Here’s a challenge. What do these five objects have in common -- kryptonite; Sauron’s ring; canned spinach; Thor’s hammer; the sword Excalibur?
Answer: they were all once associated with super-powers. Sauron’s ring made Bilbo and Frodo Baggins invisible, in J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings series of novels. Thor’s hammer and the sword Excalibur made their owners invincible in battle. And spinach gave the cartoon character Popeye super-strength.
Kryptonite also deals with super-powers, but negatively. It robbed power from Superman. It rendered him helpless.
Those five things also have one other common characteristic. Only an older generation finds them familiar.
In a word, they’re outdated.
What’s worth saving?
My friend Ralph Milton claims he can determine the average age of an audience by uttering three words: “Fibber McGee’s closet.” Anyone who laughs is at least 75.
Which leads to a further question: what do you do with notions that have passed their best-before date?
Should schools teach today’s children that spinach enhanced Popeye’s muscles? Or that God created the world in seven days?
Or should such ideas be consigned to an intellectual dustbin?
As the rate of change in our society accelerates, more and more once-valued elements of common knowledge will fall into disuse. Some, like Fibber McGee’s closet, will simply fade into obscurity. Others, like the name of Canada’s first prime minister, Sir John A Macdonald, will be deliberately deleted from pubs and schools.
The hard work of preservation
A few years ago, I talked with staff at the National Library and Archives in Ottawa. In those days, the law required all publishers to submit two copies of everything they published for permanent storage.
The principle worked in a period when books and magazines were published on paper.
Then desktop computers arrived. And the internet. Suddenly everyone could be a publisher -- my blog, your Facebook page, his tweets, her e-book.
The National Archives could not possibly collect and maintain permanent records of all of these.
The problem was not just storage, but access.
Think about all the different media on which music has been published. On 78, 45, 33, and 16 rpm records; on reels of wire and magnetic tape; on cassettes; on compact disks; and now as binary code. Original manuscripts still exist on paper; also on 12-inch, 8-inch, 5-inch, and 3-inch floppy disks; on hard drives; on memory sticks. Video has been captured on 8 mm, 16 mm, and 35 mm film; on VCR and beta videotape; on DVDs and PVRs and cellphones....
If you can no longer play an eight-track tape, what good is it?
Preservation requires having, and maintaining, equipment to handle each of these formats.
Original formats matter
Simply storing the originals won’t work. I lost several archival reel-to-reel audiotapes because I didn’t play them. The magnetic patterns on one layer of tape imprinted through adjacent layers, and turned the recording into indecipherable chaos.
Nor can you just copy old data into newer programs. Microsoft’s latest versions won’t even read their own earliest versions, let alone programs written for KayPro, Commodore, or Radio Shack computers.
Besides, is an updated version equivalent to the original? Is a digital rendering of the Mona Lisa as valuable as the Da Vinci painting?
I don’t think so. Some things can’t be modernized.
And some things shouldn’t be. Film-strip projectors, for example. Remember them? If you do, why bother?
Not everything deserves preserving for future generations.
At one point, I recall, the museum in Lake Country had a collection of a dozen vacuum-tube radios – none working, none repairable. And at least seven rusty pitchforks. When local residents didn’t know what to do with the stuff in Grandma’s garden shed when she died, they gave it to the museum.
The museum ceased being a community attic the day its curator started selectively discarding “stuff.”
Outdated notions, too
To broaden the scope of that principle, I wonder what bits of conventional wisdom also deserve discarding. The notion that Canada’s history began with the arrival of Europeans, perhaps. That women were designed to be subservient to men. That corporations are persons.
Or, for that matter, that God controls everything from somewhere in heaven?
Newer understandings need room to displace, and perhaps replace, older ones. Popeye may be passé. Thor may be through.
Unlike artifacts, ideas and convictions are not valuable simply because they’ve been around a long time. They’re valuable only as they carry wisdom forward from the past, as they equip us better for a constantly changing future.
Kryptonite and canned spinach, in my opinion, both fail that test.
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Copyright © 2017 by Jim Taylor. Non-profit use in congregations and study groups encouraged; links from other blogs welcomed; all other rights reserved.
To send comments, to subscribe, or to unsubscribe, write jimt@quixotic.ca
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YOUR TURN
In last week’s Sharp Edges, I expressed my fears that the children affected by the ongoing wars around the world will be affected for the rest of their lives.
Nan Erbaugh concurred: “Having been to South Sudan five times from 2001-2011, I became very aware of the atrocities of war and child soldiers. In addition, my husband has Parkinson's and dementia due to his time in Vietnam 1971--1972 as a draftee. War is never, never over.”
David Gilchrist also connected the column to his experiences overseas: “The civil war that so devastated Angola where I spent my childhood has been over for some years now. But work with the Scholarship Fund set up to help refugees continue their education has shown us the continuing effect both on the economy and the morale. Reconstruction of the infrastructure alone is hampered by the lack of resources; but the effect on families who were so disrupted and often suffered horrendous experiences is seriously reflected in the new generation.”
David drew a parallel in Canada to those “who were abused in the bad schools (though they were not ALL bad schools, as some suppose) affecting the parenting skills of the ones who did suffer.
