Tradition vs. Globalization vs. Evolution – a System Theory point of view

It is essential to understand what is Important for us in its full spectrum, both with the comfortable and the uncomfortable parts, so that we don’t end up fighting for the things that will be actually against us in the future. Traditions are important and they are the Group’s way of ensuring its survival, both in its environment as well as versus other groups and, most importantly distinguished from other groups. Failing to understand this drives people to become racist, chauvinist, homophobe, islamofobe, and other malicious stands against humans that are different from themselves.

Following our Group’s Traditions will give us that sense of belonging, and that comfort in front of unpredictable events that go beyond the individual human. This, until our Group’s traditions are requiring us to sacrifice our dear ones, or ourselves, or even a relatively big number of humans that were part of our group (the case of any failed revolution).

Some humans believe that whatever is attacking their Traditions, must be the enemy of the group, refusing to understand that sometimes the external environment changes to such an extent that nobody is actually the enemy. It is just that we as a group have to adapt, and while the individual human is a very flexible system, the group of individuals is a system that changes very slowly. This leads to two unfortunate tendencies:

1. Many conspiracy theories are comfortable to some humans because these theories blame the need for change on a simple element, that can be made the clear enemy. Hence, it is easier to just fight that “enemy”, than to change AS A GROUP or have to accept that some rituals or beliefs are obsolete (not to mention that might becoming dangerous). The Earth is still flat, although there is no obvious disadvantage of the Earth actually being an Ellipsoid. The vaccines are bad and unnatural, regardless of the fact that in more than 99% of the cases they work and save from sickness the human that received them. Any software developer will tell you that even the binary system of 0 and 1 is actually made out of a lot of filters that every once in a while fail, hence messing up the promised expected reliable result.

1. The 2nd unfortunate tendency is the fact that many populists are exploiting this group tendency by promising to the group of humans that things can go back to the way they were, disregarding the fact that the external environment doesn’t allow that anymore. You want to stop immigration, but at the same time, you still want to visit the most “exotic” places in the world, in the fastest manner, and in the most comfortable way. Can you feel how the principle of Action and Reaction works? (This is a present example beyond history.) Is it superior the human that exploits coal and offers jobs that further spoil the air and the environment? or the human that lives a simplistic life in clean air, devoting all of their time and energy to protecting the environment, including the humans, the flora and the fauna in it? (The answer to this is cultural.)

Both promises, that the Group doesn’t need to change, or that things can go back to the way they were, are unfounded, but very attractive unconsciously, and unfortunately, we find ourselves in a very tense situation from a System Theory point of view. When we apply this paradigm to the very complex system called Group of Humans, we realize that while the external environment is changing rapidly (under the human action), both the level of interactions between the groups and the number of groups of humans interracting are increasing, and this is not natural for the system called Group of Humans. Needless to say that this evolving situation left like that without guidance, or without the proper guidance, will lead to a very explosive cocktail. One solution would be to use Education to shift humans from prejudice to curiosity and from ignorance to imagination.

Let’s go deeper in the aspects of this increasingly tense situation:

1. Technological advancement can not be disputed, and this is the main reason why the external environment is changing faster than the groups can even accept the change (not to mention adapt to the change). Internet, Social Media, and Traveling fast around the globe are some very positive undisputable changes, that have the negative side effect of groups having to deal with each other and their different Values and Traditions in an increasing manner. Globalization and Immigration are just secondary effects of these technological advancements, and we can see how hard it is to mitigate them, especially when the leaders in power don’t understand how Culture works, or even worse, when they abuse their positions for their personal benefits.
2. In the past, evolution and change would happen “smoother” because there weren’t so many generations living at the same time, and hence so many generation gaps. This is another side effect of the positive developments in the medical sector and the increase in life expectancy, together with the possibility for humans to be independent and self-reliant (or at least empowered or opinionated) from a younger age. It is wrong to stereotype humans by age, as there are very well-traveled, well-read humans that manage to keep an open mind to new things while their chronological age is close to a century, and there are humans that already in their 20s are very sure of how other humans they have never met, should live. In the same manner, it would be naïve to consider that there aren’t generation gaps or that every decade a new cultural generation might be formed, with their rituales, beliefs and perception of the world.
3. Another interesting thing is the fact that apparently, Humans don’t need the traditional means of interaction in order to form a Culture with symbols and rituals around what is “good” and “bad”, who are the “friends” and who are the “enemies”, and so on. Social Media and all of the conspiracy theories showed us that modern ways of interaction suffice in order to have a very cohesive group that unites people from various races, various religions, and other axes of diversity, in, for example, being against wearing masks during an airborne pandemic, or even during the flu season. Such a simple act, that become in just one year a strong belief, and gained so much meaning under the wrong type of leadership. No offense to whoever believes that wearing underpants is unhealthy or against their freedoms.

Very important to be added, is the fact that our group’s Traditions are very important to each of us and are very emotional, so creating a policy to make people around us give up things that are not important for us (but to them), and will not do much to the other group, will backfire almost immediately. When dealing with Traditions and rituals it is not advisable to do things for the sake of being politically correct, as the gain might be insignificant with respect to the damage done.

It is fascinating to see confirmed some of the axioms from System Theory applied to the complex system called Society. If you would like to use this paradigm practically in a program on Diversity and Inclusion, check it out here.

Below another article on the same subject: