Why do we maintain redundant traditions?

Question

What I mean is, why do we continue to do things that are no longer necessary? To honour things that once had symbolism, but now are just tedious? Why do we maintain tradition?

Answer 1

Redundancy, in general terms, refers to the quality or state of being redundant, that is: exceeding what is necessary or normal; or duplication. This can have a negative connotation, especially in rhetoric: superfluous or repetitive; or a positive implication, especially in engineering: serving as a duplicate for preventing failure of an entire system. I would question whether or not a tradition is redundant for everyone, for an entire species, for just a few, or whether the tradition still has necessary properties that keep it alive.

If you're thinking about Christianity, I would say it has totally outlived its usefullness, it's purpose, it's value, it's evolutionary function and everything else about it that made it important to humanity. It's outlived it's usefullness FOR ME, for sure. And probably for you, too. However, it doesnt appear to be redundant to a lot of other people, so I dont really know what we're going to do about that.

Personally, just between you and me, I wear a big red, white and blue bullseye on my chest everyday, hoping that the first nuke use me as ground zero. Maybe then I'll be free from living in a society that maintains the redundancy of christ's blood flowing down the city streets of San Francisco at 3am, and so i can find some rest.