“Many return from any army, hoping that ‘Johnny will go to sleep in his own little bed again,’ and everything will be back to normal: but it doesn’t happen that way. And the next generation gets the fallout. May 2018 bring us a bit closer to the peace that must eventually come, if the human world is to survive.”
Tom Watson found the statistics I cited “chilling. It seems to me that sexual abuse and war are just different shades of the same thing, in the sense that they are about power. For the most part, male power. It would be nice to think that we could raise one generation free from what German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche wrote about more than a century ago in his book ‘The Will to Power.’ The possibility for that looms, perhaps, greater on the sexual abuse side as more and more victims are taken seriously when they come forward with their stories. But as long as we elect people who boldly boast about the size of their nuclear button, I'm afraid the notion of getting free from war is akin to spitting into the wind. Hopeful yes. Realistic? Not with the current winds.”
Heather Sandilands questioned my exoneration of Canadian troops from using rape as a tool of conquest: “I have listened as 2 male soldiers (one of whom I am related to by marriage) wept at their complicity -- by non-intervention and/or non-reporting -- when rape was committed by ‘our’ troops in Afghanistan. And we've heard multiple stories about sexual misconduct in the Canadian Armed Froces to know that while rape may not be demanded , the patriarchal degradation of women is alive and well. To me, it sounds like it's not forcibly discouraged. All sexual violence, as you know, is about having power over another....and soldiering is professional 'power-overing'. Just sayin'.”
I wrote, last week, “Maybe it’s too much to dream of achieving world peace. Maybe we need to … raise one generation free of violence and conflict. Is that too much to hope for?”
Isabel Gibson replied, “I'd say it's exactly the right thing to hope for and to work for, but I'm not sure your analogy to polio eradication is sound. The polio virus isn't embedded in our nature, and I fear that violence and conflict are. Not that they're the only things in our nature -- so also are cooperation and compassion -- but we're fighting our own selves.”
Clare Neufeld argued that wars are, or can be, self-perpetuating: “In the late 1980s I sat with grandmothers (both Israeli & Palestinian) who declared that their grandson had died at the hands of the [other], and therefore seven of theirs ([the other]) would have to die.
“A Palestinian farmer, whose olive orchard land has been in the family for over 400 years, was being pressured/forced off, through an ever tightening noose of abuse perpetrated by his settlement neighbours, who wanted the land. They laid out rolls of barbed wire around the house, so he and his family couldn’t even use the outhouse, let alone tend the orchard! At night they would ride their dirt bikes around the house, and during the day, if the family dared step outside the wire, they were stoned.
“Both sides argued ancient issues, as though they occurred yesterday.”
“Memorialized events (whether personally, politically, etc.) can be used to remember the vows made, to never again to do this, or they can be used to bolster the hatred, blame, or injustice issues, from generation to generation.”
Bob Rollwagen looked at another conflict: “Northern Ireland has its first generation [raised in peace] entering and becoming business leaders. While during the day they are all in one environment, at the end of the business day they return home on a religiously divided transit system set to reduce conflicts among their parents and grandparents. Let’s hope they succeed in getting their children to their level and the walls can come down.
“What you have summarized is what has been happening for five thousand years. Up until advances in communication in the last 100 years, few were aware of this and recent actions by the worlds three largest economic powers confirms that this is the backbone of their largest industrial enterprises.
“For the first time in 5000 years we have the tools available to make change. Social media. The free world has to ensure that no one can turn it off or limit its access. We can put every person in touch by satellite and can ensure relevant news hits the world. … Fake news is the current tool being used to obscure this diversion. Let’s hope the potential of Social media is not lost and true democracy comes through the potential evolution of this tool.”
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TECHNICAL STUFF
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PROMOTION STUFF…
To use the links in this section, you’ll have to insert the necessary symbols.
Ralph Milton ’s latest project is called “Sing Hallelujah” -- the world’s first video hymnal. It consists of 100 popular hymns, both new and old, on five DVDs that can be played using a standard DVD player and TV screen, for use in congregations who lack skilled musicians to play piano or organ. More details at wwwDOTsinghallelujahDOTca
Ralph’s HymnSight webpage is still up, http://wwwDOThymnsightDOTca, with a vast gallery of photos you can use to enhance the appearance of the visual images you project for liturgical use (prayers, responses, hymn verses, etc.)
Wayne Irwin's “Churchweb Canada,” an inexpensive service for any congregation wanting to develop a web presence, with free consultation. <http://wwwDOTchurchwebcanadaDOTca>
I recommend Isabel Gibson’s thoughtful and well-written blog, wwwDOTtraditionaliconoclastDOTcom
Alva Wood’s satiric stories about incompetent bureaucrats and prejudiced attitudes in a small town -- not particularly religious, but fun; alvawoodATgmailDOTcom to get onto her mailing list.
Tom Watson writes a weekly blog called “The View from Grandpa Tom’s Balcony” -- ruminations on various subjects, and feedback from Tom’s readers. Write him at tomwatsoATgmailDOTcom or twatsonATsentexDOTnet