From Soy Milk to Facebook Isn't Such A Great Leap

Why soy milk? Specifically why call it soy milk? It isn't milk of any kind, tastes nothing like milk and indeed not being milk is part of its selling point. I agree that soy milk is a rather snappier name than "muddy brown, disgusting tasting nut derivation that tastes absolutely nothing like milk but what the hell why don't you put it in your coffee because you're probably drinking decaf anyway so it isn't like you could make it any worse". I suspect that the appellation "milk" is purely cultural. There are things we are used to putting milk into; coffee, tea, cereal, babies. When we add something else instead we attempt to ease the transition by giving it a traditional sounding name.

One of the strongest holds that tradition has on us is that we feel more comfortable with things we already know. Good or bad we have wrapped our minds around them and developed coping mechanisms. This holds true even if that "knowledge" is merely a vague cultural awareness rather than specific knowledge. When I meet somebody for the first time I tend to offer to shake hands. This strikes me as polite despite the fact that neither of us are likely to be wearing a sword. On an occasion when on offering my hand the other man bowed to me I was quite nonplussed. If he had been Asian I would have been prepared but he was Caucasian (and, as I rapidly found out, a total wanker) and so I felt rather at a loss.

I tend to regard tradition as a brake on progress, my favourite definition of it is "something stupid our ancestors did". I do realise this is somewhat unfair, tradition is a way of connecting with a past older than your own personal experiences. It is a reminder, if you will, of a shared cultural background. Or to put it another way it hampers your ability to deal with the world as it is by forcing you to view it through a prism created by a dead and semi mythical past. It is also very useful for excluding others if you don't want to come right out and admit that you're racist.

There is one area where tradition is actually useful. Tradition can help ease the path of innovation by providing reassuringly old fashioned words for something new and otherwise disturbing. Hence "soy milk". Another example is facebook. Do you think it would be quite so popular if it had been called "Stalker Facilitator" or "Permanent Record of How Stupid You Were When You Were Younger"? Instead the creators merged the friendly social word "face" with the reassuringly old fashioned and traditional word "book" and a new social medium was born. To the great delight of stalkers and future employers everywhere.