or that they have since become bad purposes, or that they are purposes which are no longer served. But if he simply stares at the thing as a senseless monstrosity that has somehow sprung up in his path, it is he and not the traditionalist who is suffering from an illusion. [0] https://archive.org/stream/G.K.ChestertonTheThing/G.K.Chesterton-The%20Thing_djvu.txt https://archive.org/stream/G.K.ChestertonTheThing/G.K.Cheste...

endemic 4y ago
Very applicable to programming as well.
SamBam 4y ago
Often those traditions may have important, forgotten reasons, but just as often traditions were created to say "we are our people, we're not those other folk." See: dietary laws, circumcision, restrictions on what materials your clothes may be made out of, rules for what hair you're allowed to cut, and when you should or shouldn't cover your head, etc. etc. (And before people jump in with "maybe there was a specific reason for the dietary laws, e.g. pork was unhealthy," that doesn't explain why you'd have peoples living side-by-side with opposing dietary laws.)
- freahsteaksauce 4y ago
  What kind of fence is it when you think you know why the fence is there but you're obviously wrong?
- lazide 4y ago

JJMcJ 4y ago

In the same way, N. N. Taleb talks of the wisdom of grandmothers. All the old sayings represent hard earned knowledge. Some traditions are based on superstition, but certainly not all of them.

hcrisp 4y ago

Reminds me of another quote: "Tradition is the living faith of the dead; traditionalism is the dead faith of the living." -- Jaroslav Pelikan (per the web)