Some Questions for Consideration by Modern Idol Worshipers

Idol worship is frowned upon as a general practice in this sophisti­cated age. You would have to con­duct a lengthy survey to find even one of our “progressive” citizens worshiping a graven image. How­ever, the worship of certain ideas and concepts, without benefit of iconic figures, is widespread and provokes no censure.

Such an idol is the idea of “progress” or whatever at the moment passes for progress. To be labeled “unprogressive” in one’s political, social, or economic views is even more fatal to popu­larity than advanced halitosis, B.O., or a propensity to canni­balism. To be “agin” progress, or even neutral in the matter, marks one as a dangerous reactionary, out of sympathy with the aspira­tions of the common man.

Now, our dictionary defines progress as “improvement, steady advancement toward perfection, moving toward a higher state.” Nothing wrong with that. So the trouble must be one of definition, what the word means for different people. Just what is progress, any­way?

Among the so-called common people, and many well above the common level of intelligence, there exists a pathetic belief that prog­ress is synonymous with the march of time; that by some strange arcane law, life is bound to improve as the years pass.

If we take the long, long view, encompassing tens of thousands of years, some such law or prin­ciple may operate in human af­fairs. I like to think that there is such a law, even though it is diffi­cult to prove. But the widespread belief that progress is automatic, synchronized with the mere passage of time, is mischievous and dangerous. It gives rise to unrea­soning worship of the new, the novel, the contemporary, and rules out all sound objective appraisal of the merits and real value of modern trends, fads, and fashions.

“Progress,” the sacred cow of the masses, the graven image of those unable or unwilling to think soundly, has come to mean an urge for constant change and innova­tion for its own sake, with little concern for betterment, improve­ment, and a “gradual movement toward perfection.” With millions clinging to this childish belief, is there much wonder that the world has experienced many violent swings of the pendulum during much of its long history?

There has undoubtedly been some net progress in the past 3,000 years. Medicine and science have lengthened, nearly doubled, the life span. Hunger and priva­tion have been banished over large areas of the earth. Brutaliz­ing toil has likewise disappeared from many sections. But it is im­portant to remember, too, that within this short span many great cultures have taken sickening plunges into intellectual and spir­itual darkness. Some disappeared, never to rise. Others are slowly clawing their way out and up­ward, inch by tortured inch.

In this essay, I am trying to smash an idol, a persistent perni­cious faith in the excellence of everything novel, or that looks novel—which implies that old ways are therefore bad, merely because they are old. The all but universal acceptance of this con­cept here in our own country has made many abominable things tolerable, or even fashionable, while many of our tested and proved ideals are now suspect. Warning signals are ignored as “progress” takes us on its dizzy spin through time and space.

Newness Is Not All Progress

As we read the tragic story of great nations for the past 1,500 years, it must be apparent that not all chronological movement was truly progressive, in a sense of improvement or net benefit to the people. The great Saracen civilization gave way to barbar­ism. Culture and learning in Eu­rope had its ups and downs. Gen­ghis Khan’s thirteenth century despotism was no improvement over the tyrannies of the ancient world. Does this look like prog­ress? Yes, if we accept the puerile doctrine that the new must be bet­ter than the old; that the old must ever give way to the new and modern, even if it violates our tenderest concepts, and all com­mon sense.

Was the Spanish conquest of the Incas, the Aztecs, and Toltecs marked by any net improvement of life generally among these “heathen” people? Doubtful in the extreme. At any rate, most of them showed their appreciation for this enforced “progress” by dying.

Materially, we are still on a progress binge. But this morn­ing’s paper carries the startling news that 25 per cent, one out of four youths of 17, get into serious trouble with the law. Is this prog­ress? The use of dope in my state, California, has reached alarming proportions. This, too, must be a desirable state of affairs if we believe those who claim that every substitution of the new for the old means progress.

“The Wave of the Future”

It is doubtful if any one false belief of modern times has wrought more total misery and mischief than this; that all change is progressive, and therefore bene­ficial. Hence, all old beliefs and lessons should be tossed onto the scrap pile. Such beliefs are inim­ical to all true progress, for they prompt man to abandon many of his most dearly won ad­vances—his freedoms—even be­fore he has fairly sampled and tasted them.

Much of the success of the com­munists and socialists is attribut­able to their finesse in convincing people that they represent the “wave of the future.” Actually, neither communism nor socialism is a new concept of human rela­tionships, and their appeal is likely to grow less as it becomes increasingly difficult to maintain this fiction of novelty.

Hold Fast to the Good

In our attempt to demolish the belief that the new is better than the old, because it is new, it would be foolish to defend the old on the same specious grounds. When our limited government concept was set up on this continent, it was truly “something new.” Nothing in the history of governments had been like unto it before. It is still new, much newer than anything Russia or China has to offer. Yet, its great success was not due to its innovations, its shining modern­ity, but because it appealed to man’s oldest but timeless longing: the desire to be free.

St. Paul said: “Test (try) all things. Hold fast to that which is good.” This bit of profound ad­vice ought to be broad enough and sound enough to reconcile the most divergent views. Note well the part about “holding fast” to that which is good, or true. That the “good” might be new, or old, is implicit in Paul’s words. He neither said nor did he imply any merit in a thing because it pos­sessed or lacked age.

It is true enough that a blind unreasoning worship of the old, the tested, and familiar has held back real progress in many parts of the world, and does still. But this resistance to change can hardly be said to obtain in Amer­ica. If we except a few insular mountainous sections of the South, the error has been too great an impatience with yesterday’s values for the nation as a whole.

In our frantic pursuit of prog­ress, of change for its own sake, we have collided head-on with certain forces that are unchange­able and eternal. Human nature is such a force. It changes, if at all, imperceptibly. If you doubt this, read again Aesop’s Fables.

Unchangeable and Eternal

In our frenetic desire to change and mold the citizen into a pre­conceived pattern, we are stirring up ancient resentments that mani­fest in many dangerous forms. In the program to give the nation that “new look” socially, we are running afoul of economic princi­ples that were old when Hammu­rabi was a lad.

Mind, I’m not “agin” progress. But the only kind I’m interested in is the kind defined in the dic­tionary—that which will improve my condition, not just change it.

If we want moral progress, and no real progress is possible ex­cept as we move forward morally and spiritually, we shall have to go back, back, to the ancient wis­dom of Christ, Moses, Socrates, and others of our “eternal con­temporaries.”

The Forms of Tyranny Are New

Our modern social planners, ex­perimenters, innovators do not un­derstand real progress. They seem to think that progress lies in chucking overboard the lessons and verities of yesterday for whatever political nostrums and theories they can cook up today. Or tomorrow.

If we take in enough of the time span, the “new” becomes old, and the “old” becomes new once more. At least, this applies in the realm of political, social, and eco­nomic values. Certainly there is nothing new about a Welfare State. Governor Bradford tried it over 300 years ago. It failed, of course, for it was in conflict with man’s fundamental nature and in­stincts.

Nor is oppression and tyranny new, though the excuses given by contemporary tyrants and despots may have a bright new ring. But the yearning for freedom, for liberty and individual expression, is as old as time, a part of man’s soul. This desire may lie dormant, moribund, for centuries, stamped into silence by dictators and their agents, to burst forth again when the time is ripe.

Progress, real progress, does not follow the weary pattern of substituting one variety of slavery for another, a course the world has followed for tens of centu­ries. Neither hoary age nor the newness of tomorrow can impart any merit, to an idea or a philoso­phy.

The formula for progress, the only kind that will help man move upward and forward toward his destiny, was clearly set forth by the Apostle. “Test all things. HOLD FAST—to that which is good.”