A social question that started a rant

Why is there usually a major conflict between tradition and change?

People often prefer to stick to their standard way of doing things, rather than to change what they and their parents and grandparents have done. Humans generally prefer to have a routine, to do things the same, and tradition is one form of routine. And so conflict arises when changes challenge tradition.

Take Christmas for instance. It is a holiday that is celebrated by nearly every country in the world, and has been since the year 800. It has always been a season of loving, generosity, gift giving, and family. But more recently, changes have been imposed because of things like political correctness and economic prosperity of businesses. For example, there have been many “Christmas Controversies” lately that have been a dramatic conflict between tradition and change. Many commercial retailers (such as Wal-Mart) decided to change their Christmas greeting from “Merry Christmas” to “Happy Holidays” (this was not an isolated incident, as it continues to be used across North America in many commercial and private business alike. This caused an uproar from consumers because it was such a change that they felt was unnecessary. Those from a Christian background were the most upset because of the removal of Christ from the holiday, which has been the focal point of the Christmas holiday for centuries. The businesses argue that they need to for reasons of political correctness, as not everyone is a Christian. The problem with that is, no one has ever complained about Christ being in the word Christmas, it has just been accepted as another holiday. But when “Holidays” replaced “Christmas”, it was more than just Christians complaining. In 2005, Sears Holdings Corporation received multiple threats of boycott from their heavy use of “holiday” in their marketing campaigns. So why were people upset? Because their traditions [saying “Merry Christmas” as a greeting] were threatened by change [to using “Happy Holidays”]. Another related incident was the change from “Christmas Trees” to “Holiday Trees”. Donnie Hatt, the donor of Boston’s 50 foot Christmas tree, is quoted as saying "Ever since I was born, a tree was put up for Christmas, not for holidays, because if you're going to do that you might as well put a tree up for Easter.” This really captures the essence of just what “Holiday” means, that being a general term for a date. But that’s not the point of this.

When our traditions are challenged by change, we will most often stick to the familiar, and keep our feet out of the water. We don’t like change, we like things to be the same, and for there to be order in our lives. And so when some big corporation comes and challenges us to change the way we’ve always done things (such as the Christmas/Holiday example), we feel hostile towards them, and dislike it. Unfortunately for us, change is entirely inevitable.