It won’t be a surprise to anyone familiar with my existence in any capacity that I spend a very unhealthy amount of time online (which I don’t intend to change). Every now and then, during my doom-scrolling sessions I come across this sentence, the origin of which I’m having a hard time figuring out:
“Traditions are just peer pressure from dead people.”
As edgy as this quote is, I think it’s still acceptable for anyone past the age of 15 to think about the message it carries – for a little bit. Or for a little too much in my case.
Why do we do the things that our parents and grandparents told us we should be doing? Was there ever a practical reason for that? Is there religion involved? Or perhaps they wanted to pass some sort of sentimental legacy on to further generations?
While for every case of a tradition these questions will have different answers, some cultures find it hard to even ask them.
Take Japan, for example – while they have festivals and celebrations that have lasted for generations and often carry some religious meaning, the country also has some of the most extreme hours of overtime in the world. And there’s no real meaning to those anymore.
These hours were once needed to advance the country’s innovative economy further, but that was in the 1980s. Now, however, it’s just something that today’s salarymen keep doing because everyone else does it. Despite the crazy overtime hours (some employees work more than 60 hours per week), labour productivity in Japan remains low.
With all the known negatives: the Japanese literally use the word karoshi meaning “death by overwork” – it has been extremely hard for the society to curb this culture despite trying for literal decades. Ironically enough, this is the kind of peer pressure that makes you dead.
So why is tradition in some cases stronger than reason? Is it about the sense of belonging, or being afraid to stand out? What about making a difficult change for the greater good?
My second least favourite word (I’ll make a political rant post about the first one at some point) is Estonian võõravaenulikkus – roughly meaning “intolerance of the unfamiliar”.
For a country as digitally progressive as Estonia, you will find a lot of people there who clearly don’t know how, nor wish to use the Internet to educate themselves about the outside world. Regular travelling is still sadly a luxury for many, especially with the latest polycrisis the country has been facing thanks to its neighbour in the east.
A great example of võõravaenulikkus would be the recent local elections in Estonia. While many voters across the country cast their votes as protest to the current government’s (incoherent as of late) policies, my hometown Tallinn in particular has been subject to a culture war that spans generations and ethnicities.
Most voters in Tallinn chose to reverse the progressive course that a shaky 4-party coalition embarked on a couple years ago. The goal of said coalition was to make the city accessible with several modes of transportation – not just with cars that have dominated the country due to its low population density and perception of personal freedom.
Many people celebrated the election outcome – I recall seeing one Facebook (yeah we still use it over there) commenter in particular mention that they are “happy with the upcoming reversal of progress”. Older Russian-speaking voters were also pleased with the party reluctant to abolish Soviet-legacy Russian schools to be back in power.
This vote showed that many people prefer to keep their environment static and familiar, not willing to risk what they hold dear in favour of trying something new, even if proven to be successful elsewhere. Among other reasons, roughly 53% of voters in Tallinn weren’t convinced by urban examples from countries with a similar climate, like Norway or Denmark.
As someone who has been constantly trying to challenge their values and think outside the box, going for progress at any possible opportunity is a no-brainer, as long as positives outweigh the negatives. However, I also understand that far from everyone can do it at a similar pace. In some cases one has to be ready to burn bridges to move on.
Making progress is often inseparable from breaking up with tradition. Leaving behind your family, your culture, whatever tribe you think you belong to. Resisting peer pressure and often unwarranted attention. Having to compromise with those who cannot (or don’t want to) keep up.
Will there ever be balance between the two? There have been two industrial revolutions within my generation alone, coupled with a rapidly evolving world order the pendulum has been swinging towards change like never before, so it’s only logical that people are tired and seek refuge in familiarity. The recent demand for all things nostalgia is no coincidence.
Having literally grown up on the Internet I have been blessed with the advantage of being able to navigate through the vast landscape of information it has to offer, even more so with the dawn of LLMs. It’s now being argued that with my generation the humanity’s literacy peaked.
Many people older than me never had the luxury of being digital natives, so it’s important we don’t leave them behind. Some of us with older relatives who have access to social media may have noticed how easily they fall for AI slop and disinformation campaigns, barely questioning whether the content is genuine and in whose interest it is to spread this content further.
On the other hand, Generation Alpha (whom we like to call iPad kids because their parents would often substitute their attention with a tablet playing Cocomelon) are growing up in the age of curated social media content, never having to look hard for and do research on things they may be interested in.
We can already see how Gen Alpha and younger Gen Z form their opinions based on short-form content that often lacks nuance. These children will soon be allowed to vote – which worries me with where we might end up as society. Traditional media might have its biases, yet its credibility can often be backed up with its track record. TikTok profiles can’t claim the same.
In the end, progress will always be evened out with tradition when necessary, and vice versa. Today, “adapt or perish” is more relevant than ever – yet we have to be careful with what we choose to adapt to.