Braveheart Lied to Us
Many of the traditions we hold dear are less traditional than you might think.
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Illustration by Rob en Robin
In his landmark 1983 essay “The Invention of Tradition,” historian Eric Hobsbawm writes of “practices, normally governed by overtly or tacitly accepted rules and of a ritual or symbolic nature, which seek to inculcate certain values and norms of behavior by repetition, which automatically implies continuity with the past.” He calls these practices “invented traditions,” […]