Invented Traditions

What it is

The term comes from the historian Eric Hobsbawm. In Tribal, Michael Morris uses it to group several customs, among them the diamond engagement ring, that came to feel ancient well after they started, and argues that a sense of long standing can be built within a generation and then bind people as firmly as a custom that is truly old.

In effect

The article on why lab-grown diamonds feel less special to show that the sense of age around mined stones is partly a cultural layer draws on it, and that such layers can form around new things too.

What it does not say

It is a historian's term and not a finding from experiments. It does not say that a newer custom is less meaningful than an older one.

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