There are some facts that are obvious in theory and universally accepted as an abstract formulation, but vehemently denied when it comes down to the concrete case and practical application. For example, the realisation that wrong ideas and false beliefs are capable of taking root, surviving, thriving, and influencing the lives and behaviour of countless generations, even after their falsity has been demonstrated. We are all capable of identifying the nonsense that others have turned into tradition, but when the lens turns to us, denialism is automatic. The fallacy of appealing to tradition only sounds fallacious when used by third parties.
A representative sample would include the usual favourites like astrology, homeopathy, and other low-rated ones, but the full set is vastly larger. The mermaid of tradition has a seductive song, which goes something like this: the wrong and the false are refined, abandoned over the decades and centuries. What survives and consolidates must be true because, after all, it has withstood the test of time.
Human intelligence, it is claimed, evolved under selective pressure to better understand the world. Thus, the sieving of truths would occur naturally, nonsense eliminated as part of an almost automatic process. What remains, therefore, must correspond to the facts or, at least, serve as a very good indicator of where the facts can be found.
How many times have we not encountered this argument? This or that must be true because “it has been proved through the centuries”, it is millenary, it is traditional. The fallacy behind the fallacy is that “better understanding the world” is not the only selective pressure on the intellect. The human being is a social animal, and perhaps more important than discovering how best to hunt mammoths was developing a good way to convince those who knew how to hunt to share the booty.
But the equation between seniority and veracity remains too good a move to dismiss. It is recognised, in the realm of ideas, as a primary failure (or dishonest form) of reasoning, but depending on the interests at stake, it can be transfigured into an indisputable epistemic criterion: what belongs to tradition is automatically validated as “knowledge” without the need for any critical examination – at the limit, the mere insinuation that some critical examination would be welcome is rejected and reprimanded as intolerable disrespect for ancestors and institutions, a mark of prejudice against this or that culture.
It is a vice embraced across the entire political spectrum. We find the conservatives on the right who treat countless nonsense and superstitions as “wisdom” only because of the dubious merit of having “survived the test of time” among the elites of the Western world; and then there are those on the left, who show the same fondness for superstitions and nonsense that have been victorious among the downtrodden of the West – or among elites anywhere but Europe.
Cause and Consequence
The “test of time” argument, the cornerstone of the fallacy of appealing to tradition, can have many faces. Each is designed to sound “reasonable” in the face of different sensitivities, value systems, and audience profiles. The elitist speaks of noble traditions, the populist of popular wisdom, the pragmatist of empirical knowledge and common sense.
But why is the fallacy a fallacy? Why is relying on tradition, just for tradition’s sake, a mistake? Why are antiquity, traditionality, and continuous practice not solid indicators of truth – of correspondence with facts? As automatic as it is to see the error (if not the absurdity) of traditions that we dislike or are indifferent to, it is just as easy to cling to ad antiquitatem in defence of those that are dear to us.
The problem with the “test of time” is that it has its validity domain, but in the end, it promises more, much more, than it can deliver. Initially, it is reasonable to assume that an idea, belief, or behaviour that has endured for generations is lasting for some reason. What is unreasonable is imagining that matching the facts represents the only possible, or even the most likely, reason.
Anthropologists and psychologists have known this for a long time: beliefs play numerous roles in society, and having correct information is just one possibility among many, not mutually exclusive. Other functions – such as sustaining hierarchy, reducing anxiety in times of uncertainty, helping to control conflicts – may be giving longevity to the idea. Beliefs can also become fixed by mere chance, in a process similar to genetic drift.
Many people understand this when beliefs involve political or religious institutions, but perhaps these same people are reluctant to accept explanations about something more immediate and palpable, like health. Could a traditional plant used for centuries to treat this or that have become established in a culture because of some “social function” other than doing what it is supposed to do – cure the disease? What other “social function” can a medicine have?
Well, several functions, such as giving the patient the impression that something is being done for them, which will help keep them calm while nature takes its course. It can also give the population the impression that the doctor/shaman/priest/sorcerer/sage has special knowledge, superior to that of mere mortals. Other functions include moving the economy, providing entertainment, solidarity, and social cohesion if the preparation is consumed in some kind of public ceremony, among many alternatives.
A belief surviving the “test of time” suggests something about it, but it may not necessarily be true. Depending on the context, it may be the least likely possibility or not even plausible.
What is the problem?
It is all too easy, even tempting, to adopt a blasé attitude when discovering (or imagining) the “true role” of a belief and thereby deciding that the truth or falsity of its explicit content, the information it ostensibly carries, is irrelevant or a concern only of small minds, clumsy spirits, or narrow-minded positivists.
But this is nothing but arrogance and condescension masquerading as intellectual sophistication. To ignore that beliefs have implications, and that false beliefs have invalid implications that, once taken seriously, open the way to tragic consequences, is not a sign of superior understanding but of irresponsibility. Noting that the belief in witches as a cause of illness or misfortune helps the community to make sense of events and to negotiate its internal tensions is no consolation for the “witch” who ends up tortured and killed.
It is possible to have important symbolic, political, and even ecological relationships encoded in beliefs that ostensibly teach how to heal the body, cultivate the earth, calm the spirit, or ward off death. However, identifying, understanding, and even respecting these social functions of tradition does not answer the question of whether it really benefits the sick, improves the crop, or relieves pain. If, in addition to all that it implicitly delivers, belief also finally provides what it explicitly promises.
Paraphrasing a reflection made by Nobel Prize in Medicine Peter Medawar (1915-1987), when condemning the idea that culturally rooted healing myths should be placed on the same epistemic plane as medical science, a person with a toothache may prefer a treatment that actually eliminates the problem to a ritual of profound poetic, social, and spiritual significance, but which will do nothing to alleviate their suffering. At dawn, hours after the end of the ceremony, when adrenaline is low and everything is quiet, it is the sufferer who continues to endure alone and in silence.
