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| Sometimes older things are cooler things, especially when they show that what stays the same is the important things. |
Fool! … The things you have prepared, whose will they be? (Luke 12:20) Our Lord warns against laying up treasure that moth or rust can destroy, but perhaps sadder still is treasure nobody wants.
It is a much-remarked phenomenon of our day that the “younger generation” has no interest in the heirlooms and careful acquisitions of their elders. I have no idea whether this means Gen X, Y, Z, or…what next? Alpha? But the assertion is that these “young” people eschew furniture and dishes and art and artifacts that are precious to their parents, who have now come to the time of letting go, also called downsizing, and are eager to be shed of their precious but burdensome array.
The image of the new generation is one of digitally active, virtually connected, acquisitionally averse postmoderns who incline toward renting or app-sharing not only their homes and transport but also everything else that serves their purposes however long or briefly including the clothes on their backs. The emphasis for expenditure is on experiences rather than objects.
This leaves great ranks of suburban homes and urban apartments stuffed to the crown moldings with goods and goodies in the unique and eclectic tastes of their accumulators. The china! The dining room set! That carpet! The collection of objets in ceramic or crystal or carved with a chainsaw! A few quick calls will reveal that you can sell some for pennies on the dollar, and the rest you cannot give away. Suddenly it is clear why there are trucks with signs like “college hunks hauling junk.”
Is this mark of the new generation (sic) a symptom more universal disdain? Does a loss of interest in the carefully accumulated spiritual and intellectual achievements of their elders accompany the aversion to the material accomplishments and accumulations of their forebears? While the antique stores and eBay vendors present rank upon rank of marvelous objects that have served well their part in life and society, who is gathering up the ideas and understanding that made possible that life and that society?
The easy instantaneous access to facts, information, and data has obviated the burden of recollection and even learning. The digitizing of everything has made analysis and evaluation the result of electronic process, not habit of mind. And the perniciously named and facilely advanced “artificial intelligence” has by its artifice elevated algorithmically applied evaluation to replace thought. The overwhelming advantage of speed and accuracy hides the complete absence of insight or originality. Truth will be crushed by the manipulation of facts, and goodness and beauty suffocated.
Of all that your parents and grandparents treasured, what has already been mislaid or abandoned like so many sentimental tchotchkes? What that you assume to be precious has the next generation already discarded as useless and burdensome?
The birth at Bethlehem of the Son of God to the Virgin of Nazareth, Mary, occurred in obscurity of time and place, yet rather than passing unnoticed, was recognized and received by many who were eager and alert to great things to come from God. Different from acquisitiveness, receptivity is an indispensable part of learning, a necessary disposition on the way to knowledge, understanding, and belief. When the Son of man comes, will He find faith on earth? (Luke 18:8) I guess the answer depends on whether you can find somebody willing to accept it, whether you remember from whom you got it, and where you put it.
Monsignor Smith
