From where I am, I can see religion and traditions destroying plenty of lives. Astrology often causes problems for many getting married. Not to mention the religious conflicts that take lives or rigid traditional views severely limits opportunities for many communities. Consumerism may be bad. But that doesn't justify the damages an unscientific world view can cause. Scientific temper also doesn't equate to consumerism.
Oh it's not only the astrology loons, you have the UFO crowd, conspiracy theories crowd, people who make their political cult leader a semi God, &c. it's also super easy to embrigade them in extremist causes by promising them to be part of a group
Instead of having one big cohesive group you get hundreds of sub groups with a lot of conflicts
I'm not advocating for going back to that, which wouldn't even be possible, just saying we lost something and what we replaced it with is lacking in a lot of aspects
Could you clarify what you consider as the thing we replaced the old tradition with? And what are its drawbacks?
I personally find it very liberating to not worry about someone else's concept of God or how the position of planets affect my future or how God judges everything I do. Religion and tradition has all the baggage that you associate with astrology loons and other conspiracy theorists.
Do you mean consumerism? If so, that isn't the result of replacing theocracy with scientific beliefs. Consumerism is the result of a highly imbalanced political belief. And it prioritizes momentary pleasures over long-term well being. It should have been possible to have a balanced and mostly self-sufficient life with a scientific world view. Unfortunately, we ended up prioritizing profits over happiness.
If it was the case the west wouldn't be 70% overweight/obese. They believe in so little they can't even take care of their own self. Depression is on the rise, the loneliness epidemic, &c. it all has the same origin, we changed our ways of life too fast/too much
There isn't much left besides consumerism, it's just that it's disguised under so many masks that you don't even perceive it anymore. The vast majority of hobbies are consumerist, even holidays (I don't have to remind you where "Holy" days came from do I?) became consumer oriented, vacation destinations are 90% about consumerism (I went to X, I've done X, it's all a checkbox in some todo list)
We consume our endless diarrhea of entertainment, we consume our vacation destinations, we consume our news sources, we consume our "content", we consume our sub par food, if you can even call that food anymore. People spend something like 4 to 6 hours per day in from of their mobile, doomscrolling twitter/instagram/reddit or playing games.
Anyways, we'd need a book to unravel that topic.
“At the beginning of human history, man lost some of the basic animal instincts in which an animal's behavior is embedded and by which it is secured. Such security, like paradise, is closed to man forever; man has to make choices. In addition to this, however, man has suffered another loss in his more recent development inasmuch as the traditions which buttressed his behavior are now rapidly diminishing. No instinct tells him what he has to do, and no tradition tells him what he ought to do; sometimes he does not even know what he wishes to do. Instead, he either wishes to do what other people do (conformism) or he does what other people tell him to do (totalitarianism).”
Almost as if consumerism was showing its limits...