issue147【jet小组】第九次作业

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Issue 147   "Tradition and modernization are incompatible. One must choose between them."
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Nowadays, the quantum leaps with technology lead to high development of the society. People have been concerning much about the relationship between tradition and modernization. Are tradition and modernization incompatible and thus one can not choose both of them? In taking various factors in consideration, the answer is no.

First of all, the view of tradition is changing with the development of society. What we considered as modernization decades ago has turned to tradition. For example, when we claimed that taking floppy disk as a medium of storing data is modernization ten years ago, we can not predict that it has been never used now: flash memory has served as a substitute of it. Maybe flash memory will become a tradition several years later. Simply acclaiming that something is traditional or modern is not rational.

Secondly, tradition serves as a catalyst of development of modernization, which depends on the existence of tradition. Taking a look around, we can find a large amount of examples to show that tradition is the foundation of modernization. When one is watching a video which records his tourism in a great place, he might think that taking photos is traditional. However, video recording technique is developed based on the technology of camera, which is realized as tradition. I can not imagine that video recording technique can gain such a large improvement without the foundation of camera if we simply discard tradition.

What is more, tradition is not always obsolete and useless and therefore, many traditions exist with modernization compatibly. In fact, there are many traditions which still function to society and moreover, some traditions might never extinct. For example, using knives and forks to eat is a tradition which appeared hundreds years ago, and modern people still follow this style. Moreover, there is no evidence to show that the tradition of spending Christmas is going to obsolete. Almost everyone is eager to enjoy their relaxation during the Christmas. There are innumerable traditions that still exist in this modern society, and they seldom raise any combat with modernization.

Admittedly, there are a few traditions which have had little value to modern society. In this circumstance, it is necessary to leave them to extinct. They might be an inhibitor to the development of society and culture. However, not every tradition is in this extreme situation. We should cogitate carefully when we treat with the relationship between tradition and modernization.

In sum, though there are a few traditions which are incompatible with modernization, in great extent, tradition and modernization should co-exist in our society. To choose or discard each one of them is not an advisable choice for the reason concerned above. It might lead to more loss if we lost each one of them.