In a North American context, Tradition can mean a lot. People who say that the USA has no culture really haven't been paying attention. A simple glance at the United States Marine Corps (and other branches of the military, of course), the National Anthem, or American media speak volumes about where the United States has come from, and the direction in which it is moving.
Tradition can be pretty cool. There are a lot of things that have great sentimental value to people, and from the perspective of national solidarity, respect for tradition is important.
However: I believe that tradition should be changed or ignored when a changing sociopolitical environment demands it. Fox News and prominent republican figures have always used 'tradition' as an argument to defend the perpetuation of archaic, offensive, and sometimes even discriminatory policies. One example that keeps cropping up is in debates over whether the United States government should try to be more secular, given that there are a great number of Americans of other religious denominations. The argument most often used by republicans is that "The constitution defines America as 'One nation under God,' Why should we change that, alter the principles that our nation was founded on?" To me, at least, this and many other arguments like this (including some used to justify the opposition to gay marriage) have made the word 'tradition' symbolize opposition to progress and positive change, an impediment to moving forward into a postmodern social paradigm befitting the 21st century.
How important do YOU find tradition?
Where I live it is traditional to masturbate into a cup every day and at Christmas we all pour our cups into a barrel and draw straws. Whoever gets the short one must down the entire keg lest we rape them to death.
Don't ask me why, we just do.
I like tradition. Rituals always seemed kinda fun to me :3:
But when its taken to the extreme by butthurt conservatives afraid of change, you know how that goes :saddowns:
It's basically doing something because everyone else is doing it. There's no good reason to follow traditions.
i like the holidays
christmas and stuff like that is the only traditions i have
Tradition is the bane of advance, both technologically and culturally. I can not imagine how many occasions there are when tradition has stopped civilization or made it take a wrong turn, the perfect example of this is the american government
(when I say american government I would love to say I mostly mean religious connections to governing a country but that would just cause trouble)
Traditions are very important to established cultures such as my own. In Ireland traditions are what define us as a national identity. I value them and would never give them up.
Tradition isn't necessarily good, but sometimes when you have to make a decision or something then you can think what is more traditional or something like this and it can help. You should never ever completely follow your tradition and do whatever it asks of you, it's very similar to religion in this manner - some people follow their traditions to the extreme and don't care about hurting others or themselves just because they think it's right, but that doesn't mean tradition or religion is entirely wrong - you just have to know how to enjoy it or make use of it.
[QUOTE=Ali Legend;24804989]Where I live it is traditional to masturbate into a cup every day and at Christmas we all pour our cups into a barrel and draw straws. Whoever gets the short one must down the entire keg lest we rape them to death.
Don't ask me why, we just do.[/QUOTE]
No shit, man! We obviously grew up in the same kind of community. Mine did it with jizz, shit, piss and dead babies, except instead of being raped to death they'd be forced to watch Gigli on repeat until they strangled themselves with their scrote!
I didn't miss your threads archangel
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