If I asked you how to spell the word for red and blue and green and yellow, etc. if you lived in the US you would spell it color. If you lived in the UK or Australia, you would spell it with a u, that is, colour. Which is right? Well, both, of course, not because I am a politician nor am I unwilling to call out wrong when I see it. It's just that there are factors which make color correct or colour correct, most notably national convention.
What about prayer. If I asked you to say a prayer and you were a Catholic or Orthodox Jew, you might ask me which prayer I was soliciting. If you were a Pentecostal, I would have to ask you to pray (not say a prayer), and you would burst into spontaneous and convincing prayers. It's all about convention, that is, style you have learned and practiced in communal situations.
To watch/ listen to this: https://www.flickr.com/photos/bobmendo/55133552025/
I was raised to open doors for females, of any age, at any time. I don't always do that, but it's in my practice, it's convention. There is nothing written in the Australian constitution about this, but it's simply etiquette and conventional practice.
Today I flew from Australia to the USA and as is my custom, I wore a business suit. When I was 11 I took my first flight from Los Angeles to Kansas City, and did not wear a suit, but most of the men wore at least a sportcoat and many wore ties. That was convention of the day. I still maintain that in these days.
I suppose we could use the term etiquette or common practice, even the word custom could define convention.
Of course the Oxford English Dictionary says convention is, "a large meeting of professionals or political party members. It also refers to a widely accepted custom, behaviour, or method (social convention), or an official, formal agreement between countries or leaders. It signifies traditional, expected standards of behaviour."
I like that. Convention is normal; counterculture is abnormal. There is a time and place for breaking free of convention. Actually I was thinking about government and the people and when was it in the USA that mistrust and disregard took on a new normal rather than the convention of respect given (unearned, it just was given)
I'm sure there are ideas others have floated, but the 60s didn't start with the gyrating hips of Elvis or the Fab Four from Liverpool. For Americans, I think convention was tossed out the window in January 1961, when John F Kennedy, the youngest person elected to the presidency, did not wear his top hat in the inaugural parade. (Picture above). He did wear it as he and the others moved from the White House to the ceremony of the inauguration.
You see, wearing the top hat was the norm; it was the custom, the convention. When JFK tossed it aside metaphorically, he tossed away the moorings that kept the presidency what it was to have been, and what George Washington helped make it to be.
After that momentous toss, it's no wonder that just 11 years later the shockwaves hit the world in Watergate scandal and the commensurate resignation of Spiro Agnew as Vice President and Richard Nixon as President.
Am I saying that Kennedy removing his hat was the same or even the beginning of the breakins at the Watergate Hotel and the downward spiraling lies of the leadership through the campaign of 1972? Am I saying that Bill Clinton, the most notable and visible child of the 1960s who became president later followed suit by removing his trousers while Kennedy only removed his hat?
I guess what I'm comfortable saying is that convention is not bad, and sometimes traditions keep us, rather than we keep traditions. How different the world would be if we would and could trust our leaders today. If what they said and did was honourable and kind. Maybe like in the Aussie classic, "The Castle" I am hearing the phrase, "tell him he's dreaming." (https://bit.ly/hesdreamin ) But another assassinated 1960s American politician and civil rights leader awakened the multitudes by saying, "I have a dream."
Turn a new leaf; overturn convention, when it makes the world a better place, not when it ssimply suits your fancy or your own custom of disregard.
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