Weaponized Tradition: "Otherizing," Advertising, Blind Patriotism, and Acceptable Toddler Torture

"It's tradition" is a phrase that is often used to justify actions that don't make a lot of sense to someone who is not a participant in that tradition. "Why do you eat that specific kind of bird on this day and not another?" "It's tradition," someone will say as though that is a perfectly valid explanation for the practice but it really does not address the question. Even stranger, people will accept that explanation without further inquiry because we have been taught that tradition is something that must be revered. In many cases, there is nothing wrong with our traditions. Giving someone a gift on his or her birthday is unlikely to cause any significant harm to anyone. However, there are many traditions that do cause us trouble. Sometimes our traditions are exploited to sell us things that we do not need. Worse, some traditions exist to support, protect, empower, or enrich the existing "traditional" systems of authority that profit from our mistreatment and oppression. For these reasons, it is important for us to think about why our traditions exist, what functions they preform, and and how they can be used to exploit us before we give them our reverence and acceptance.

Before I go on, I want to point out that not all tradition is negative. I already gave the example of birthday gifts and the eating of specific meals as things that are not particularly negative. Sometimes, they can be fun too and that is fine. The issue only arises when the tradition is used to enforce conformity, exert control over others, or extract wealth and loyalty from the people who participate in the tradition. When those things happen, there may be more behind the tradition than we see on it's surface. It could further the agenda of the powerful in a given society. It may even be used to lead unsuspecting people into preforming actions that are not in their best interest. However, I don't want to paint with too broad of a brush and I do acknowledge that when I say that many of our traditions are harmful to us, I don't mean that every tradition is harmful or being exploited.

Anyway, I think it is helpful to look at what traditions are and what effects they may (though not always) have. The way I see them (though others may define them differently), traditions are practices that are pervasive among a culture, society, or group and they are continued largely for the sake of continuing them. In effect and, in some cases, by design, this generates conformity among a population. People, who have very little else in common, mostly celebrate the same holidays in the same ways, for example. A tradition, in this sense, pushes members of a group to behave in ways that are approved as the norms of that group and discourages individual thought by "otherizing" anyone who chooses not to participate. In short, traditions create strong social pressures because we fear being seen as different and those who would take advantage of us for their own gain know that social pressure can be a powerful weapon to be wielded against us.

Advertisers often use this sort of weaponized tradition to pressure us into spending our money on unnecessary (often poorly made) products in order to enrich the corporations that profit from our reverence for tradition. In the U.S. (and I assume most western countries) Christmas is a big deal and most people seem to like it (even non-religious people, like myself, think it can be a lot of fun, at times) and, not surprisingly, advertisers exploit all the warm and fuzzy feelings of generosity that we start having around that time of year. They pressure us to spend far too much money on their products and attempt to make us feel inadequate if we choose not to. "Show her that you love her with our jewelry" says the jeweler as he or she dangles a chain shiny rocks in front of a camera, as though one's love can be measured by the size and number of (probably conflict) diamonds that he or she is willing to buy. Car manufactures do the same thing and just about everyone else who has a product to peddle gets in on the action. Worst of all, these tactics work. This goes beyond Christmas too. Any time we tie a lot of strong emotion to our traditional practices, we create an opportunity for our own exploitation.

Saying that advertisers are manipulative is like saying that thieves steal things, so this sort of behavior should come as no shock to us but the exploitation of tradition is also a mighty tool of the authorities who seek to maintain their power and continue to extract wealth and obedience from the masses. Tradition, by its nature, tends to support the establishment and the established authorities benefit from and encourage that support. Many countries, for example, have, enshrined in their national tradition, a celebration of their foundation or independence and those celebrations stir up a lot of feelings of unquestioning patriotism and pride among the participants. We must ask ourselves, what purpose does these sorts of self-celebration serve for the systems of power that sanction them? In very simple terms, it is a tradition that functions to justify and encourage obedience to the authorities. People do not question the unethical actions of a government, if they get all teary eyed at the mention of it's name. They don't say that a war is unjust if they have been conditioned to always view the state as the source of justice. We are, in a sense, blinded by our traditions and that allows those who want us to rejoice in their governance to remain "unseen" as they abuse us and others. To put it bluntly, tradition can, sometimes, be thought of as propaganda by another name.

Tradition is used to justify many heinous actions and this also seems to serve to maintain an established social order. I once read about a culture that force feeds very young girls (to the point of causing them extreme pain) because larger women are considered to be the standard of beauty in that culture. The women, who do it to their daughters, had it done to them and the same was true of their mothers and so on into history. I make no judgments about what is considered to be attractive by these people but I do find "it's tradition" to be a weak justification for what amounts to culturally acceptable toddler torture. Sadly, it continues because to not participate would be "strange" and we all have a strong aversion to being considered an other. Interestingly, this sort of traditional torture also serves to strengthen an authoritative structure, if not a specific authority. These sorts of things often target marginalized groups within the societies that practice them. In the case of the example I already gave (though I could point to countless other cultures from around the world who do or have done similarly awful things in the name of tradition), it is both females and children are taught by the force feeding that their bodies, wishes, and lives are secondary to the norms of the cultural establishment. This leads them to abandon any thoughts of resisting because they are conditioned to believe that their abuse and oppression is the natural and just state of reality. As a result of the tradition, the authoritative structure (in this case the culture itself) is strengthened by the reduction of resistance from the populations (women and children) which it oppresses.

I can't say that I know how to fix these problems. Traditions, being what they are (that is, traditions), are deeply ingrained in our cultures and our own consciousnesses and they don't seem to be going anywhere in the foreseeable future. However, while we can't fix the whole world on our own, we can change the way we think about things. We can stop accepting "it's tradition" as a justification for actions. We can take time to think about what our traditions really represent and about how they can be used against us. If we don't see a purpose for our traditions or that purpose works against our own interests or the interests of others, we can revoke our reverence for it. If we make an effort to do those things, we will not solve the problem but we will have taken the first step toward solving it.

Peace.

All the images in this post are sourced from the free image website, unsplash.com.