A note on traditions...

“Traditionalists are pessimists about the future and optimists about the past” -Lewis Mumford

Maybe it's just being here in The South, but it seems that there is a lot of talk of tradition. And, most notably, it seems to come from people who have little or no idea what they're talking about, no knowledge of the history of the traditions they preach, and/or not enough backbone to stand up for what they preach. I also may be alone in this thinking, but it seems odd to follow a tradition that's only a century old, two at most, when the older tradition was the opposite.

Men's hair length, for example. Historically, longer hair has been more common in Western culture. Germanic, Norse, Pictish, American Indian, and Celtic warriors all had long hair. For some of these, it was even a mark of honor; if a warrior's hair was short, it signified dishonor, most often from running away from battle, or being beaten. Short hair was the mark of the inept and the cowardly. Later, long hair became symbolic of wealth and power. Simple farmers hacked theirs off, because they could afford niether the time nor the money to care for long hair, it became tangled, would get fleas or lice. The wealthy, the scholarly, people of prestige, on the other hand... You want to see traditional hair length? Pull out a dollar bill. George Washington. Long hair. Granted, it's a wig on there. But that means that not only did he wear long hair, but he PAID extra money for it. Unless you think the founder of the country and the first president couldn't afford one with short hair...?

Another is the concept of the "nuclear family". This one's even more recent. Historically, this is a very recent "tradition". This is the concept of the wife staying home, cleaning house all day, cooking dinner for her husband to come home to as he sits with his pipe after a long day of being the sole breadwinner. NEW concept. It is only recently that the middle class of Western societies have been wealthy enough to even attempt this. The older tradition was that everybody worked, at every aspect of the family's earning. The wife worked the field almost as much as the husband, and even the children worked the fields. Or, the children were sent away to apprentice to someone else, in which case they worked a forge, or a stable, or something similar. Even worse, I've only met one person who has claimed to believe in this life, and stuck to it. The others either had a home-based business, earning income for the family unit. Or, I have seen far too many of these hypocrites, who claim belief in this "tradition", yet while their live-in significant other works they...sit. They leave the housework for the last minute, if they do any, they leave even the childcare for their other to do when they get home. You want to claim this belief, and say you want to live this way? Try actually matching words to action. I know, weird concept.

“People are always talking about tradition, but they forget we have a tradition of a few hundred years of nonsense and stupidity, that there is a tradition of idiocy, incompetence and crudity” -Hugo Demartini