Culture and Structure vs. Agency

I think this provides such an interesting avenue for looking at tradition (tying it back to Merton even), how it is understood, how it is celebrated, how it changes not only from person to person, but from generation to generation. The changing interpretations of cultural events, and the dismissal or heaving altering of since-steady traditions can lead to a lot of inter-generational friction à la "back in my day we used to play outside...". As a Gen X/millennial, it is honestly soooo satisfying to see archives of evidence shared on facebook of people saying "back in my day" (or some limited variant of this) for such a long time. It makes sense that this is the case, because various traditions that were so crucial and formative for one generation can be so tedious and ancient for the next, and despite this being the nature of passing time, it can be so wrenching when it feels as though such "necessary" rules, norms, and traditions are being broken. I think this is why people become "more conservative as they get older", not necessarily because of any kind of inherent wisdom gained through age (although older folks do have wise insights, at times), because even if they aren't more politically or socially progressive, there will arguably still be many things that older folks see as important to the well-running of a society, because for them it seemed to be (and often was so important), but now it simply isn't.