Brave Old World
Why do we appreciate the new over the old? These days we tend to value the new rather than respect the vintage. Possessions we used to retain for a while, like cars and televisions and buildings, now must be new to be considered useful. Oh sure, we see old things when we go to an antique mall or an auction, but it' s rare anymore to see a vintage sports car-say, a 1965 MG-tooling down the road. Other than the obvious lack of thirty-seven-yearold car parts, I wonder why that is. Could it be that, as we get older, other possessions and ideas that are also old get our attention more than those that are new? Could it be that older things typically move slower, so older folks can actually see them? Or could it be that we have thrown away articles, or even ideas, that were not ready to be discarded in the first place?
Contemplating this last thought, I wonder how much perfectly good stuff is rotting in our landfills. I wonder how many cars and TVs and refrigerators with only a couple of bad parts are rusting away on the side of a dead-end road. Even in cultures where old is commonplace, where a three-hundredyear-old building is no big deal, we seem to no longer see them; we focus instead on the new McDonald' s. Are we "new-crazed," "new-obsessed"? Are we infatuated with anything new because it' s better than the old, or simply because it is new?
With things that stand the test of time there is a kind of folklore, a strong emotion of tradition. There is something about caressing an ancient leatherbound book, or driving an old sports car. There is a feeling of permanence, something to be counted on, something special, almost magical. Maybe it' s tradition we place little value on today. Maybe it' s tradition we are poohpoohing. But before we disregard tradition and throw it out for the new, allow me to share a story.
I was rummaging around some books and journals I had in storage the other day, looking for an article, when I stumbled upon an old issue of HRDQ; it was volume 1, issue 1-the very first. Initially, I couldn't believe that it was almost twelve years old; that got my attention, so I started thumbing through it. I felt I was stepping into a time machine. I read Dick Swanson' s editorial on experience being a questionable teacher, and Victoria Marsick' s responses to Dave Passmore' s discussion of paradigms for the field, and Ron Jacobs' s article on HRD as an interdisciplinary body of knowledge.
As I read, I started to get that old feeling, the same feeling I get when I see an old MG. It' s a sense of permanence, something to be counted on, something