For me, sometimes it's to learn-by-doing from others' expertise. One could say the same thing about knitting up a pattern designed last year, but things move quickly with internet communication, and there's more a sense now that anyone can sit down and design a hat (or whatever object). True, they can, and that's sometimes a very good thing. But a person new to hats hasn't had time to work out the pluses and minuses yet, whereas someone with lots of hat experience has had the chance to see what works and optimize for it.
Naturally, older things are not inevitably better; there's the opposite problem of not enough scrutiny, sometimes, and of duplicating what has been done merely because it's what's always done. Still, sometimes traditions are the result of efficiency and refinement.
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ninetydegrees
no subject
on 2011-10-27 04:16 pm (UTC)Naturally, older things are not inevitably better; there's the opposite problem of not enough scrutiny, sometimes, and of duplicating what has been done merely because it's what's always done. Still, sometimes traditions are the result of efficiency and refinement.