Whenever we talk about culture and tradition I’m reminded of an analogy, it may seem unrelated initially but it makes a lot of sense because both the scenario and analogy explain two major different issues that can be related.
Thomas Jefferson once wrote a letter to James Maddison stating that the constitution of America should be changed every 19 years, why? We, humans, evolve over time: technologically, psychologically, and economically. What may seem right before may not be the same in the future. He felt that the current generation of men, here men as in people so don’t say that I’m a misogynist, should not be ruled by the laws that were framed by the previous generation. It makes a lot of sense. He did not only mean it for the American constitution but for every single constitution in the world. But sadly this did not come true, even though there have been small changes here and there, we still are following an age-old constitution that was framed during their time according to the moral compass of that period of time. We may have been lazy, ignorant, or too stubborn to question it, or maybe people were too stubborn to give an answer.
The same goes for culture and tradition too. Long ago our ancestors framed some rules and norms in the name of culture, religion, and tradition for some particular reason, which may have a valid reason or not but that doesn’t really matter. Those rules and norms were framed according to the circumstances that prevailed at that point in time. Once again over time we humans evolved, psychologically which is one of the most underrated and underappreciated evolutions of human beings, and the circumstances have also changed. Similar to the Thomas Jefferson example, we were ignorant and people were also too stubborn to answer our questions. Why is that? We may never know. The truth here is we did not acknowledge human evolution at all over the time and didn’t care to alter those set standards.
When we look at all the issues that we are addressing right now we can realize that almost all of them are interconnected in one or the other way, and the best (worst too) thing is that they all have a root cause which is, most of the time, these so-called culture, tradition, and religion. This foundational area is like a severe open wound and all the measures that we are taking right now do not treat the wound but rather just cover them up. Only when we start to address and treat the wound itself we can actually break the mental barriers that we have been controlled with.
The best part about this? It all comes down to common sense, empathy, and a little critical thinking. Moving forward by breaking these so-called norms and barriers may seem hard but only when we do that we can actually progress as a society, as Humans.
