> As German philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer emphasized in the past century, traditions are inescapable and unavoidable. It is a question not of whether you are going to work in a tradition, but which one. Even the choice of no tradition leaves people ignorantly beholden within a language they didn’t create and frameworks they don’t understand.<p>The above is absolutely true and I can't think of the last time I saw it mentioned. Another comment mentions Bloom and Iirc he calls it "the anxiety of influence."<p>It's why vampire stories are really romances, why what people today think of romances are always comedies, and really beyond all that, the confirmation of Ecclesiastes 1:9...<p><i>What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun.</i><p>Even if you don't believe in the religion in question it doesn't matter, it's in the culture you live in. If you have no knowledge of it you're a babe in your own woods.