Your Ancestors Were Idiots

1. Traditions assume that people in the past were wiser\better\smarter\funnier\[fill in with whatever positive attribute you want] than people today

Of all the problems with traditions I will discuss this is the most troubling to me, and frankly, the most obviously falsifiable. Along almost metric you might consider the people of the past were much, much, much worse off than people today. They had less knowledge, more hunger and disease, more poverty, more wars, much shorter lifespans, virulently racist and/or homophobic belief systems that were accepted as normal, genocides of every variety, terrible jokes, etc. and I could go on and on and on. Bottom line is the past basically sucked compared to today, so to suggest that something should be venerated just because it is from the past is downright stupid. Here is the hard truth nobody likes to admit, our ancestors, yours, mine, everyone's, were idiots. They were dumb as bricks and assholes to boot. Mostly this was not their fault, they were just ignorant, but it was partly their fault. In the future my descendants will be calling me an idiot and an asshole, and guess what, they will be correct to do so. We accrue knowledge over time, learn new things, both factual and ethical, we continue to improve and get better. Traditions from the past are mostly as stupid as the people of the past were. You might think this is depressing to think about. I find it liberating.

2. Traditions block us from trying something new or different

When we cling to traditions and traditional ways of doing things we automatically close ourselves off to a variety of potentially new experiences that could allow us to grow as people. We do the same stupid things from the past over and over and over again, and in so doing, miss out on a host of activities and experiences that are available in the now that almost certainly are better than the traditional thing you are clinging to.

3. The major mechanisms for enforcing/handing down traditions are negative (guilt, fear, embarrassment, etc. ).

When it comes to traditions the main mechanisms for forcing people to continue following them seems to be guilt The guilt is laid on hard an thick by friends, family, anyone that follows the tradition if you try to blaze a new path and do something different. If guilt alone is not enough there is always embarrassment and ridicule to help you see the error of your non traditional ways. Finally, the ultimate tradition trump card, fear. Fear of not fitting in, fear of angering your loved ones, and of course, fear of violence in the most heinous of cases.

4. Traditions are boring

The same old, same old, over and over and over again. Yawn.

5. Traditions are lazy

Don't want to have to think about how to do a particular thing in an interesting, unique, or new way? No problem, just do it the traditional way and all the work is done for you. Why bother thinking for yourself when traditions can do all your thinking and decision making for you? Yeah?

Speaking of traditions. The Vocal.media six hundred word count minimum for publishing a story on their web-site is a fantastic example of a tradition that needs to go the way of the dinosaur. It is well intentioned I am sure, but its effect is to force authors like myself, who have spent countless hours (at least 20minutes) toiling over a particularly awesome written work to append these stupid, inane, and wasteful postscripts to completed works, in order that they might meet an arbitrary standard of word count. A standard which has zero relation to quality of content. Stupid. So very, very stupid.