Picture this:
You’ve been assigned the task of preparing dinner for some family function. The secret behind its preparation has been closely guarded for generations. After many years spent indulging in this delicacy, the time has finally come for you to learn the ways. But before you are handed the recipe, there is one clear instruction: execute each step to the letter.
At first, you clutch the ancient document with reverence as the ineffable nature sinks in. But the gape quickly turns to a frown as you unfurl the scroll. The parchment drapes around your heels.
That’s a lot of steps.
Every imperative just added to the overkill. Also, most of the steps seemed to be about just one of the ingredients. A certain rare vegetable – which smelled and tasted awful on its own. The goal was to make people eat this thing, so you conclude that most of the instructions must be about enhancing the taste of this particular vegetable.
But even so, was it really necessary to wash the roots 6 times over?
Defying Wisdom
Suddenly, an idea strikes.
You decide to scan the method from start to finish, finding extra evidence to suggest the extra print really was just a roundabout way of removing the unpleasant taste. In your eyes, this validates your hypothesis – hence there should exist a more pragmatic approach to this dish.
You experiment with alternative procedures – hashing out most of the many labour-intensive/time-consuming steps. Instead of boiling the roots for 40 minutes, why not go for 20? As for the washing, 3 times could be plenty. Thanks to your initiative, dinner is served in four hours rather than four days. And you find that with a shorter, more straightforward process, it still tastes divine.
Everyone tucks in, bar Grandma. She is a guardian of the fabled recipe and doesn’t seem to trust the relative lack of time and effort that went into carrying it out. Therefore she – despite incessant nagging from her progeny – retires to bed a little earlier.
Paying the Price
The following morning, everyone is too sick to leave their rooms. And there can be no doubt why.
As it turned out, the sour ingredient didn’t just taste foul – but was also quite toxic. As such, it required heavy-duty preparation to render it fit for consumption. Marinade with a pinch of seasoning was successful in tricking the taste buds, but the digestive tracts proved less easy to fool.
The repetitive washing had been paramount. Everything had been paramount. You’d skimmed over the instructions in your haste for efficiency, thus every crucial aspect managed to evade your attention. As you lie in a pond of cold sweat, you sense someone enter the bedroom.
“Told you so,” whispers Grandma.
Understanding Culture
So here’s a question: Just how smart are we?
Humans have done well, yes? Surely the fact we’re the only ‘known’ intelligent life-form correlates to some substantial degree of evolutionary prowess?
But according to cultural psychologist Joseph Henrich, humans are not as bright as we think. He posits that, if you remove us from the culture and environment we’ve learned to mature and operate within, we’d fail to even grasp the basics.
To support his argument, he references European explorers who die in the middle of deserts, jungles, or arctic wastes despite the fact many generations of hunter-gatherers managed to survive and thrive in equally inhospitable conditions. If our prosperity as a species truly came from an innate ability to problem solve, analyse, and rationally develop novel solutions to novel challenges, the explorers should have left with barely a scratch. Their horrid fate suggests that intelligence alone may not be the key to humanity’s progress.
Tradition, on the other hand, is arguably the stepping stone toward understanding what makes us so great.
Arrogance Kills Customs
We tend to sneer at how ‘inefficient’ everything used to be. Such negligence may not have as profound an impact on us as chronic food-poisoning, yet our adamant dismissal of culture is no cause for celebration. Culture survives the test of time. It is a vessel for the most ancient, fundamental ideas that shape reality for the better.
Such axioms would have once been common knowledge, discussed freely and enforced religiously throughout the ages. An existing network of customs would generate many new roads to explore.
However, the resin from which spawns innovation also yields something darker; ignorance. Ignorance for values that we now only associate with half-forgotten proverbs; enemy to the cold, hard logic humankind ostensibly now favours. It is fast becoming the norm to disregard traditional activities with the belief that their archaic nature could carry little relevance in the high-octane drama of the contemporary world.
The ‘Now’ Bias
Today, the internet has shifted virtually all knowledge beneath our fingertips. Information flows at the speed of light. Social media is now playing a principal role in the day-to-day lives of well over half the world’s population. Your newsfeed nurtures a desire for the present – the ‘now’ bias – but at the cost of curbing respect for the past.
On the other hand, re-inventing the status quo can be a necessary step toward the advancement of civilisation. People have understandably mixed feelings regarding conformity. It is often cited that true brilliance only shows after discarding the owner’s manual.
But whilst relying too heavily on custom can indeed prove detrimental for some aspects of overall progress, our relentless persistence for ‘optimisation’ can make us lose sight of what got us here in the first place. In confusing sagacity for trivia, we are failing to capitalise on the lessons our forebears learned long ago. We are condemning ourselves to learn it the ‘hard way’, making the same mistakes they once did. Easily avoidable mistakes, had we just taken time to blast through the haze of ignorance descending over our minds.
Had we just listened.
“History never repeats itself. Man always does.”
-Voltaire
Breakthrough vs Big Picture
We should look to take wisdom fully on board. To integrate seasoned culture and experience with round-the-clock breakthroughs. Because in a future of such uncertainty – such raw potential – we need something solid to lean on. And what better support pillar than customs that have stood their ground against the evolutionary tide?
In a world now governed by the hour and minute hands, invaluable knowledge is timeless. Tradition should always have a place, if not in our hearts, then at least in our heads. It’s data that has been distilled into tried and tested practices – and for our benefit. There lies a fine line between reading ahead and outright throwing history to the dogs. The future depends upon whether or not we toe that boundary.
Finally, here’s an idea that summarises the gist of this post. It tells us not to remove or change something if we can’t understand why it should be there in the first place:
Chesterton’s Fence
The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to [a fence] and says, “I don’t see the use of this; let us clear it away.” To which the more intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer: “If you don’t see the use of it, I certainly won’t let you clear it away. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it.
-G.K. Chesterton, The Thing
Further Information:
Tradition is Smarter than You Are (article)