Proust For The Masses

 

I don't care anymore. I'm too old. So I'm not at all reluctant to give advice.ⁱ Based on my experience I know what direction the next generation should take. I know what changes should be made.

“When I was your age … ”

“Not again. Who's interested in what happened back then.”ⁱⁱ

I have to admit that when I was young the last thing I wanted to hear was “When I was your age … ”ⁱⁱⁱ but that doesn't alter anything. The “good old days” are gone and replaced with a time of chaos. It didn't have to be like this, but somehow things are different now. The nickel chocolate bar of my youth now costs close to a dollar.^iv You're lucky when you get any change from a purchase.

You're always in touch with everyone and everything – even if you want peace and quiet. And the language has changed. As Cole Porter said, “Authors, too, who once knew better words/now only use four-letter words writing prose ... ” Every sentence, these days, seems to contain words and expressions that never would have been intoned in the past – certainly not in mixed company and only rarely in private. And other words seem to have metamorphosed into unrecognizable forms – at least unrecognizable to old fogies like me. Jones used to be a name. Now it's a condition. And Coke used to be a drink, or possibly a form of fuel. Well, it still seems to be a kind of fuel for some, but “coke” now has more sinister connotations than the drink – a former cough medicine – ever had.^v One form, “crack,” takes what used to be a verb and transforms it into a very improper noun. I guess this is progress.

Back in the good old days (actually they weren't all that good)^vi ...

I admit that these thoughts are not especially important. And they're a little trite. But right now I feel entitled to them. In the last few months I've attended my fiftieth college reunion and my own fiftieth wedding anniversary, as well a reunion of men and women in my training program over forty years ago.^vii And a fiftieth anniversary concert of a chorus in which I've sung. The years pass.

I'm not sure my own aging gives me the right to impose my views on others, but I remember how things were, and right now I'm not interested in what others consider my rights – what I may and may not do. I still care for what used to be called “Right” or “Wrong.” Nowadays I know that there is believed to be no Right or Wrong.^viii Everything is relative. There are no absolutes. So I can't even expound on what ought to be – only on what is. It's become clear that all I can do is to use this space to try to work out my thoughts. I can only reflect on what I've learned.

And what has come to me is an image of Abraham Lincoln. Not that we were contemporaries, but when I went to school he was an example for us of a true and a great American – what we should all be like. So, back in the middle of the twentieth century, what did they teach us? That Abe Lincoln studied his law books by candle light.

Shouldn't he have turned on the lights? Or used the internet? Or kindled his Kindle rather than the candle wax? But if I didn't have these things as a child, certainly he never had them. Those things weren't available to him in the nineteenth century. Electricity, although it existed and had even been discovered, hadn't been put to much use. There was no internet and there certainly weren't devices based on wireless technology. However useful those items may be to us, Abe Lincoln, or anyone of his time, wouldn't have even dreamed of them.

A few centuries earlier – before Gutenberg – there weren't easily accessible books, especially law books. Even after him it took a while for the spread of his printing press and its products. And before Prometheus stole fire from the gods, man – even the greats like Lincoln – wouldn't have even been able to light candles. But, of course, that was then. And we have since learned how to make fires and even burn books. To that degree there has been “progress.”

Times change (or so “they” want us to believe). Sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse. Our lives are very different from those of our forebears. Certainly medicine has progressed since my childhood, and movies, and electronics, and a wide variety of “things.” But people are the same.

We're quick to quote Santayana. We admonish those who follow us not to ignore history for fear that they will repeat it. But by emphasizing the past we forget the future. What our parents liked, what worked for them, is not necessarily what we need if there is to be progress. That's why I wasn't interested in hearing of my elders' childhoods and why today's youth aren't interested in mine. Old ideas aren't always correct. We may be cautioned not to waste our time reinventing the wheel, but sometimes a wheel is not what we need. Perhaps the reason we cannot solve our problems is that our “solutions” are little more than rearrangements of those problems and of past solutions. Perhaps we need an entirely new approach.

Unfortunately, all the changes are superficial. Song styles may differ, language may change and prices may rise, but we accept these as evidence of progress without any real alteration in the causes of our difficulties. A computer only increases our ability to recognize the difficulty quickly – it does not change human nature. We're as involved with ourselves and our own ways as we've always been. History doesn't repeat itself, it simply persists. Repetition would suggest that are points of progress from which we return to the past – that where we are is different from where we once were. And there's nothing new under the fluorescents.

So, sadly, real change is unlikely. The technology will improve, but no matter how we tweak the world around us nothing will really be different. Our electronics will make quantum leaps and we'll live longer to take advantage of it, but we and our children will never understand each other and they certainly won't understand us.^ix Things past will continue to be irrelevant. I may be entitled to pass on my wisdom, however no one is obliged to listen. So however much I may yearn for change, I know that it's unlikely to come.

Maybe I expect too much. Perhaps the generations, notwithstanding our attempts to engage our offspring, weren't meant to communicate. Nothing is likely to be fundamentally different. But that won't be my problem.

Next episode: “Sliced Bread” – Trite white.

i     But you know that.

ii    That's not a word-for-word quotation, but it reflects the sense of what was said in language acceptable for publication.

iii    In fact, I usually tuned out when those words appeared on someone's lips, so it was the last thing I heard.

iv     Or even more if it comes from a machine.

v     Actually, until 1903, Coca-Cola contained cocaine, but for most of that time it had positive, not negative, connotations.

vi    It horrifies me to consider that the chaos we face today will be the “good old days” when our children are societies elders – the curmudgeons of the future.

vii    I used to be a radiologist. But I think I told you that before in a prior essay.

viii   They're wrong.

ix    Nor we them.