The Lottery

In Shirley Jackson's, "The Lottery," one theme is Man's ability (and need) to rationalize generally unacceptable actions. After talking about this in the classroom, most everyone jumped to reason why they did this, was tradition. Okay, but why was this "tradition" started in the first place? Was it to try to help keep the towns population down? Was it to show that no matter what happens in life that you have to take it as is and hope to get the best situations? In the story by Shirley Jackson, so many of the people act like its an okay, everyday (or in this case every year) thing to do, by the way they talked, (ie. "Alright men, lets get this over with," "come on, hurry up") the way the dressed, (in casual clothes and not their 'Sunday best'). But, my question is do they really know why they are doing this action other than tradition? In today's society we have so many things that we do that are being deemed or rationalized as acceptable even though they really aren't. Take commercials for example, I feel like most of them have some point of sexual context whether you notice it or not. Now in my next statement I'm saying most not all.... With men an advertisement will grab their attention if the commercial has an attractive woman in it, or they will remember it better. Vice-versa with women, an advertisement will catch our attention more if it has an attractive man on it. The most I see with that is that same saying that we have had around for quite a few years.... Sex sells.... So are we saying that having half naked people everywhere we look is okay?.... You tell me.