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re: Tonight, Texas A&M's campus will darken for Silver Taps
Posted on 2/4/14 at 10:53 am to Pettifogger
Posted on 2/4/14 at 10:53 am to Pettifogger
Pettifogger, to give a better explanation of just why A&M has so many more 'traditions' than most other colleges, it has to do with A&M's rather unique history. For the majority of its history, A&M was a very insular, tight-knit college that revolved around the military lifestyle. I don't know if you've ever served, but the military has an enormous plethora of traditions for just about everything, and a lot of them seem stupid nowadays, but stem from western military culture of the past few hundred years, which is always behind the times by a good 50 years or so.
A lot of the 'traditions' nowadays are remnants of a much larger body of 'aggie customs and courtesies' that for the most part have been discarded over the last 30-40 years as the school has transitioned from a very small senior military college to a civilian university. So when you say 'aggies have too many traditions, its ridiculous' a lot of older aggies see it as the exact opposite: most of the military style traditions have been lost or are no longer practiced, and the few that remain are just the tip of the iceberg.
The 150 things left are just the remainder of like 1500.
A lot of the 'traditions' nowadays are remnants of a much larger body of 'aggie customs and courtesies' that for the most part have been discarded over the last 30-40 years as the school has transitioned from a very small senior military college to a civilian university. So when you say 'aggies have too many traditions, its ridiculous' a lot of older aggies see it as the exact opposite: most of the military style traditions have been lost or are no longer practiced, and the few that remain are just the tip of the iceberg.
The 150 things left are just the remainder of like 1500.
This post was edited on 2/4/14 at 10:55 am
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Posted on 2/4/14 at 11:06 am to cokebottleag
That much is apparent. I'd say my guess is that there has been a pretty concentrated effort to preserve traditions during that era. Moreover, I'm assuming TAMU mimicked military traditions, putting a distinctive twist on them to distinguish from the originals.
I do think the purpose may be somewhat different. I think most military traditions arise out of a sense of the necessity of ritual or regimen to promote unity, uniformity and discipline. I'm sure many of those same factors were in play for TAMU, though I think the relatively young age of TAMU likely led to a more rapid acquisition of unique traditions to mirror the services.
For example, let's the US spun off into a new state, or even TAMU spun off to form a new college. The legacy of being part of the original would probably inspire the relatively quick creation of new traditions inspired by the original. True, a new state's military would want to promote the same things as the original (discipline, etc.) but there would also be a desire to quickly establish your own history/traditions to celebrate and take pride in.
That is what I think happened with A&M. Hence, I don't think they're substance-less at all, but I do think there was probably an intention to create a body of traditions that were unique to the school.
I do think the purpose may be somewhat different. I think most military traditions arise out of a sense of the necessity of ritual or regimen to promote unity, uniformity and discipline. I'm sure many of those same factors were in play for TAMU, though I think the relatively young age of TAMU likely led to a more rapid acquisition of unique traditions to mirror the services.
For example, let's the US spun off into a new state, or even TAMU spun off to form a new college. The legacy of being part of the original would probably inspire the relatively quick creation of new traditions inspired by the original. True, a new state's military would want to promote the same things as the original (discipline, etc.) but there would also be a desire to quickly establish your own history/traditions to celebrate and take pride in.
That is what I think happened with A&M. Hence, I don't think they're substance-less at all, but I do think there was probably an intention to create a body of traditions that were unique to the school.
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