Tratitions and adaptation - Attachment to traditions while keeping and open mind to adaptation - Apego à tradição
Autor: Luiz_Alex007 | Publicado: 2017-02-24T20:45:00-11:00

As usual, I was consuming a lot of history related material with the intention of obtaining more knowledge. And I came around to an argument which I constantly mention and even outright discuss. But I don't think I ever had any conclusive thoughts said or wrote down about it. The issue is the one of how to learn from tradition and stay adaptive, finding the balance between following tested methods and trying out different things. In sum, how doctrines are something I consider important and useful but that also should not overweight the decision making when faced with new situations. How following tested and refined methods is good, but each situation may require further specialized refinement for it.


Firstly, as anyone who reads my blog or talks to me for longer than an hour, it's quite obvious that I am more of the "bookshelf unexperienced" type of person. Therefore, most of the things I talk about are usually derivative from second and third hand experiences. It means that I am not experienced and instead I rely on sources that I trust. Thus, I am prone to inquire the world accordingly to the templates of others.

I actually believe that to be the most common way for a person in the 21th century to acquire knowledge. In a society where books are no longer so hard to produce and there are so many ways of recording and pass messages along, such as video and audio, I find that it has become very easy for people to acquire a sense of the world through the experiences, knowledge and messages of others. Not that it didn't happen ever since human primitive times. After all, parents and tribes sharing knowledge was paramount for their survival. 


But, in this world where technology made it so much easier for anyone to record their knowledge and pass along, it's possible for many more people to study about people whom they would never have a chance of even hearing about. A quick example would be of how, even in the poorest and most deprived areas of the Middle East, several groups records messages of their leaders in cassette tapes and such or broadcast it in radio waves to reach even the farthest regions. It means that their leaders' messages are able to reach people regardless of even if the original speaker is still alive or the target of such messages would be able to pay for expensive methods of learning. Even illiterate people, living in poor mountain villages and cities ravaged by war, can hear the words of deceased leaders. Practically speaking, most people on the world are now able to record their beliefs for posterity and dissemination.

That being the world where I live in and am familiar with, I consider completely natural to acquire knowledge from sources which we have no relation with whatsoever. Consequently, it also means that both the flow and the bombardment of different ideas and ideals is most probably unprecedented in history. After all, every single idea and ideal can acquire a different altercation on the minds of each person. And so each of these people and their thoughts have to struggle against one another. Of course, the factors that decide which of the messages prevails are many and never really fair and equal. I consider it to be just the natural evolution of ideologies.

One of the consequences of this type of society, is that first hand knowledge can easily get smothered by older more stable and refined ideologies. After all, a lot of people and their ideas are quite similar to the ones already registered by others. Perhaps you have already heard the saying: "Whatever you think, say and do, someone has probably already thought, said and done before. They might have even done it better than you". I am not trying to disagree with this saying. Per contrarié, I do believe to also be obvious that, due the course of history, although never completely equal, incredibly similar, situations and the experiences deriving from them are bound to happen. 

International estimates and population census say that there are more than 7 Billion human beings alive on this planet right now. And, even with the varying situations of each one, we are all already part of a global community. So, we like it or not, our cultures and knowledge have been melding and somewhat standardizing our experiences. Considering what this means, it's just probable that, at least another person in this world, if not more, is or are doing and thinking something very similar to me right now. Actually, considering how many people of my age have access to the internet, it's pretty much a given situation. Their experiences are also bound to not be equal, but really similar. Similar to the point of being almost indistinguishable.


So, what I consider to be the advantages of maintaining and following through with the knowledge passed on by others. The one I consider to be the most obvious one is the economy of time and effort. Instead of trying to create something from scratch, humans are bound to use what we already learn and adapt it into the conformity's of our situations. It's something which I believe that we humans developed to utilize our life time in a more productive manner. 

After all, humans are social animals who have always instinctively lived in packs and initially had much shorter life spans than today's standards. Consequently, like in my mention to the knowledge passed from parents and tribes in the early human development age, we seem to agree that it's initially easier to create things with the tools provided to us than create new ones. There are many sayings that come to mind when defending this stance, such as "Why try to fix what isn't broken?" and "No need to try and reinvent the wheel!". In other words, letting others' achievements and knowledge help and guide us can be useful, saving time and effort. It allows the progress made by others to not be lost, forcing each generation to start a new and rediscover everything the last one already knew so well. 

Instead, it allows us to further advance their knowledge and add our own to it. Following such natural evolution, ignoring the retrogresses, it implies that future and new generations would be better formed and informed than the previous ones. Climbing on the shoulders of the previous generations and furthering their advances was what allow many human societies to grow as big as they did. The one I am most inspired by, therefore biased to use as example, being the Imperium Romanum (Roman Empire). By systematically adopting and furthering the knowledge of the older generations, through expansion and research, the Roman Empire became one of, if not the most, influential Empire to ever exist.


