[15681] in APO-L
Losing Faith
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Ron Gavel, Nu Zeta)
Wed Nov 20 00:43:50 1996
Date: Wed, 20 Nov 1996 00:41:23 -0500
Reply-To: BRASSGAVEL@AOL.COM
From: "Ron Gavel, Nu Zeta" <BRASSGAVEL@AOL.COM>
To: Multiple recipients of list APO-L <APO-L@VM.CC.PURDUE.EDU>
Mike McCaffrey wrote
>1) OK, so the all-male chapters were founded on a tradition of
>being men only? Why is tradition ALONE any reason t do anything??? When
>the reasons behind something have been so lost that the only thing you
>remember is simply, "Well, it's just always been done this way." then it
>is time to quit resisting change in the face of alternatives which have
>REAL reasons to back them up.
Interesting! Tradition alone? Let us turn our attention to the very
fabric of life here on this planet. On the basic level we must consume to
exist. People have tried to obtain nutrients in such a way as to eliminate
the loss of life for our existence. Not gonna happen! We take life when we
consume those burgers and those veggies. Yes! Plants are living creatures
too! What is our tradition in this area? Murder for the greater good. We
destroy our environment for our increased wealth and pleasure at the expense
of creatures who only know that where they live is in jeopardy. We starve
them, drive them, and exact submission to death from them, yet, tradition in
the corporate world has not been tamed.
In business, we accept that we must take currency from one another in
some form or another. I wonder who made up the game of work? Think about
it. We resign ourselves to 'collectively do' to gain a lot of marked paper
or pressed metal that somehow sustains us though it can not physically give
us shelter, or feed us. We must give it to someone else to purchase their
service. If we think that this paper and pressed metal is worth anything,
just go to our local reserve and ask them how valuable it all is. "In God we
trust" means all that it infers. Though that tradition is changing form the
basic premise is the same, we just will have less to physically show for our
toil here on earth.
So, my friend, we come at last to the greatest traditions of all. Our
government. Is it the people who make up a country's government? Do we need
a government? Tradition says we do. We take that on faith in our forbears
who believed that we were incapable of allowing each other unlimited access
to the fruits of being crafty enough to live by our own devices. We take it
by faith that law is administered justly and with speed to insure our safety.
We take it by faith that we need to elect officials to lead us and go in a
direction that we want them to go. So, the next time you talk of blind
following of tradition, look at our situation as a whole. You may find that
the blind are often led by those ignorant of their own blindness.
In Leadership, Friendship, and Service
In no particular order
The "Gavel"
Nu-Zeta Section 40
