2024 Y5 GP Lecture - Tradition

Dunman High School General Paper 2024 Year 5 Term2 Week 8 Lecture 4 Tradition Tradition: Long- standing beliefs or practices handed down fromgeneration to generation, and a group’s or society’s continuation of these beliefs or practices. Modernity: The present culture of openness towards change and novelty in beliefs and practices. There exist traditional sports (sumo wrestling, sepak takraw), languages (ethnic tongues, dialects), arts (Chinese opera, I ndian classical dance), medicine (Traditional Chinese Medicine), religious practices (Kesh in Sikhism, Lent in Christianity), political institutions (monarchy), social customs (etiquette, filial piety) and values (closeness to family, solidarity with community, respect for authority, religiosity). Characteristics of tradition Characteristics of modernity Continuity Change Preservation Destruction + Creation Guided by time- tested practices Guided by creativity + rational goals Deferring to history Embracing freedomto create one’s own future

Dunman High School General Paper 2024 Year 5 Term2 Week 8 Lecture 4 Perspective A: Why embrace tradition? Perspective B: Why be wary of tradition? 1. A1. Order, cohesion Certain traditional beliefs and attitudes have been central to maintaining social order and cohesion between different individuals in a society. ● Traditional etiquette promotes civility between individuals. ● Traditional social bonding activities promote social solidarity and affinity for one’s culture. ● Traditional respect for established authorities sustains obedience towards rules. ● Traditional belief in an afterlife of punishment and reward instills moral discipline. When such traditions are rej ected, society risks moral relativism: instead of members adhering to a common socio- moral order we have all inherited, each individual adheres only to moral standards she has created or chosen for herself. I ndividuals’ beliefs and standards may then lack concern for the collective interest, or move in conflicting directions, resulting in social fragmention. Sticking to our shared traditions avoids fragmentation, and preserves unity. B1. Unj ust order, herdbehaviour Tradition may be used as an excuse to maintain an social order that is unfair towards a particular group. ● Gender roles: Women’s roles have traditionally been confined to the domestic sphere, in contrast to men’s more expansive roles in public life and work. After women’s movements fought for women’s emancipation fromthis restrictive tradition in the 19 t h and 20 t h centuries, women finally gained greater choice over their roles in society and the family, and greater public recognition. The supposed “collective interest” may disproportionately serve the interests of one group in society at the expense of another group. Established authorities sometimes come froma privileged group (men, some religious leaders, upper classes) who demand respect for traditional order as a way of maintaining their privileged status. Excessive social cohesion may also lead to herd behaviour , whereby individuals forgo their ability to think for themselves and mechanically follow whatever their community does, no matter how misguided. Over- attachment to tradition may lead a community to ostracise independent- minded iconoclasts, instead of appreciating such individuals’ valuable potential in pointing out the community’s blindspots.

Dunman High School General Paper 2024 Year 5 Term2 Week 8 Lecture 4

Dunman High School General Paper 2024 Year 5 Term2 Week 8 Lecture 4 Perspective A: Why embrace tradition? Perspective B: Why be wary of tradition? A2. Stability, familiarity Tradition gives us roles and paths that are already established for us. These stable roles fromthe past serve as signposts guiding our life, so we are not burdened by too much decision- making and uncertainty. This may seem restrictive fromour modern perspective, but froma traditional perspective, it may be liberating: it can liberate a person fromthe burden of too many choices and decisions; your path has already been laid down by history for you, and you j ust need to follow it. Tradition can thereby provide clarity to one’s identity and place in the world, so life becomes less confusing. ● Traditional religion: When a person follows the traditional religious beliefs of their community, they have a well- established, ready- made set of beliefs to guide them, and need not go through the confusing process of navigating and choosing between different religious and ethical worldviews as an individual. Humans crave familiarity. The stability of tradition satisfies a person’s desire for a familiar environment by preserving the culture she grew up in, preventing her frombecoming disoriented and alienated by excessive cultural change and disruption. ● British monarchy: The maj ority of British people want the traditional institution of the monarchy to continue, despite the B2. Stagnation, closed- mindedness Over- attachment to the safe and comforting familiarity of traditions can stifle creative risk- taking and weaken one’s ability to adapt to changing conditions. A community that clings to tradition may stagnat e: its culture may continue on, but it may fail to overcome shortcomings and progress to what it is capable of achieving. Although traditions may have served people well in the past, today’s world contains new ethical perspectives, new contexts and new alternatives; traditions should at least be reassessed, taking into consideration these new developments. To ignore such developments j ust because they are unfamiliar, and insist on maintaining a practice j ust because it is traditional, is to be closed- minded and wilfully ignorant. ● Korean hierarchical deference: Korea’s traditional culture of deference towards a superior contributed to the Korean Air crash of 1997, when the first officer did not explicitly alert the captain to the latter’s mistakes out of deferrence to his superiority. Subsequently the airline hired a US executive who replaced the traditional cockpit culture with a more openly communicative one, resulting in the airline’s progress to a very reliable safety record.

Dunman High School General Paper 2024 Year 5 Term2 Week 8 Lecture 4 idea of a hereditary head of state being old- fashioned. Amidst the coming and going of governing parties and prime ministers, the stable status of the monarch as their head of state provides citizens with the comforting sense of a familiar political order. This may also be why many other Western countries – including Australia, Sweden, Denmark and the Netherlands – have also retained their kings and queens as figureheads, despite identifying as democracies. ● Traditional health remedies: Many traditional Chinese health remedies use parts of endangered exotic animals. For instance, traditional Chinese ‘cooling water’ is made using parts of the Saiga antelope, which is critically endangered. Today, we have more modern ethical perspectives (animal welfare movements, conservation movements), new contexts (species’ endangered status) and new alternatives (modern medical and scientific perspectives). Older generations may not have known such perspectives and alternatives, but today we do, and we ought to re- evaluate traditional remedies in light of all that we know today.

Dunman High School General Paper 2024 Year 5 Term2 Week 8 Lecture 4 Perspective A: Why embrace tradition? Perspective B: Why be wary of tradition? A3. Historical belonging A person often feels a need to be part of something greater than herself, not j ust in society but also in history. Tradition fills this need by giving her a sense of identification with her forebears. By continuing a tradition, a person affirms herself as a link in an unbroken chain of generations stretching back into the past and continuing on into the future. She identifies as part of a community existing long before she existed. And by handing down the tradition to future generations, she contributes to the com