Appeal to Tradition

Nicolas Michaud

I cannot help but wonder whether, by continuing and expanding the school lunch program, we aren’t witnessing, if not encouraging, the slow demise of yet another American tradition, the brown bag.

Charles Mathias, Jr.

To appeal to tradition (ATT) means to ignore the evidence that we should change because we have been doing something for a long time. ATTs are tremendously useful fallacies. Politicians, as in the quotation above, seem to have found them particularly powerful when manipulating their audiences. It is a fallacy that hinges on our sentimental tendencies and our unwillingness to change, and it is particularly dangerous when it prevents change. Simply, ATT can prevent us from moving beyond harmful and dangerous beliefs and institutions only because we are used to them.

From a purely logical standpoint, ATT simply means that one uses the fact that we’ve done something in the past, usually with regularity, as a reason why we should continue doing it into the future. It is “[a]ttempting to persuade others of a point of view by appealing to their feelings of reverence or respect for a tradition instead of to evidence, especially when a more important principle or issue is at stake” (Damer 2009, 115). ATT seems to suggest that there is something good about tradition that trumps any other concerns.

ATT has been used for a very long time to justify just about every act of oppression humans have indulged in. It is difficult, for example, to justify slavery, preventing women from voting, and segregation. So we often find ourselves looking about for any justification. When an institution such as slavery is old enough, it becomes common to say, “Well, we have always done things this way.” The problem is that just because something has always been done, it does not mean it should be done. The fact that is has been done in the past does not make it right.

Notice, in performing an ATT there is something of a tendency to roman­ticize the past. The word “tradition” may not even be used. We might simply be arguing that it is the only way we have ever done things, or that we have always done things that way, or that we’ve been doing something for so long that, even if there is a good reason to change, we should keep on the same path. The problem is that since tradition has nothing to do with morality, it is really easy for ATT to be used to justify anything, from continuing to tell children that Santa exists to preventing an oppressed group of people from voting.

Perhaps at the core of ATT is our belief that our family and cultural tradi­tions are important. And, if we do anything for long enough, even if it is unwise, stupid, or simply evil, we start to view it with a sentimental perspec­tive. It is kind of like a truly terrible TV show that you grew up with when you were a kid. It was dumb, you didn’t like it, but it was the only thing on at the time or your parents always watched it. As an adult, though, you might find yourself romanticizing it, missing it, or even making your own kids watch it. After all, how many children have whined to their parents, “Aw, why do we have to do this?” and the parents reply, “Because we did it when I was a kid, and it will make Grandma happy, dammit!” Some part of us recognizes that whatever is being asked of the child is unfair or ridicu­lous, but we do it anyway, because it is just the way things are.

In some ways, ATT is a popular fallacy of grandmothers all over the world. After all, isn’t there something good about our traditions? Shouldn’t we preserve them, remember them, and maintain those actions and beliefs that make us a family and a culture? Perhaps there is something to that idea. Remember, though, that recognizing the flaws in appealing to tradition isn’t saying that traditions are bad or that cultural identity is unimportant. When we recognize that appealing to tradition is logically flawed we are just recognizing that just because something has been done in the past does not justify continuing to do it in the future, especially when there are other moral issues at stake as well.

Sometimes even those harmless grandmother traditions have more at stake than we realize. We might, for example, think that if we ask Grandma, “Why do we always have to have turkey for Thanksgiving???” she is well within her rights to say, “Because it’s traditional!” That does seem like a fair

enough argument. The problem is that, even in this seemingly innocent case, there is a genuine moral issue at stake - the treatment of non-human animals. Some believe that turkeys, particularly the ones mass produced to meet our needs for holidays such as Thanksgiving, suffer tremendous torture in factory farms. Does the fact that we have “always” eaten turkey for Thanksgiving truly trump the tremendous suffering that turkeys are said to experience to meet our need to feel connected to our pasts and our childhoods? Consider some of the following examples:

Look, I’m not saying anything bad about women. Our military academy has never allowed women to enroll. It is part of who we are. From the day our hallowed institution was founded, we have been men only. This has nothing to do with women; it is about staying true to who we are!

Notice, in the argument above, there is no time or attention given to all of the arguments that are relevant to allowing women to enroll in a military academy. No consideration is given to the harms done to women, to the way the institution may be perpetuating sexism, and to the way the institution may be harmed by not changing with the times The only consideration given is to maintaining the traditions of the past.

Our family has always been Jewish. We marry Jewish; it is just what we do. I understand you are in love, but some things are even more impor­tant than love.

Notice, here, no time is given to other arguments and considerations regarding whom one should marry. In defending the argument, the speaker makes no mention of religious reasons for preferring Jewish unions, or of scripture, or of morality. The only concern is that the family has always acted a certain way, and so it is assumed that it should continue to act that way, even if there are good reasons to change.

We have a great American tradition of lunches made at home. Sure, some of these children may benefit from having lunches more available to them at school, but that connection to home is something that makes America what it is. We have lost enough of who we are to people who don’t respect our heritage already!

This example plays with the quotation that we started this chapter with. Notice that the fact that children might benefit from having free or subsidized lunch is mentioned but is glossed over as unimportant when in comparison with the damage that would be done to the seemingly holy institution of American traditions.

Just remember, our sentimentality for the past can be used against us. Worse, it can be used to justify any kind of inequality, inequity, and oppression. Morality likely is not as much something that defines us based on what others have done in the past but, rather, more by what choices we make as we move into the future.

Reference

Damer, Edward. 2009. Attacking Faulty Reasoning: A Practical Guide to Fallacy-

Free Arguments, 6th edition. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Cengage Learning.