It has been said that if a tradition has outworn its usefulness throw it away. Abraham Lincoln to his convention correctly said “The dogmas of the past is inadequate for the present”. To be positive, I would mention first some traditions that I think are good and useful. Wedding celebrations for example, emphasize the importance of marriage and family and it is fun too. Monarchy with democratic system is a good tradition. Monarchy combined with republican government! i.e. elected president instead of a prime minister as the head of the executive part of government plus legislative parliament. The king or queen as the symbol and head of the nation would be a source and cause of unity. The royal family events for example are the sources of celebrations and happiness. Monarchy with king or queen of limited duties and responsibilities such as permanent head of the supreme court and ceremonies for example, would be a combination of monarchy & republican systems. At the present such a combination does not exist but it would be the best government system! Without going to any detail, such a combined democratic system, would have the benefits of both systems without the evils of partisan politics and egotism. There are many other good traditions like healthy festivals, fairs and celebrations that are causes of happiness, making our lives joyous. Other traditions such as olympics and other sports are more examples of useful traditions.
Now some outworn and useless traditions. Perhaps you can think of more.
- Too many levels of governments in many democratic countries; local, township, county, state/provincial and national governments all with lots of overheads that cost a lot for the tax payers. City or township governments were once necessary ex. for emergency and first responders; police, fire fighters, first aid, etc. that before the instant communications, fast vehicles and roads, had to be called by a horseman and come for help by horse and therefore had to be close-by. That made smaller community governments such as city governments necessary in the past. There are lots of duplicates even triplicates departments in these multilevel governments. We can eliminate all local governments and have only large county governments with one elected count! and one counsellors chamber in each. The above example shows that some traditions like local governments that once were necessary, are not necessary anymore. Do I make enemies for myself!
- The universal tradition of giving father’s last name to children is not a good tradition. It makes the beautiful rare last names to gradually disappear with having only female children. That results the common last names replacing those beautiful surnames. Therefore common last names become more and more common. Why not giving mother’s last names to daughters and father’s to sons. Why Helen Johnson? Helen? she is not John’s son! I know families who have given their daughters the mother’s maiden names as surname.
- The tradition of following any new fashion blindly is a bad tradition. If a fashion makes sense it’s O.K. but following a fashion that doesn’t make any sense just because it is made by a famous fashion boss, is not good. For example, once large eye glasses became a new fashion. It was a good fashion. With a large prescription glass the frame is larger than sight zone and one can turn eyes to all directions and see better within glasses. With a large sunglass eyes are better protected from intense sunlight and the ultraviolet radiations. Later very small round and after that small rectangular glasses became fashionable. With a small of any shape prescription glasses the frame is within the vision zone and one cannot turn eyes and still see better within the glasses and needs to turn head since a tunnel vision is caused by a small eye glasses. Obviously those small sunglasses do not protect the eyes like large sunglasses from harmful radiations.
- There are traditional believes that we have inherited from our ancestors. Some are upright superstitions like that number 13 is unlucky. Some beliefs were O.K. but if a modern idea is better we should accept it. I bring other examples:
- Before modern medical sciences the old traditional medical practices and medicines that were mainly use of herbs and other organic materials were the only helps for illnesses. They had been the results of thousands of years trials and errors. Those were good for that time since they were the only help that sick people had. The modern medical science not only has made great advances based on new discoveries, it is inclusive of the beneficial practices of the old such as dieting. Now as it is sometimes in the news, if we deprive ourselves and specially our children from the modern advanced medical sciences and cling to the outworn old medical practices, definitely it is not right.
- The court of law trial by jury system is an English tradition still in use in the English cultural countries. It was a good way of court trial until about a century ago when clear proofs and evidences did not exist in cases of criminal trials for example. On those cases, a group of peers of the accused, i.e. those who knew him would had judged that he had or had not committed the crime based on their knowledge of the character and the past behaviour of the accused. It was a good way then, since in most cases there did not exist convincing proves either way. Now with the scientific advancements in; police and detectors investigation methods, criminology, modern forensics, use of technologies such as recording cameras, cellphone locating and timing of calls, finger prints, DNA and so many other various innovative investigation methods like public help, the knowledge of peers (now the jurors must not know the accused) is absolutely outworn and unnecessary. At the present jury trials both the prosecutor and defence try to sway the jurors opinions sometimes by twisting and distorting evidences, by mentioning irrelevant but attractive and interesting (catching) sentences, by destroying the character of witness(s), by blaming the victim and so many other plots actually to fool the jurors! Then they have the winner and looser between the prosecutor and defence teams! while only the truth and justice should have prevailed. On the other hand, trial by one, two or three judges depending to the case is incomparably more efficient with absolutely more correct results. For different trials; monitory, criminal, felony, human relations, etc., specialist judges, like specialist physicians would hear the cases, while quite often the jurors lack even the basic knowledge of a trail process. Does anyone dare to lie or try to fool judge(s) in the court of law? Can anyone hide or cover evidence(s) from Judges?
- The size of city street name-plates once was good in the past since people were walking, riding on horse back or horse carriages. Now people driving cars with 60, 70, 80, Km/h speed cannot on time read the traditionally small size street name plates. The simple solution: forget about traditional sizes, make them larger.
- Traffic lights are modern but it has become a tradition that needs to be revisited. Automatic traffic lights of course are useful, but there are cases that automation with all computer controls and under road sensors and more, still can not be nearly as good and efficient as a man-controlled traffic light. The man-controlled traffic light can be done by installing cameras on strategic locations. Then in corner of a store or even in a house a person by watching the traffic from all directions on a monitor would best control the traffic. Manned traffic control particularly would be better on cross sections between a major street with heavy traffic and a street with low traffic. For example, when there is no vehicle on one street, the controller will leave the green light on the street with heavy traffic and only turns the traffic light green when necessary. The manned control can be done by a person who can not do some jobs because of physical disabilities but can be trained to control traffic best. We all have witnessed so often that tens of cars are stopped on red light on the major street waiting, while there is no car on the crossing road with green light! and it’s funny that only when a car approaches the traffic light on the empty street then, it turns red on it! Of course on those times that manned control is not necessary the controller then, turns the traffic on automated control. This suggestion also makes those with physical restrictions to do useful work. There will even be more important benefits by manned traffic light controls like left turn lights ‘OFF’ or ‘ON’ and for how long. More examples can show the superiority of manned traffic control but it is not necessary since the experts know better.
- Once there were many different measurement systems in the world. The most complete was the English system; pound, foot, second, etc. that gradually became prevalent in many countries. Then the Metric system was introduced by French scientists that was based on (10) in harmony with 10 based numerals. That makes it far easier than British system to use. Later the metric system was modified to SI system, even a more advance system than metric. Now if we hang on to the British measurement system it’s only wrong.
- Traditional building codes for areas with no or rare cases of tornadoes or hurricanes is not adequate for some areas with quite possible cases of those dangers. I have no doubt that civil Engineers can design the outer shapes, structures and materials of buildings that can withstand with no or minimum damage against even extreme weather cases. Definitely it would be more costly but would it be more costly than what people are paying for very high home insurances or rebuilding their houses and loss of their belongings? Can anyone put some prices on sufferings, injuries or lives? I think in those areas the existing traditional building codes and designs must be modified.
Please think about this subject, you will find that we are holding on to more outworn and unuseful traditions.
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