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<blockquote data-quote="GreenTengu" data-source="post: 8034877" data-attributes="member: 6777454">I've hardly ever in my entire life heard any idea, any, that the answer to &quot;why&quot; we were doing it was &quot;tradition&quot; that I haven't been in favor of getting rid of.Tradition is the single worst reason to do something ever.There was a story I heard once. There was a woman who, when she was a girl, her mother cooked a ham. And every year before baking the hand, she would cut off the ends. So when she grew up, whenever she cooked a ham she also cut off the ends-- because it was tradition. After about a decade of doing that, her mother helped her out one year and the woman went to cut off the ends of the hand and her mother asked &quot;Why are you doing that?&quot; and the woman said, &quot;Because you did it every year. It is tradition.&quot; and the mother answered, &quot;The reason I did that was because my pan was too small.&quot;And that is how usually is with anything &quot;traditional&quot;.&nbsp; It usually served some purpose at some point, but if you have forgotten what that purpose even was, if that purpose is no longer being filled by whatever it is that is &quot;traditional&quot;-- then its usually doing mild harm rather than any good.So I for one am generally in favor of getting rid of all traditional ideas-- because if the ideas were actually good, actually had functional justification, they wouldn't be hiding behind the label &quot;traditional&quot;.Now, granted, there are cases where people have forgotten the actual utility and justification of something and just leaned on traditional and if it gets changed, maybe that could cause some negative effects. But that's just an argument for better understanding the purpose of something before you change it, not that doing things &quot;because tradition&quot; is ever good.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="GreenTengu, post: 8034877, member: 6777454"] I've hardly ever in my entire life heard any idea, any, that the answer to "why" we were doing it was "tradition" that I haven't been in favor of getting rid of. Tradition is the single worst reason to do something ever. There was a story I heard once. There was a woman who, when she was a girl, her mother cooked a ham. And every year before baking the hand, she would cut off the ends. So when she grew up, whenever she cooked a ham she also cut off the ends-- because it was [I]tradition[/I]. After about a decade of doing that, her mother helped her out one year and the woman went to cut off the ends of the hand and her mother asked "Why are you doing that?" and the woman said, "Because you did it every year. It is tradition." and the mother answered, "The reason I did that was because my pan was too small." And that is how usually is with anything "traditional". It usually served some purpose at some point, but if you have forgotten what that purpose even was, if that purpose is no longer being filled by whatever it is that is "traditional"-- then its usually doing mild harm rather than any good. So I for one am generally in favor of getting rid of all traditional ideas-- because if the ideas were actually good, actually had functional justification, they wouldn't be hiding behind the label "traditional". Now, granted, there are cases where people have forgotten the actual utility and justification of something and just leaned on traditional and if it gets changed, maybe that could cause some negative effects. But that's just an argument for better understanding the purpose of something before you change it, not that doing things "because tradition" is ever good. [/QUOTE]

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