The Way It's Always Been Done

One of my least favorite fallacies that is used commonly in arguments today is the appeal to tradition. This fallacy revolves around the idea that something has long been valued as true, so there for it must be maintained. This comes up anytime someone says something like "this is the way it's always been done" or in just claiming that something is traditional, and therefore akin to, or even just straight up, sacred.

This is, of course, bullshit.

Traditions exist for many reasons. Going to church is a way of reaffirming your faith. As situations change the need for specific traditions, or rituals associated with these traditions, can also change. If you just go to church because that's what you have always done, going to church loses meaning and, I would argue, value to you as a person. I am not saying that traditions don't have value, I would just like to point out that doing things without thinking  about why you are doing them is harmful to you and the tradition. I would rather see a tradition change then see it stagnate and become meaningless.

Here is a modern example of how sticking to a tradition is damaging to societal growth: Marriage.  Marriage has always been between a man and a woman, so you cannot change it. The thing is, marriage is not just between a man and a woman. In the history of marriage there have been many iterations: one man and multiple women, one women married to multiple males, sets of people intermarried with one another. If this was something that didn't affect other people I would have not problem with it, after all if you want to put limits on yourself, who am I to stop you. But those arguments infringe upon the rights of others because the people making them are too fragile to consider changing their misapprehended term, and that is something that I cannot abide.

Traditions change, and that is the crux of why this fallacy bugs me. We had slaves for a long time, should we have kept that tradition? Women couldn't vote for the bulk of our country's history, should we have kept it that way? Doctors didn't clean themselves before surgery for 90% of human history, should it have stayed that way because it was how it has always been done? The answer to all of these, and any other version is "fuck no, we know more now than we did back then". Context fucking changes constantly (thanks science) and should be taken into account.

The reason this fallacy exists is because people are afraid of change. They are comfortable now, and change might upset their delicate constitutions or whatever. I have stated before, and will probably have to state again, that change is inevitable. Entropy is a thing. You will have to change or you will fall by the wayside, never to be heard from again. Tradition without context is just masturbation. You need to change traditions/rituals to survive with cultural context as time passes and the context inexorably changes, otherwise your traditions become anchors that weigh you down.