The more things change....the more they stay the same....

It seems like just yesterday that the Chicken Littles of this world were running around yelling “Y2K, The Sky is Falling, Y2K, The Sky is Falling.” As hard as it is for me to believe, that was more than ten years ago now and, interestingly enough, the sky did not fall and the world did not come to an end.

To give you an idea of how old I am, I can even remember clear back to the days of double digit inflation, double digit unemployment, a demoralized and underfunded military, international humiliation at the hands of radical, middle-eastern terrorists, and . . . wait a minute . . . other than double digit inflation (and hold onto your wallets, folks, because that’s coming soon) doesn’t this sound vaguely familiar? While the world has certainly changed from those days to now, the old French proverb still rings true; Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose . . . The more things change, the more they stay the same.

If the oft repeated words of philosopher George Santanyana, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it” (The Life of Reason, Volume 1, 1905) are true, then why are things fundamentally la même chose? At the risk of personally coming across as both arrogant and ignorant, may I suggest two possible reasons? Arrogance and ignorance.

In our “We’re-all-evolving-into-a-higher-state-of-consciousness” culture, each succeeding generation seems to think it’s a wee bit smarter and a whole lot wiser than previous generations. My grandbaby is smarter than my daughter, my daughter is smarter than me, I’m smarter than my Dad, who is smarter than his Dad, ad infinitum.  We’re inundated with this stuff by science fiction writers. You can’t watch a Star Trek rerun without getting bombarded by how stupid we are and how smart everyone is three centuries later. They’re all the time moralizing about how much more evolved they are in those shows compared to the pathetic state of mankind in the late 20^thCentury. Right! They’ve evolved to the point they’ve stopped killing fellow human beings and are just killing Klingons and Romulans.

If they only meant technologically, I could go along with it, but they mean a whole lot more than that. These people actually believe that three hundred years from now it’s going to be all peace, love, and rock’n roll, that man is actually going to evolve into some higher state, and self interests will be a thing of the past. Such arrogance is not only insulting, it’s mind boggling.

I don’t remember the context of the conversation, but I remember telling an English teacher of mine back when I was still in high school that he was smarter than me. I suppose I was probably discouraged about goofing up some composition paper or something, and he looked at me and said, “We really don’t know that. I’m more educated than you, but neither of us knows who is smarter than the other.”  His education clearly gave him an edge, even though I might have been the smartest one of the two of us.

I’ve been involved in higher education of one form or the other for more than 20 years and, I can tell you, it does give you an edge; however, unfortunately for some, education hasn’t done anything to temper their arrogance. If anything, it’s made some even more arrogant. All too often getting a degree in Widget Technology, or whatever, somehow tends to make one think s/he’s somehow smarter than the ignorant masses in just about everything. So education in and of itself is not the solution to arrogance and ignorance.

The wisest person that ever lived, other than our Lord, said it best. Having lived a life of fabulous luxury, bringing his country to and through her golden years, ushering in an era of unprecedented peace, prosperity, and safety for his people, the aging King Solomon paced back and forth in the throne room dictating his memoirs said to his scribe said, “Here is my final conclusion: fear God and obey His commands, for this is the duty of every person.” (Ecclesiastes 12:13, NLT)

The more things change, the more that underlying principle stays precisely the same.