I think the Roman influence cannot be denied. After all, usually the fall of the Western Roman Empire is used to mark the start of the Dark Medieval Age in Europe and the fall of the Byzantine Empire used to mark the start of the "Era of Exploration". Era of Exploration that was mainly started by Iberian kingdoms that spoke languages derivative from Lower Latin. Latin itself is considered a key part on most western words. Even English, nowadays considered the international language, has a lot of influence from Latin. But, to be fair, let me admit that I am biased. I am a "westerner", my natural tongue and culture are heavily inspired by the Roman Empire and their ways due to those Iberian Nations that I mentioned.


What I mean by that is to say that the Imperium Romanum became really powerful because they learned how to use past knowledge and further refine it. I am no historian, but I think it's no secret how the Roman Republic and Empire systematically integrated different people and nations to further their knowledge on all areas. The same happened to pretty much every other big Empire. So, adopting knowledge from others can be really useful and give you a better start.

Utilizing knowledge provided by others doesn't necessarily blocks following other paths of advancement and refinement either. It's possible that, usually after following down a certain path for a long time, it naturally leads to learning similar things that one would have learned by themselves. Per example, studying a school of philosophy doesn't mean that one won't ultimately study another and/or develop their own school.



Before I mention the downsides, I would also like to acknowledge that I understand human behavior to never be a 100% based on our first hand experiences. Like I already said, humans are bound to use what we already learn and adapt it into the conformity's of our situations. So, we are bound to use what others taught us and, just like I stated above, it's actually something that makes humans capable of exploring our life spans in a more efficient way than creating everything from scratch. So, even when not necessarily trying to follow tradition, we are bound to still use knowledge not strictly acquired by our experiences.



Now, the disadvantages of being overly attached to customs and rituals. The most clear one being that the lack of adaptability and the huge amount of predictability. Even though it's useful and efficient to learn how to use what has been left behind by others and learning from them, it also narrows our own paths of learning. By copying others' experiences and absorbing their knowledge, together with their own definitions of everything, we are letting them guide us. Like that, we are exploring the same path they had already started and leaving others aside. The poem "The Road Not Taken" by Robert Frost may come to mind. From my understanding of the poem, it mentions how one single person cannot travel more than one path at the same time, for being a single person, we can only take one of the forks and diversions in the road at each time.

Although, just like I mentioned above, Robert Frost mentions the possibility of coming back later to the fork in the road and traveling to other one as well. So, it doesn't completely means that following down a path doesn't allow to try other ones too. It's just that it side tracks it for another opportunity. However, there are moments when a different type of approach is necessary. To an example, I shall revert again to the Imperium Romanum. Just like their constant use of standardization and refinement of knowledge produced a powerful empire and military machine, it also proved to be a hindrance in more than one occasion. I would like to mention the battle of Cannae and the ambush on the forest of Teutoburg, when enemies of the Romans used their knowledge of Roman traditions and praxis to deal heavy losses on the Romans and annihilate whole armies. 

Hannibal knew of how the Republic's armies had two leaders and of their tactics. Armenius served under the Empire's legions and tricked an army into an ambush. Alaric I, first King of the Visigoths, also served under Rome legions in the late Empire. And he lated used his knowledge to invade Italy and sack Roma itself. Although, to counterpoint it, all those defeats had many more factors to help it. Hannibal was a great tactician. Armenius deceived the Romans. And the Western Emperor, of the time Alaric sacked Roma, had ordered the execution of his best general, who was also his father in law and a figure who commanded respect and loyalty of many Roman Legionaries. And the two defeats were later met with fierce retaliation from the Roman part. It's no wonder that there is a Latin idiom that follows the lines of "It is a bad plan, which can not be changed and admits of no modification".


In résumé, strictly following codes and not adapting to the different situations faced is usually a bad idea. Traditions, heritage and past knowledge should not be allowed to smoother diversity. For, like I constantly maintain, diversity is what leads to creativity and evolution. Attaching one self, or even whole governments, to strict codes that allow no change. Institutions are good, but cannot be a burden. It's necessary to know when to leave habit aside and try different approaches.

So, what I mean to propose by all of that? Mainly that, there must always be a balance between following through with what we know, the tested means, and trying something new. I know it's a very ambiguous and actually really obvious solution. But I would rather be fluid, letting the situations arise, than discuss hypothetical situations to make a point on how either tradition and habit or constant changes and no uniformity. I also feel like the obvious should be said, if not for anything else, just to be a reminder to ourselves and the ones close to us. After all, things that may seem obvious to one, aren't going to be to everyone else. After all, that was also part of my argument.

Conclusively, I hope to have put as many good points as I could towards the following of tradition and customs, it's advantages and it's disadvantages. I also hope that it made clear how I support an adaptive instance, instead of a fully rigid one. Like I repeat it constantly, I consider it to be very important to weight each point and make a good decision with the most information available. I already said to believe that it must always come down to each person to make their decisions, based on the unique situations that they face. It's each person's choice to do whatever they prefer at any given second and their decisions will have consequences that they will be forced to deal with by however means they deem the best available.