One is a coffee table book on traditions, which would probably just be called Traditions, or maybe Encyclopedia of Traditions.
It would be pretty much a book version of my short-lived blog Traditions Traditions Traditions!
It would be a lavishly-illustrated volume with sections on:
- National Traditions
- Local Traditions
- University Traditions (both within universities in general, and in particular third-level institutions)
- Professional Traditions (like the "stork pin" a 9/11 dispatcher gets when he or she helps with the delivery of a child over the phone)
- Sports traditions
- Religious traditions
- Cinema traditions
- Internet traditions
And so on.
It would probably kick off with some kind of essay about tradition, psychological theories and so forth. But nothing too intense.
I'm surprised that no such book as this seems to exist already. Books on tradition are usually about either the concept of tradition or particular sorts of tradition.
When tradition is discussed, what's surprising (to me) is that nobody seems to want to discuss the subject on its simplest level. There are brilliant essays like "Tradition and the Individual Talent" by T.S. Eliot, that analyse the concept in a profound way. But what about the simple meaning of tradition-- the one that we all tend to mean when we use the word "tradition"?
Like putting up Christmas trees, barber's shops having white and red poles outside, people hanging fuzzy dice in their cars, actors calling Macbeth "the Scottish play", fortune cookies, Valentine's cards, soccer crowds performing Mexican waves, bingo announcers saying "two fat ladies", cinemas having red seats, the audience standing up for the Hallelujah chorus of The Messiah...that kind of thing.
I suppose, in my view, the simplest definition of tradition is: something we do because it's been done before, for the sake of a tradition. Something we do more or less unthinkingly because it's a tradition (like shaking hands or sitting on chairs) isn't what I mean.
It's fascinating to me. Not just fascinating, but delightful.
I always want to know about peoples' family and personal traditions. I've worked in University College Dublin for almost twenty-five years and I regularly feel ashamed that I've never seriously tried to create a new tradition there. (Sometimes I've thought of randomly opening and closing an umbrella by the lake every day. Yeah, that's stupid.)
This blog has its own traditions, of course. Chiefly: changing its background colours with the liturgical season, posting "The Burning Babe" by Robert Southwell every Christmas, and including random pictures of Dirk Benedict. (Maybe I should go back to using pictures all the time, for the sake of that tradition...) I can't think of any others.
When I was in my early teens, I had an ultra-specific tradition: I would buy a packet of barbecue beef flavoured Hula Hoops on my walk home from school, put the first one in my mouth, and keep it that way all the way from the shop to a traffic light a block away.
I've always had the idea that you can measure the vibrancy of any institution by the number and strength of its traditions.
A friend once bought me the book Gormenghast by Mervyn Peake as a birthday present because she knew of my love for traditions. But I didn't like the treatment of tradition in that book at all; it's shown to be oppressive and stultifying. I'm no longer friends with that person as she became increasingly woke and angry. Perhaps the book choice was an early indication?
If you have any interesting personal, family, work, or other traditions, please tell me!
I love the Regalia of universities. Once I went to a graduation of a family member, and she snidely commented, "why do we wear this when it is medieval, it days back to the 12th century." I was taken aback and had no comeback defending it. I still think about that, and honestly, I still don't know what I should have said.
ReplyDelete