How Long to Make a Tradition

[Bugbear]

Ted you forget that at X-Marks it is traditional to take exception to everything.

Exactly.

[Bugbear]

You know... That does bring to mind another issue here.

One groups tradition can be another groups taboo. In accordance with human nature those two groups will, most likely, develop animosities toward each other... Which could very well reinforce the traditions or taboos or even the traditional taboos...

Not that there's anything wrong with that. The only world any of us can know, according to many scientists, is the world our brains are recreating for each of our minds to observe. Very few of us could exist without any other humans for very long, and we need these groups, but it does make for interesting drama in the grand kabuki dance of life.

[Bugbear]

I see nothing in that definition that says small or non-main stream groups can not have nor are incapable of having traditions, so I have no problem with the definition.

[DWFII]

I see nothing in that definition that says small or non-main stream groups can not have nor are incapable of having traditions, so I have no problem with the definition.

You know my post #61 was meant as a summary and I was intent on bowing out of this discussion...which gets more attenuated as time goes by (even I recognize that)...but I'm like the trout that I used to fish for--I'll rise to a fat drake every time.

Out of respect for you (and not wishing to have you misunderstand me) I feel compelled to point out that I have never asserted that "small or non-main stream groups can not have...traditions." Quite the contrary, as I mentioned my family traditions in one post and alluded to social groupings as small as families in another.

Just sayin'....

[Bugbear]

You know my post #61 was meant as a summary and I was intent on bowing out of this discussion...which gets more attenuated as time goes by (even I recognize that)...but I'm like the trout that I used to fish for--I'll rise to a fat drake every time.

Out of respect for you (and not wishing to have you misunderstand me) I feel compelled to point out that I have never asserted that "small or non-main stream groups can not have...traditions." Quite the contrary, as I mentioned my family traditions in one post and alluded to social groupings as small as families in another.

Just sayin'....

Exactly.

You did bring up MacMillan of Rathdown's definition which may imply or possibly say that non-main stream groups are incapable of forming traditions, and that is the thorn in my side for this thread.

We are not dissagreeing, so I will leave it be.

* Apologies if it sounded like I was saying you were saying those things, but like I said I don't have a problem with your definition. *

[Bugbear]

I do, however, have a huge problem with someone telling me that the traditions of my people, or kind, are not traditions because we might not be in the main stream, or differ greatly from the norm. But, DWFII, it sounds like you are saying the same thing. That you are not exactly in the main stream, yet you have traditions.

Sometimes you are saying that you almost feel like an outsider here. I feel those same feelings often, it's just from a different direction.

I was not trying to trap you or trick you.

I will go ahead and back off.

[JelicoCat]

I don't follow (I confuse easily.)

So if there is a rational reason for doing something that has been passed down from one generation to the next and one knows the reason, then by definition it is excluded from being a tradition.

Is this correct or did I miss it again?

[DWFII]

I don't follow (I confuse easily.)

So if there is a rational reason for doing something that has been passed down from one generation to the next and one knows the reason, then by definition it is excluded from being a tradition.

Is this correct or did I miss it again?

Not at all...simply that you can't define a tradition by whether it has a currently understood rationale or not. Making that connection is part of the misunderstanding (or mis-labeling), if there is one. Most traditions had (or have) some rationale to begin with...and many times those are well understood and accepted...but just as many times those rationales have been lost in time. The fact that the practice goes on, generation after generation, without a rationale more nearly defines it as tradition than the presence or absence of a rationale.

Do you see what I mean?

[Colonel MacNeal]

Textiles resembling tartans have been found in Indo-European grave sites dating back thousands of years. Not a recent phenomenon. How you wear the tartan is your choice.

[DWFII]

Textiles resembling tartans have been found in Indo-European grave sites dating back thousands of years. Not a recent phenomenon. How you wear the tartan is your choice.

Of course it is!! No one ever said different. But if you choose to wear it as underwear, you can't really ...reasonably...make the case that you're wearing Tradtional Highland Attire, can you?