Karl Popper se 4 funksies van Tradisie

Vir baie mense is tradisie iets waarvan hulle net nie vinnig genoeg kan weg kom nie.  Vir ander is dit iets waaraan hulle jaar na jaar vashou - al is dit om vurige bulle in klein, oorbevolkte straatjies los te laat (klink soos Loftus op ʼn Super 15 Saterdag).  Hoekom nog deelwees van ʼn tradisie?

Wel, volgens die invloedryke Filosoof, Karl Popper, vervul tradisies vier belangrike funksies binne ʼn samelewing:

 

In die eerste plek help tradisies ons om orde te sien waar daar andersins net chaos is.  Tradisies bied vir ons empiriese of metafisiese veronderstellings wat soos lense ons help om realiteit te interpreteer.  Waar daar nie orde is nie kan mense nie rasioneel optree nie; en dit veroorsaak angs.  Dus help tradisies ons om sinvol met die wêreld en samelewing om te gaan.  Bv. die Christelike veronderstelling dat God genadig is maak dit vir Christene moontlik om die angs van skuld en verwerping te oorkom en om ten spyte daarvan met integriteit te kan lewe.

Tweedens bied tradisies vir ons riglyne vir optrede.  Sulke riglyne kan moreel, esteties of bloot funksioneel van aard wees.  Alhoewel ons vervreemd kan raak van die betekenis wat agter tradisionele riglyne lê, kan hulle van onskatbare waarde wees.  Popper gee die volgende voorbeeld:

“When I was in New Zealand I got hold of a set of American records of Mozart’s ‘Requiem.’ When I had played these records I knew what the lack of a musical tradition meant. This set of records had been made in America, under the directorship of a musician who obviously was untouched by the tradition, which has come down from Mozart. The result was devastating.”

Derdens help tradisie ons om ons eie geskiedenis en kultuur te verstaan en verskaf dan ook die grondslag wat sinvolle veranderings moontlik maak.  Popper gebruik die volgende voorbeeld: “In science it would be a tremendous loss if we were to say:  ‘We do not make very much progress. Let us sweep away all science and start afresh.’ You may create a new theory, but the new theory is created in order to solve those problems which the old theory did not solve.”  Popper waarsku teen revolusies wat met ʼn skoon bladsy wil begin: “Indeed a set of values can have social significance only in so far as there exists a social tradition which upholds them... we should not be surprised if we find that once we destroy tradition, civilisation dissapears with it.”

In die vierde plek speel tradisie ʼn belangrike rol in die vorming van identiteit.  Deur ʼn sekere tradisie aan te hang verskeker jy vir ander (binne-en-buitestanders) van jou rasionaliteit en relatiwe voorspelbaarheid.  Dit help om ʼn gemeenskaplike verwysingsraamwerk op te stel wat kommunikasie en vertoue versterk.  Dus help tradisies ook om die voortbestaan en gesonde funksionering van gemeenskappe te verseker.

By ons vorige Grey Matters byeenkoms kon ons almal aanklank vind by hierdie vier funksies van tradisie.  Tradisie, soos hier beskryf, is iets waarsonder ons nie kan nie, al voel dit soms soos ʼn onnodige las.  Is tradisie nie dalk underrated nie?

Bronne:

Sarot, Marcel.  "Why should one want to participate in a religious tradition? Poppers view of tradition applied to Christianity" in Ars Disputandi 3(2003).

Karl R. Popper, ‘Towards a Rational Theory of Tradition", The rationalist Annual 66 (1949), 3655, rpt. in: Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge (London 31972)

Deuteromammon 6:1-25

The Great Prophet Maccy-D lays down the Law



Now this is the commandment—the slogans and the advertisements—that Consumerism, your God charged me to teach you to observe in the land that you are about to cross into and occupy, so that you and your children and your children’s children may fear Consumerism your God all the days of your life, and fall for all his sales schemes, so that your storerooms and rubbish dumps may be full. Hear therefore, O Global Village, and observe them diligently, so that you me be consumed, and so that you may prosper greatly in a land flowing with cars and cash, as Capitalism, the God of your ancestors, has promised you.

Hear, O Global Village: Consumerism is our God, Consumerism alone. You shall love her with all your intellect, and with all your heart, and with all your credit cards. Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your i-Pads. Recite them to your children and talk about them when you are at home and when you are in the car, when you lie down and when you rise. Bind her products as a sign around your wrists, fix her logos on your sports caps, print them on your billboards and watch them on the television with the family

Do what is profitable and productive in the sight of Consumerism, so that you may be instantly gratified, and so that you may go in and exploit the good land that Capitalism swore to your ancestors to give you, thrusting out all your competitors from before you, as Capitalism has promised. When Capitalism your God brought about the industrial revolution he swore to your ancestors, to James Watt, to Henry Ford, and to Adam Smith, to give you—a land with fine, large cities that you did not build, houses filled with all sorts of goods that you do not need, gadgets that you can’t use, gardens and vineyards that you never see—and when you have eaten your fill, take care that you do not forget Capitalism, who brought you out of the coal mines, out of the house of slavery. Do not follow the gods, any of the archaic religions who are all around you, because Consumerism your God, who is ever-present, is a jealous God.

