America _ Liberally Conservative

Americans are sometimes said to be conservative, but I don't think that is exactly accurate. I find us to be liberally conservative and that is not as contradictory as it sounds. We are more than willing to change, we simply want a good reason to do so.

We are certainly not reactionary. I know few who want a return to gas lights and horse drawn carriages. No one in their right mind wants a return to the days of unfetterd capitalism and the days of the great Robber Barons, the days of no labor laws and guys who would not hesitate to have a few heads broken if you objected to their policies. Having written that, I realize that there are  a few who do want that, but they are blessedly a minority and definitely not in their right minds.

Socially, we have become very tolerant and, again with some exceptions, we have no desire to return to the days of Jim Crow laws and no desire to heap abuse on gay people. And, again, blessedly, the days when men wanted women, as the old saying went, 'pregnant, barefoot and in the kitchen' are gone. If there are still any males looking for that, they are apt to be quite lonely because women will not put up with it.

On the other hand, we like our change slow and will reject anything that makes no sense. We insist on having a bit of time to adjust and think things through and we always reserve the right to change back to old ways if the evidence begins to show that the change was a bad idea.

This is why I think we have to have some knowledge of the past. This gives some grounding, a way to compare old and new. I will give a simple example, something silly. Years ago, Coke came out with a new version, which was awful, and folks rejected it. Coke brought back the old version, calling it 'Classic Coke' and we responded well. Something new was tried and we chose the old. However, had the new been better, we would have readily embraced the change. This is what I mean by liberally conservative; we will change,but with a good reason.

I find myself leaning toward older music, books and movies. This is not because I am a dinosaur stuck in the past. It is just because I find little of worth in the modern popular arts. I am of the belief that this is because artists no longer bother to learn the basics, the old styles, and have nothing to build on. As a result, the arts of today, for the most part, are just airy fluff, no substance, no depth. I wish I was wrong about this and I do try listening to current music, reading new authors, and watching current movies and, with a rare exception here and there, I find nothing of value.

Again, change is great, but one thing you learn with age is that you simply cannot build something unique and new. All that we are, all that we create or build carries the past with it, the countless years of work and study and experiment. It is useless to ignore that framework. It is equally useless to try to cling to that past. Grow by building on the foundations of the old. Remember Isaac Newton's great line, "I stand on the shoulders of giants." Also remember that the past didn't hold Newton captive. Move forward with the help of those past giants.