Too little
Keeping the shell
We have always done it this way.
Familiarity answers a question about present needs.
Discernment
The picnic belongs to the people, not necessarily to the hill.
A disposition to distinguish what is sound from what merely seems convincing.
Discernment distinguishes what matters from what merely comes with a familiar arrangement. A custom may carry real value without every detail deserving preservation. Experience helps you ask what the practice serves now.
Discernment gives a tradition that can still serve the people in it
The annual picnic has always been held at the top of a hill. An old photograph makes it look like the only possible place. This year, several people would find the level courtyard easier, and it has room for the same food and conversation. Before defending the climb, ask what you want to keep: the view, the gathering or the photograph’s exact composition.
Finding the balance in Discernment
An illustrative everyday situation
Consider moving a familiar picnic while preserving the gathering that made it valuable.
A fitting response
Finding the value
What would we lose, and what could we keep elsewhere?
The decision distinguishes the purpose from one way of serving it.
Pursued too far
Changing for its own sake
Anything old must go.
Novelty replaces familiarity as an equally automatic verdict.
A custom can survive a change of address.
When the situation changes
The place itself may matter deeply to someone. Ask rather than assuming that your account of the tradition is the only one. A good decision can acknowledge a loss as well as a benefit.
What Discernment makes possible
You may preserve a meaningful practice more honestly by adapting it. Another tradition may deserve to remain much as it is, while a harmful one may need to end. Discernment asks for reasons specific to the case.
Discernment in ordinary life
A family recipe
The familiar dish includes something a guest cannot eat. Find out which changes would make a shared meal possible without requiring the guest to explain more than they want.
A club rule
A rule once solved a real problem. Ask whether that problem remains and who the rule now excludes before defending or discarding it.
Nearby virtues, different work
Curiosity
Curiosity seeks new information. Discernment weighs what that information means for a choice.
Prudence
Prudence considers foreseeable consequences. Discernment identifies which differences and values deserve attention.
Discernment and its counterfeits
Counterfeit: Nostalgia as evidence
A warm memory does not settle whether an arrangement suits the present group.
Counterfeit: Fashion as judgment
A newer practice still needs reasons; its date is not an argument.
How to cultivate Discernment
Name what the custom is meant to preserve.
Ask whose experience is missing from your account.
Compare concrete options and their actual costs.
Try it today
Choose a small familiar practice. Name one valuable part and one detail that could change. No family dispute needs to be reopened for this exercise.
In later life
Keep what matters in a custom, and consider what can change.
Questions worth returning to
What is valuable here beyond its familiarity?
Whose present needs might change my account of the best option?
Keep the practice proportionate
Access and safety needs deserve practical attention. People need not disclose health information or endure an unsuitable arrangement to prove loyalty to a tradition.
About these practices · DisclaimerQuotations and further reading
Seven selections to return to through the week. Follow a source link to read the surrounding passage.
I might give an accurate report of each isolated event and yet give a totally misleading impression of the whole, solely by the selection of the incidents.
Addams reflects on writing her memoir. A collection of true memories can still leave out what a present decision needs.
For, in truth, custom is a violent and treacherous schoolmistress.
Montaigne warns that familiarity can acquire authority unnoticed. The essay also weighs the costs of change; the sentence is an invitation to examine a custom, not to discard all customs.
We must concern ourselves with the facts of everyday life as we find it—not imaginary and ideal perfections.
Laelius brings the discussion of friendship back to actual people. A decision about a tradition also needs the present group rather than an ideal picture of it.
its readiness to change its methods as its environment may demand.
Addams argues that the settlement must adapt. A valued purpose can remain while the method changes.
a man whose learning almost amounted to a proof of whatever he believed!
The narrator exposes Dorothea’s early idealization of Casaubon. The irony warns against allowing someone’s learning or seniority to substitute for reasons.
The sacredness which attaches to the act of creation, the act of thought, is instantly transferred to the record.
Emerson warns that respect for an original insight can become unquestioning reverence for its form. A custom deserves to be examined for what it serves now.
obtaining victories that neither myself nor my cause always deserved.
Franklin looks back on using questions to trap an opponent. Winning an exchange and finding a sound judgment are different achievements.
Continue exploring
Take these ideas into everyday life
Read freely, follow the thirteen-virtue program, or adapt this collection in My Virtues. Health and independence do not measure your worth.