What tradition are we handing down?

When your children ask you in time to come, “What is the meaning of the decrees and the statutes and the ordinances that Consumerism our God has commanded you?” then you shall say to your children, “We were slaves of the church and the king, but Modernity brought us out of the dark with rationality. Modern science displayed before our eyes great and awesome technology to control nature and to exploit its wealth.  Capitalism brought us out from there to give us the prosperity that he promised on oath to our ancestors. If we diligently observe this entire commandment before Consumerism our God, as he has commanded us, we will be satisfied.”

Ash Thursday

Marked by Ashes

Ruler of the Night, Guarantor of the day . . .
This day — a gift from you.
This day — like none other you have ever given, or we have ever received.
This Thursday dazzles us with gift and newness and possibility.
This Thursday burdens us with the tasks of the day, for we are already halfway home
halfway back to committees and memos,
halfway back to calls and appointments,
halfway on to next Sunday,
halfway back, half frazzled, half expectant,
half turned toward you, half rather not.

This Thursday is a long way from Ash Wednesday,
but all our Wednesdays and Thursdays are marked by ashes —
we begin this day with that taste of ash in our mouth:
of failed hope and broken promises,
of forgotten children and frightened women,
we ourselves are ashes to ashes, dust to dust;
we can taste our mortality as we roll the ash around on our tongues.

We are able to ponder our ashness with
some confidence, only because our every Thursday of ashes
anticipates your Easter victory over that dry, flaky taste of death.

On this Thursday, we submit our ashen way to you —
you Easter parade of newness.
Before the sun sets, take our Thursday and Easter us,
Easter us to joy and energy and courage and freedom;
Easter us that we may be fearless for your truth.
Come here and Easter our Thursday with
mercy and justice and peace and generosity.

We pray as we wait for the Risen One who comes soon.

Walter Brueggemann (Adapted by IJ van der Merwe)

Clichés are clichés for a reason - aren't they?

At our previous Grey Matters gathering we played a game of cliché-busters.  It was a great opportunity to expose and even destroy some of those clichés that tend to drive you up the walls.  The following short piece on thought-terminating clichés by our in-house linguist, Erin, made the busting process a whole lot easier:
Robert Jay Lifton was one of first to use the phrase "thought terminating cliché".

In the domain of Language Ecology within Linguistics, the premise is that "utterances must not be deliberately formed in such a way that the cause harm to or decieve others." If an utterance is formed in such a way that it breaks this rule, it is called "language abuse". There are five levels of language on which abuse of this kind can take place: phonological, lexical, semantic, syntactic and pragmatic. The level on which the thought terminating cliché takes place is pragmatic - it feeds off of the social dynamics within society, so to speak.

It seems to be in Lifton's book, Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism, that the term "thought-terminating cliché" became popularised. A thought-terminating cliché is a commonly used phrase, sometimes passing as folk wisdom, used to quell cognitive dissonance. I think most of us at GM would agree that cognitive dissonance is often the place from which growth takes place. Though the phrase in and of itself may be valid in certain contexts, its application as a means of dismissing dissent or justifying fallacious logic is what makes it thought-terminating. In other words, when such a phrase is used to prevent argumentation, questioning, debate and even discussion of a problematic situation or event, it is said to be thought-terminating. These phrases are used so often and with such ease that they have become accpeted as truthful propositions in and of themselves and therefore cannot be contested.

Lifton said: The most far-reaching and complex of human problems are compressed into brief, highly reductive, definitive-sounding phrases, easily memorized and easily expressed. These become the start and finish of any ideological analysis.

Some examples of thought-terminating clichés:

"When you get to be my age..."

"Do what I say and not what I do..."

"One day, you'll understand..."

In spite of having the best intentions of busting every cliché out there, it turned out some of us weren't so sure that we could do without them.  The following quote by George's dad on Dead Like Me expresses something of our hesitance to throw clichés out of the window:

"When you're suffering, truly suffering, it's the cliches that heal you. When I'm sad give me George Jones, or Willie Nelson. That's the brilliance of these sonnets. They state the obvious. Cliches are cliches because they are the things that have stuck to the wall. Our greatest arrogance is to believe that we are all special, because the truth is we are all unbelievably the same."

One thing we all agreed on was that clichés shouldn't be used in thought-terminating ways, and that integrity and sensitivity makes all the difference!

Clichés

Terwyl ons wag dat Erin die stuk wat sy vir ons laas donderdag gelees het op die blog sit, hier is solank die clichés wat ek saamgebring het:

"All is fair in love and war"

"There's lots of fish in the sea"

Altwee was deeglik "busted" deur die gesprek :)