The Beginning of A Tradition
Have you heard of the fable - the Five Monkey Experiment?
IF your answer is Yes, skip the next few paragraphs. IF your answer is No, read on.
Once there was an experiment done on five monkeys (at any one time) in a room with a tall ladder that enabled one monkey to climb up in order to reach a bunch of bananas hanging from the ceiling.
As soon as one monkey stepped on the ladder, the other four monkeys were drenched in cold water from a piped hose. The four monkeys quickly understood this drenching to mean the prevention of the other monkey from climbing the ladder. Thus they united to give that monkey a heavy beating.
Every time a monkey started to climb the ladder, the remaining four monkeys would be drenched in cold water.
After a while, Monkey-One was replaced by a new monkey, Monkey-Six. As Monkey-Six did not know the rules, he started to climb the ladder and was simply treated with another heavy beating from the other four monkeys. The process was continued with all original five monkeys replaced by new monkeys. Some cycles down the line, the cold water was stopped, but still, every monkey who dared to climb the ladder was heavily beaten up by the other monkeys.
Monkey-One-Thousand-and-One was teaching all new-born monkeys not to climb any ladder for a bunch of banana or for food.
Monkey-One-Hundred-and-One was teaching all new-born monkeys not to climb any ladder (period).
What lesson does the above fable teach us?
Well everyone of us is tied down with traditions passed on to us by generations of elders. There are traditions in families, in companies, in governments until one day someone like Mao Zedong or Lee Kuan Yew or the current Donald Trump breaks with traditions and starts to re-live history over again.