A phrase no one is unfamiliar with, I'm sure, but is that such a good thing? Rituals and customs are commonly set up and expanded upon over time by the Elite in control as a way to mold and conform a society. Just look at The Super Bowl and at what Christmas has become for huge glaring examples. Usually behind it all is the all mighty dollar and getting it into their pockets, along with enslaving and distracting a society at the same time. Just look at the Romans and the reasons behind the coliseums. Look at this shiny thing over here, while we do this over here, so you don't notice; A fully predictable and in your face tactic. So then why are so many people blindly following the herd and upholding a ritual that directly benefits the "powers that be" with money and control?
I mean there's the obvious answer that people are stupid, but really, people are a lot smarter than they know. Everyone is really smart about something, not to mention the dumbing down tactics involved throughout a person's entire life from the moment of birth to instill the message that you're not, and the complete and utter lies about history. I don't care what anyone says, People built The Pyramids. Yes, we are that intelligent and more, it doesn't take aliens, but I digress...
What this is, is a logical fallacy, the Appeal to Tradition. Appeal to Tradition is a fallacy that occurs when it is assumed that something is better or correct simply because it is older, traditional, or "always has been done." This sort of "reasoning" has the following form:
X is old or traditional
Therefore X is correct or better.
I've seen no better way to illustrate this, and I wanted to share it with you. The original academic study reference on which it is based is the snappily entitled “Stephenson, G. R. (1967). Cultural acquisition of a specific learned response among rhesus monkeys. In: Starek, D., Schneider, R., and Kuhn, H. J. (eds.), Progress in Primatology, Stuttgart: Fischer, pp. 279-288
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