How Long to Make a Tradition

[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]

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?

[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?

[Friday]

It was said earlier that the traditional clothing of a gentleman has not changed in the past 100 years (forgive me if this time estimate is off). I agree and I would suggest that most people have no idea why this style was first designed on how it became traditional. It just works.

In another post an example was used that raised a question in my mind of when is it traditional and when is it just old? As the WWW grows more and more information is available and even more misinformation is available. The example describes a picture of a man in highland dress with two pistols in his belt. I would not include two pistols as part of traditional highland dress*. At the time two pistols were very important, if you could afford them) to try to reduce the number of highwaymen before they came into sword range. As the road became safer the need for these pistols reduced. As we talk about traditions we need to be careful about where we get the source material from.

*If my mind serves me correctly there was a requirement for a pistol as part of formal highland dress before court but this has been dropped, but I may be wrong.

[Friday]

As for family values, I vaguely remember in some cultures, especially for royalty, because of the importance of heirs, that the brides ability to produce children was verified before the marriage. Could this be part of the basis for the statement that a bride can do in six months what an old married woman takes 9?

[Bugbear]

Sorry. I'm the one who brought up the understanding traditions thing.

I wasn't talking about any of this. I was only saying that teaching the reasons or the history behind a tradition, when passing it on, makes the tradition stronger or longer lasting. I was not saying that traditions have to be explained when being passed on, nor was I saying that a tradition needs to have a known reason.

[Friday]

Sorry. I'm the one who brought up the understanding traditions thing.

I wasn't talking about any of this. I was only saying that teaching the reasons or the history behind a tradition, when passing it on, makes the tradition stronger or longer lasting. I was not saying that traditions have to be explained when being passed on, nor was I saying that a tradition needs to have a known reason.

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

[Bugbear]

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

Exactly.

[Abax]

If language was more precise than it actually is, we'd probably all be pretty upset with each other.

No disrespect meant, but if words are about communication then the more precise they are the better we understand each other. If they are only about display...of cunning or fierceness or whatever...then a grunt and a slap of the ground will do.

So let me try to be more precise.

Some things require precision. For instance, directions on how to administer a medication ought to be so clear that we would all carry out the same actions. The definition of a centimeter ought to be precise. But when we talk about kilts, we're really talking about an emotional experience. Once clothes keep you from freezing in the snow or burning in the sun, they provide a way to express yourself to the world:

"I belong to this group."
"Among this group's members, I am remarkable."
"I am unique unto myself."
"I reject the norm in the most extreme manner I can conceive."

In talking about kilts, I believe we are telling each other about *our* emotional experiences, hoping the listener can relate our story to some experience they have had. For both the story teller and the listener, their emotional experiences are unique and can only be truly known to themselves.

The original post in this thread asked for a definition of when something becomes a valid tradition. I believe tradition is an emotional experience that does not lend itself to a precision of creation or expression. I can tell you how I engage in tradition, but my description of those emotions are just approximations. In communicating about emotions, we end up knowing not so much about the other person, but more about how our experiences are more or less like theirs. Even if I could communicate my definition of tradition and when it becomes that, exactly, I doubt most other people would find it exactly satisfying. Their experience and their emotions are different, and that realization calls for a bit of tolerance. Insisting that we all share the same definition of an emotional experience like tradition is probably a good way for people to get upset with each other.


The imprecision of describing tradition doesn't mean we should stop talking about it. Sometimes, a vague, imprecise reference can be quite powerful. Look at "Where Men and Dogs Seem Small" by Fred Machetanz:



I have a full-sized print of this painting. Notice that the colors are all wrong. Snow isn't purple or pink. McKinley rarely looks yellow. The sky isn't that funny mix of colors. But this painting by Machetanz captures the feeling I've had in the middle of nowhere *perfectly*. Laying in a snow bank at three in the afternoon watching the sun set, listening to the sound of perfect silence interrupted only by my own breathing. No one around for miles and miles. And then one thing passes by. May be a rabbit, or a bird, or a musher. They don't know I'm there, as they too enjoy the absolute desolate beauty of the cold winter day. The painting reminds me of these feelings, and I like remembering those rare moments.

I'm not lobbying for some watered-down definition of tradition that seeks to please everyone and offend no one. But I do think that some concepts are *personal*, and to try turn tradition into a public fixture does it an injustice. Historical recountings of past tradition can be as precise as our records. But the essence of a tradition - especially those yet to come - should be left to our own imaginations and experiences. Sharing our traditions should be a gift, not an imposition of will.

Abax

[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.