Tradition as the death of culture

Yes, I know that it is a commonly held view that tradition preserves culture, and it does, if you like your culture preserved in sugar, vinegar or brine.

What any of us knows about the culture of our ancestors is very little, and if you ever tried to live life as it was a hundred years ago or more then it would not be long before you discovered that you have little idea how things work or what people did from minute to minute throughout the average day. What we know are what people thought worth preserving, with little idea why they thought it was worth preserving. A good example is Polish cuisine, which is incredibly mind-bendingingly Cutlet, cold meat, cutlet, cold meat...

Find yourself an old enough cookery book, preferably one published before the 1940s, or perhaps a one recently published on some local cuisine, if you can track down one of the half dozen shops that actually hold or can order it, then the story changes, there really is a cuisine, with something called 'variety'. The problem is not restricted to Poland, most northern European cuisines have been shredded through a lack of respect, both at home and abroad. Polish cuisine never really had much chance, most of the country was still at peasant status before the Second World War, and then when great numbers of peasants moved into the now expanding cities after the war, they glutted on what was available and what they liked - cold meat, cabbage and cutlet, almost for any meal. Cabbage, originally an Italian import several centuries ago, was preserved in brine for the winter to give something vaguely fresh to eat while there was nothing much worth eating growing outside. These days cabbage, of various varieties, in brine is the staple vegetable, eaten almost every day and often for two meals. Lettuce, in its plain green leafy variety, is either used as a piece of decoration on the plate or drowned in cream and sugar.

Tradition has little to do with the preservation of culture, it is instead a wild stab into the past to justify present actions in which we all participate and yet fail to describe the reasoning for to later generations. They, as do we with our inherited traditions, assume that they have been passed on for the best reasons, in good faith, rather than merely as a set of conveniences.