Is It Time for Old School?

We are at a crossroads.

“How did you go bankrupt?”

“Two ways. Gradually, then suddenly.”

- Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises

That’s a good observation to keep in mind about societal changes. They seem to arrive abruptly but, in their aftermath, people can find stages and signals that were unnoticed or dismissed.

The observation also fits nicely with G.K. Chesterton’s warning that you should not take down a fence until you know why it was put up. His central point was “People do not know what they are doing because they do not know what they are undoing.”

Having experienced college in the Sixties, I recall being jarred by how quickly the culture seemed to change. Fashion went from the well-scrubbed Fifties-conformist-look one year to jeans, sandals, and long hair the next. In retrospect, you can ascribe part of that to the musical shift from The Kingston Trio and The Beach Boys to the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and the Byrds, but after the assassination of John F. Kennedy, there was also a growing countercultural wariness that cut across party lines and included figures as diverse as Barry Goldwater, Malcolm X, and Eugene McCarthy.

Once critical mass is reached, things can move more rapidly than we imagine. Look at how quickly DEI, Affirmative Action, and Diversity Oaths went from quasi-religious to poof. Notice how pronoun preferences are being scrubbed. With the new momentum, much of the recent past’s craziness will soon be as outdated as bellbottoms, Nehru jackets, and leisure suits.

That change will, no doubt, be regretted by many, but if you, regardless of your political persuasion, have sensed that our society has drifted into a realm in which kindness, humility, tolerance, and courtesy are in short supply while isolation, alienation, loneliness, and meanness have surged, we may be at one of those almost magical crossroads where individuals can make a positive difference.

The new path does not require anything radical, but we could greatly benefit by reviving some fine old virtues and habits of years ago. Here are some modest proposals:

· Let’s start with self-censorship. Upgrading the general discourse by voluntarily reducing or eliminating four-letter words would be a pleasant contribution to the overall social climate. [I can already imagine the number of four-letter words directed at this recommendation.] If you want to write a novel or screenplay where the vocabulary of characters tilts in that direction, scribble away, but it would be uplifting if what was once called “locker-room language” didn’t drift into classrooms, workplaces, and political discourse.

· Stir in some humility. Judge Learned Hand declared that “The spirit of liberty is the spirit which is not too sure that it is right.” We need to replace the vicious cancel culture with one of vigorous exploration in which people listen, understand, argue, and perhaps - can you imagine? - even agree. This doesn’t suggest that we adopt Groucho Marx’s tongue-in-cheek stance of “Those are my principles, and if you don’t like them…well, I have others.” It simply involves genuinely checking the merits of our own arguments.

· Replace the electronic with the paper. Do you want to thank someone or just let them know how much they are appreciated? The old practice of handwritten notes on real paper has a special punch that is far greater than dashed off emails or text messages. Believe me, people save those old notes. Granted, we may now have a sizable portion of our population who, thanks to our stellar education system, do not know cursive, but that too can be turned around.

· More page time than screen time is sorely needed. There are reports of college students who do not read outside of their mandatory class assignments. Other reports reveal that many students arrive in college without having read an entire book. The damage to deep thinking is serious enough, but it is also reasonable to consider the damage to their overall quality of life. I am chilled at the thought that some graduates in the future will regret not having listened to that dinosaur of a teacher who recommended that they at least read a novel about a couple of cities or another about a white whale.

· Gaining a working knowledge of classical music is not too much to ask. Children of my generation may find it difficult to hear the William Tell Overture without thinking of The Lone Ranger but at least we heard it. [That was a plus because, as Frank Zappa once confessed, “All the good music has already been written by people with wigs and stuff.”] We also, strangely enough, were initially exposed to classical music via Warner Brothers cartoons. Many a serious classical music fan was generated by Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd.

· Memorizing poetry deserves a comeback. It’s great exercise for the mind, but the stanzas themselves can help you through pressing times. Longfellow, Tennyson, Poe, Sandburg, and Kipling were often memorized in the past, but they can be joined by many others. [Don’t be snobbish. It’s perfectly fine to recite “The Cremation of Sam McGee.”]

· Studying your family ancestry. The practice of assembling a family tree is a great way of determining just which people and events played a role in bringing you about. The great British political philosopher Roger Scruton wrote of our obligation to the past, the present, and the future. We are not sovereign nations or independent operators. We build on what others did before us, on what we do in life, and what we do for the future. Another benefit of this practice is learning what some of your ancestors endured back in “the good old days.”

· Getting connected. Many community service organizations that thrived in the Fifties and Sixties are suffering from dropping memberships. They need your perspective and talent. We won’t have a vibrant society if our connections are solely virtual.

· Admiring the truly admirable. At some point in our culture, we replaced heroes with anti-heroes and the stylish with villains and coarse slobs. In the not-so-distant past, the average person watched films with Cary Grant and Grace Kelly and aspired to that combination of courage, beauty, and gracefulness. The modern-day movie industry may not change, but they can at least be given the message via the box office.

· Increasing our strength. Those in the Old School were not naïve. They knew that evil always lurks and life is unfair. They’d understand the saying that although people are more advanced than crocodiles, that is worth very little when you are swimming in the Nile. Their advice would be blunt: “Hard times are ahead. Toughen up.”

I realize that such proposals will spark skepticism. There is a tendency to insist that things are fine until they undeniably are not. One of the techniques of the skeptics is to mock criticism of modern society as akin to the warnings people made in Ancient Rome or Greece.

My response is: Precisely. Such warnings are often wrong, but that does not mean that they are never right.