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Ralph Nader has dedicated his life to advocating for the rights of the "common citizen". His actions and willingness to speak out have led to things like the Safe Drinking Water Act, and the creation of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
In 1965, Nader released his first book "Unsafe at Any Speed", which exposed dangerous design practices in the automobile industry as a whole and General Motors specifically. Soon after, the public was made aware that private detectives had been hired by General Motors to try and discredit Nader. If the book didn't launch him into the public spotlight, the incident with the private detectives did. Soon after, several automobile safety laws were passed which are believed to have saved thousands of lives.
Though it was a tumultuous beginning, it marked the start of a life spent in service to the public consumer. Nader has advocated for everything from congressional reform and consumer protection to food and drug safety. He has pushed for and authored many legislative reforms that are now so integrated into our society that we're barely aware of their existence.
When asked about his life, his many accomplishments, and what influenced him as he was growing up, he often tells people that he "had a lucky choice of parents".
In his book, The Seventeen Traditions, Nader expounds upon – not surprisingly – seventeen traditions he and his siblings learned from their parents while growing up in the small town of Winsted, Connecticut. Most of the concepts will be familiar to readers, but Nader adds a touch of sentiment as he rebuilds the values of these traditions, many of which have long been lost in our society.
Take, for example, the Tradition of Scarcity.
"Our parents taught us, in countless little ways, to control our cravings – from children's toys to household utilities" he writes. "It taught us to value things, to preserve things, to attach our imaginations to what we had rather than to the unquenchable obsession with more, more, more. Our tradition of scarcity taught us to be creative."
In his chapter on the Tradition of Education and Argument, Nader recalls a time when he came home from school and his dad asked him if he had learned "how to believe, or did you learn how to think?" In other words, did he learn how to simply recite information, or had he learned how to process the information and form his own thoughts and ideas? Nader was only ten years old. The question has stuck with him throughout his life, and he challenges readers to ask themselves the same kinds of questions.
The ideas and traditions Nader speaks of will resonate, not just with parents who worry about raising children in an advertisement-soaked, over-stimulated society, but with anyone who longs for a life of true substance and value.
The Seventeen Traditions reminds us that there's beauty in slowing down, that more of life can be enjoyed if we'll learn to live with less, that knowing people comes from listening – not talking, and that both work and charity can be rewarding and pleasurable.
Replete with personal stories, rich in emotion, and pleasantly instructive, The Seventeen Traditions is not only the story of Ralph Nader's childhood, but of the beliefs that shaped him.