Traditions

I live next to a small Air Force base.  A small base with a very large loudspeaker.  In the morning I awake to reveille, as I walk to my car, after work, I stop and render honors as retreat is played, and as I close my eyes at night I can hear the faint melody of taps.  These are all traditional military songs for us, and I find comfort in their regularity.

Traditions are the salve of age, and the antithesis of youth.  When we are young, we know everything, and if we haven’t thought of it, it must not be important.  For example, in the 60’s the young “discovered” sex, drugs and rock and roll.  In the 70’s I think it was Disco (not every decade can have great discoveries).  The 80’s brought big hair bands and personal computing, the 90’s showed us the way to corporate greed and the cell phone, and in the 00’s we discovered the information superhighway where everyone knows everything almost instantaneously.  In each case, the young are the first to jump in and explore the boundaries, to push the edges, or to take a line for Tom Wolfe’s The Right Stuff “They are always pushing the envelop.”

Youth doesn’t want or need tradition, or so they think.  It only interferes with the changes they will make in the world.  They believe what has gone before is far less important than what they have the right and the will to accomplish.  In a sense they are right, but only in a sense.   There is a famous and oft’ repeated quote from the late philosopher, George Santayana, “Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”  Taken from his Reason in Common Sense, it has become the sound bite for him, and does not really reflect the sum of his writings, but the thought is valid and true.  If we think we are the first to find a way, we will experience the same failures, blocks, or successes as past generations.  It speaks to the unchanging nature of humanity.

Youth of my generation where alienated by the corruption and political gamesmanship of the ruling politicians in place in government in the 60’s.  Everyone was antiwar, antiestablishment, anti-everything, during the 60’s.  None of the elders knew a thing about what they were doing.  Isn’t it funny to find out 40 years later they were the “Greatest Generation.”  As I look at my peers can I really say we learned from their past mistakes?  Did we do a far superior job in raising the next generation, or shaping a government for the people, by the people and of the people?

If we had spent some collective time honoring the traditions of our fathers and mothers we might not have gone off halfcocked with all the changes we have made.  Perhaps abortion would not be a common solution to an unexpected pregnancy.  Perhaps the right to honor God as we understand him, and the right not to, would be considered equal and viable options and the two opposing groups would not be spending year after year sorting this out in the courts.

Now there a good traditions and there are bad traditions, the difficulty is in determining what we should honor and what we must condemn.  If we are truly one nation surely we can sort these out within our collective society, and keep those that unify us.  For example, why can’t we teach our youth to cover their heart as a sign of respect during the National Anthem?  

Just say’n.