Traditions - do we need them?

Traditions are habits, behaviours or ways of thinking that are passed on from generation to generation. Modern Biology refers to these phenomena as Memes and there is now a branch of science called Memetics. They are elements of what we call culture and each culture has its own set of traditions.

One such group of traditions we call Christmas. This is in essence a midwinter festival that was hijacked by the church as another means of manipulating the poor. Now that the church has lost most of its power, the reins have been handed over to the world of commerce with all the might of the media behind it. Christmas is huge business and still the poor are the ones who are being manipulated. The have nots are encouraged to spend what they do not have in order to accumulate the trappings of what the media tell them they want, and the financiers allow them to max out credit cards in order to pay for it. People already in debt, exacerbate their situation each year by going along with the herd in the hope that they can clear the debt before next Christmas.

It is such a silly season with people buying stuff for others, largely stuff that no-one wants or needs. Fortunes are spent sending greetings cards around the world, often to people that we barely know, let alone care about. Why do we do it? So many people loathe the whole festival these days; even the churches fill up with once a year worshipers who only go because it is traditional. Nowadays it is likely that a midnight mass will turn out to be a drunken brawl, as getting drunk and fighting are seen by some to be traditional. Even priests were brawling in Greece this year.

We also seem to be accumulating traditions. Covering your house with gaudy tasteless illuminated decoration has spread from somewhere; probably America, the seat of tastelessness. We are supposed to be concerned with energy efficiency and yet millions of Megawatts are wasted each year in high streets, stores and on the houses of so many. Those people would not go around wearing a tee shirt with “I am a twat” written on the front and yet they will adorn their houses with frosty the snowman or inflatable Santa Clauses, sucking energy from the National grid like hungry leeches. No doubt the huge energy bills will add to the ever increasing debt.

It has become a season of greed and selfishness. It perpetuates the consumer society and is one cause of misery for so many. It is a bone of contention between faith groups, and therefore another cause of dispute and lack of understanding. Rubbing any aspect of religion into people’s faces is wrong, traditional or not.