An Argument for Tradition

There’s a sentiment in the tech world that newer is inherently better. There are also many people and companies that re-release something, proudly claiming they “started all over and wrote the code from scratch.” When I see such statements, I usually sigh and shake my head.

I’m not a programmer. We’ll get that out of the way. Most of what I know comes from discussions with programmers or reading articles on the topic (such as this excellent one).

When a programmer is working on an old, established project, he quite frequently gets frustrated trying to figure out someone else’s code. There are a ton of things in there that he just doesn’t understand. Some of the functions may be obsolete, bug fixes are inserted throughout, and some things are just written poorly. Rather than taking the time to understand years of prior work, it’s much more fun and easy for a programmer to try to write his own code. In our hubris, we often think that whatever we set our hand to will be better than what others were able to do before us.

But do you know what happens? That new-from-scratch program now has lots of bugs in it that the old one had fixed over the years; also, the shiny new one now has lots of bugs that the old one never had.

That’s why I generally avoid new things in the tech world.

The Life Lessons

There are some life lessons here. Most people have bought into the myth of progress. Just as we see phones and computers evolving and advancing, so we as humans are told we also are somehow progressing. New ideas are better than old ones. That of course begs the question: progressing towards what? What is the standard that we are using to evaluate “better”? Change is not always better – especially when it’s change for the sake of change. In evolutionary biology, mutations are far often more harmful than beneficial. The albino field mouse is the first to get caught by the hungry hawk.

Because we’ve bought into this lie of progress, that we must put the past behind us to push humanity forward, we can be easily duped by trendy ideas. But there’s great value in taking the time to understand why people did things a certain way (just like with the programming examples above). While our predecessors certainly made mistakes, we can’t learn from them unless we’re willing to spend time examining the good and the bad. Real progress happens when we carefully take the wisdom of the past and adapt it to the challenges of today.

The Religious Application

When I was a Protestant Christian, I noticed that every few years a new bestselling book would hit the market. Someone finally had Christianity figured out. It only took 2,000 years, but lucky us, we’ve got it now! Not surprisingly, those new ideas would stick around for a little while, then the excitement would fade, and the search would restart.

Eventually, I discovered the Eastern Orthodox Church, which claims to be – not just like the New Testament era church – but to actually be that church. I poured through hundreds of pages of early Christian writings from the first centuries and came away convinced that the claims of the Orthodox Church were true.

Like an old software program with its large code base, not everything in Orthodoxy makes sense to me. I look at the history and practices of the Orthodox Church, and I sometimes can’t help but think, “Wow, that’s messy,” or “I’m really not sure why we do things this way or that way.”

But I know these practices have developed over many centuries though the guidance of the Holy Spirit, and that there is more value in studying them closely than throwing it all away. I also know that occasionally the Church comes together in a council and makes some tweaks to the “code” to adapt to the challenges that we face today. Some people view tradition as something rigid and unchanging, but in reality, it is something living that can experience growth and adaptability when it doesn’t betray the original intention.

Because my faith radically shapes my worldview, I’ve been able to let go of the myth of progress. I see that Truth is here and has been here in its fullness for many centuries. Truth is something we not only meditate upon, but actively participate in. Truth has personhood and can be communed with. Truth and Wisdom are one. And with that information, I can face the challenges of today while standing on the shoulders of giants. The view is much better up here, and not having to reinvent the wheel every few years frees me up to do more meaningful things with my life.