Rational Philosophy

On tradition and legacy: Thanksgiving, turkey-pardons, and barbarism.

As an English national I’m supposed to feel ambivalent about celebrating Thanksgiving (not as ambivalent as I am supposed to feel about Independence Day, but ambivalent nevertheless). I’m sure that many people would have to pause if you asked them what we’re supposed to be celebrating on Thanksgiving. Although, does it really matter? It’s a holiday. We get together. We eat. We drive.

In Rome yesterday archaeologists unveiled a cave thought to have been adorned by the Roman emperor Augustus who believed it to be the place where the wolf nurtured Romulus and Remus after fishing them from the river Tiber. The idea of this cave, two thousand years old, fifty two feet inside the Palatine hill, lovingly decorated with seashells and marble, inspires a sense of connection to a rich and vital past state of humanity, one in which myth and reality intertwined. But there’s a brutal aspect to the reality and legend, too, just as the slaughter of turkeys can put a damper on the idea of Thanksgiving. As the story about the Paletine cave mentions, Romulus, for whom Rome is named, went on to kill his twin brother Remus in a power struggle.

The story of Romulus allegedly killing Remus reminds me of two pieces related to Bush this week: Firstly, his Thanksgiving witticism (yes, it was actually funny) in which he skewered his boss, I mean his vice president. In announcing the winners of the emancipated-Turkey naming contest, Bush quipped that the winning names “May” and “Flower” were much better than those proffered by Cheney — “Lunch and dinner.” (What’s behind that mean-spirited reference to Cheney’s voracious appetite, one wonders?) The second Bush tale is less amusing. Scott McClellan, the former White House press secretary, in publicizing his new book, reveals that when Bush pressed Scott to announce that Rove and Libby had nothing to do with the Plame leak, it wasn’t true. Scott stops short of accusing Bush of lying, but the indictment of the administration is clear. The question remains whether this administration’s historical legacy of deception and audacious egotism will be recognized by posterity.

Another story today turns up another dark aspect of tradition. A young Saudi woman has had her sentence increased from 90 lashes to 200 lashes. Her crime: Going out in public with a man to whom she was not related. It gets worse. Her crime came to light in the first place because she was the victim of abduction and gang rape.

We may find this punishment abhorrent. I do. But our reaction is mostly a matter of timing. Up until recently, corporal punishment was considered an entirely appropriate punishment in most corners of the world for many crimes. And in this country going back less than two hundred years many slave-owners thought nothing of beating men and women alike for crimes real and imagined, and society in general accepted it.

Tradition, history, and legacy work as a double-edged sword. They can help to maintain some of the best traditions, remind us of great moments, movements and passges in our history, and it can help maintain some of the worst. Without thoughtful reappraisal and rational questioning of why we hold onto certain laws or patterns of behavior, we will inevitably hold onto bad laws and patterns of behavior. For this reason, I think, we are right to question even those seemingly innocent and well-respected traditions. Today’s cause for celebration, after all, may be tomorrow’s cause for shame.

In the wake of a hazing death, a fibbing (and possibly fight-fixing) grand master, and a what seems to have been an attempted assault on the all-male sanctity of the sumo ring (Japan Wrings Its Hands Over Sumos Latest Woes) change threatens Japan’s sumo tradition. As the NY Times piece points out, though, a little digging reveals that sumo doesn’t quite have a stronghold on tradition. Much newer than people believe, and with much more of a history of reinvention than the current purists want to acknowledge, sumo is no stranger to change.

On the global stage, the threat of climate change has caused many people to react by simply denying its possibility. It’s been interesting to see that as time has passed, more people have become prepared to accept the prospect that the world’s climate is changing. In the US this has happened more slowly than in other parts of the world.

Philosophically, the psychology of change has two primary components: Acceptance — coming to terms with the idea that change is possible, desirable, inevitable, real. And resistance — the idea that the status quo is possible, desirable, inevitable, real.

When change looms it tends to create a tension between acceptance and resistance. This tension can exist in one person, or between people. And it strikes me that such a tension is not just inevitable, but desirable. Acceptance of change not balanced by some resistance will lead to unproductive or harmful change as well as productive and beneficial change.

In society, however, people tend to polarize around positions of acceptance or resistance to particular changes. I’d go further and say that forces in society encourage people to polarize. The “you’re either for it or against it” demand.

Where did this come from? Why do certain aspects of the structure of some societies tend to divide on issues rather than encouraging reasoned debate?

A group, philosophically and logically speaking, requires that the members of the group have some common characteristic. I always remember my math friends at college discussing the question of whether the group that contains all groups contains itself. (A question I could never quite see the importance of.) In this I’m speaking of any group, not just groups in society. A group of marbles may be called a group because they’re all green, or because they’ve been put into the same bag, or because they’re all less than an inch in diameter…

For groups of people in a society, the common characteristic can be quite strong — all of the members of the group are blood relatives, for instance. Or it may be quite weak — they are all taking the same bus.

But people are extremely good at grouping themselves, at establishing groups and reinforcing those groups. It is a critical social function.

Take the example of the bus stop: All of you are waiting for the same bus. There is no particular allegiance, no great bonding force. But now if the bus is late, all of a sudden the members of this ad hoc group have something in common. They can rally around the disagreeability of the bus being late.

To take the example one step further, we can imagine what happens if, after an hour of waiting, a bus comes around the corner just as a newcomer shows up at the bus stop and sidles up to the front of the line. The “group” will be inclined to turn on the newcomer and tell him what’s what.

While philosophically speaking a group is not emotional, psychologically speaking the stronger the urge to form groups, the more likely the groups will be to defend the parameters of their existence.

This tendency to easily form strong groups has doubtless helped human beings survive and prosper. It causes us to work well together when we can establish a common goal. But it also causes us to take sides on issues, and to defend against a change to the group, just for the sake, sometimes, of defending against change.

In Japan, the people who feel most strongly about the parameters of sumo most actively resist any change to those parameters. They have associated themselves with the group that likes sumo to be traditional. Even though they don’t personally know many or perhaps any other members of this group, they wish to keep the group strong. Contrarily, those who feel that sumo should change have joined another group. They will fight just as vehemently for the idea that a change is good.

Acceptance of change and resistance to change confuse us then in part because they are the same thing behind a different mask.