I am a big fan of tradition. Tradition summarizes experience, not just our personal experiences but the experiences of our culture, our people. Those experience change our view of the world and each other. Tradition is knowledge passed down from our ancestors that takes into account realities current ways of thinking may leave out. There are the traditions that are necessary. Those that have taken on the trappings of ritual due to their importance in our lives. Then there are the traditions that are just fun. Fireworks and kisses at New Year come to mind.
Tradition, rituals, a shared culture and language- holding onto these things help people weather the bad times and connect during the good. They celebrate, tie communities together, and pass traditional values to succeeding generations. Traditions reflect and define rules of behavior based on age, gender, and social class. Though some may appear senseless or even destructive from the outside they may have meaning and fulfill a function for those who practice them. Holding onto to tradition is what helped what was left of the Jews in Europe survive the damage of Holocaust. The thoughtless or malicious destruction of tradition in a real sense decimates a people. People who have had their traditions stripped from them, such as those of us who can trace their ancestry to the slave ships from Africa as well the indigenous people of any country that found itself at the gentle mercy of European colonists up to and through the 19th century, face a continuous struggle to cobble together the surviving pieces of who they are.
It is confirmation season here and we are reminded again that for the people of Denmark tradition is very important. Over fifty percent of Danes self-identify as atheist yet over eighty percent of the population are members of the state supported Lutheran church. Traditions surround the Danish language (Dansk), the “Dannebrog” (the Danish flag), Danish names, Sankt Hans (Midsummer celebration), the Danish singing tradition – especially the anthem, food, the Queen, the history, the windmills, even the money. And I am sure an actual Dane could share many, many more. I mean, Denmark is a monarchy in which the royal head of state has actual executive power.
Yet Denmark has somehow managed to balance adhering to respect for tradition with radical modernization. Since the 1980s the government has supported policy promoting the equality of men and women in regard to wages and working conditions resulting in Denmark having the highest percentage of women in the labor market in Europe at close to 80 percent. It’s not perfect, men are still more likely to get top positions and in general earn higher wages than women, but at least they have gotten past the debate of whether women should work outside the home at all. Gay people have had their relationships legally recognized since the late 1980s. Homosexuality is so accepted here that there isn’t even really a separate gay culture.
This is in stark contrast to my home in the US. We Louisianans have a multitude of traditions. From the more typically Southern, like eating black eyed peas and cabbage for New Year, to the more local traditions of bonfires on the levy, to the personal traditions in each and every family, tradition is important to the folks back home. Unfortunately, my home state of Louisiana is as tied to its harmful traditions as its good ones and suffers from a failure to move forward that is aggravated by holding onto traditions based in fictional history. This is illustrated most clearly in the fervor surrounding the removal of Confederate “memorials” versus the fierce rejection of those self-same folks regarding the acknowledgment of the violent legacies of slavery and Jim Crow.
Denmark is hardly problem free, but Danes have recognized that culture is not stagnant but is in constant flux, always bending and reorganizing. Tradition is neither self-contained nor absolute. There is recognition here that there is a difference between the respect of tradition and the slavish devotion thereof. The second fails to recognize that while many traditions promote social solidity and harmony, others erode the bodily and mental health and integrity of individuals and, ultimately, the society as a whole. Harmful traditions can be hard to recognize and can sometimes seem impossible to change. Often, as in Denmark, it takes movements within the population working with government to do so. This is in part because though tradition is complex and often contradictory, breaking with tradition is to break with authority
A recently bandied about conservative mandate reads in part, “It is better to do what has always been done unless you have some extraordinarily valid reason to do otherwise.” On the contrary it is my belief that traditions should be challenged and justified with regularity. The one thing that all humans have in common is that we are flawed. We quite often do things that cause harm, even when that is not our intent. If a tradition proves to be beneficiary or even harmless then it should stand. When a tradition causes needless pain it should be abandoned.
Change is hard. It’s uncomfortable and people hate it. But I believe that we can change our behavior when we understand that giving up the risks and dishonor of damaging practices does not have to mean giving up significant aspects of our cultures. I see it here in Denmark. Tradition often clashes with other ways in which we come to know the world—reason, revelation, personal observation. If tradition encourages us to inflict damage then at the very least we must use those other ways of understanding the world to answer the question of “Why?” If the only answer is because it’s always been done this way, or my religion says I should, then all we are saying is we are too scared, too lazy, too stupid to change.
When Should We Ignore Tradition?
Giving Up Harmful Practices, Not Culture
Female genital mutilation : a joint WHO/UNICEF/UNFPA statement
Culture of Denmark