Summary

The article discusses the balance between innovation and conservation, emphasizing that both are essential for societal progress and understanding.

Abstract

The article presents a reflection on the dichotomy between youth and age, highlighting the common perception that wisdom and older practices are often undervalued in the face of the desire for rapid innovation and change. It argues that a balance between innovation and conservation is crucial, as each complements the other and prevents extreme outcomes such as societal burnout or stagnation. The text uses the example of ancient dietary laws regarding pork to illustrate how wisdom from the past, when revisited with modern knowledge, can reveal the practical reasons behind traditional practices. The author suggests that patience and a dual approach of preserving what works while embracing new insights can lead to a deeper appreciation of handed-down wisdom and a more holistic understanding of life.

Opinions

Youth tends to dismiss age and wisdom as slow and outdated, favoring speed and innovation.
The article posits that innovation without conservation can lead to destructive change, while conservation without innovation can lead to societal stagnation.
The author acknowledges their own past arrogance, having once favored speed over wisdom.
Philosophers can err by focusing on a single aspect of reality, mistaking it for the whole truth.
The concept of yin and yang exemplifies the necessity of balancing opposing forces, a principle understood by ancient civilizations.
The example of pork consumption laws in ancient Judea demonstrates how practical wisdom can be obscured by limited understanding, and how modern innovation can reveal the original rationale behind such wisdom.
The author advocates for patience and a balanced approach to life, suggesting that wisdom, even if slow to reveal its benefits, is invaluable when paired with innovative insights.

When You Need It Now, Wisdom Always Seems Like the Worst Option

And When Don’t You Need it Now?

Youth and Age have been at war forever. Why? Because age is useless, of course.

It’s slow, practically used up, doddering, out-of-touch. Just ask anyone who’s young; the old have no clue.

What’s the world needs is speed! All hail innovation and discovery!

Why keep anything that’s old? Value, tradition? Conserve the most useful? Meh.

Newer is better anyway.

The veil of youthful arrogance

Thirty years ago, in my speed-laced youth, I thought exactly the same thing.

What I didn’t see, what I couldn’t see was the big picture. Instead, I saw a sliver, but thought it was the whole.

Philosophers commit their gravest error when they are misled into the fallacy of abstraction, the practice of focusing the attention upon one aspect of reality and then of pronouncing such an isolated aspect to be the whole truth. — The Urantia Book, 2:7:5 (42.6)

Innovation and conservation are both necessary. They form two halves of the same coin, two requisite parts of reality.

One without the other is a long but certain road to disaster. Unchecked innovation eventually burns its way to runaway change. Unchecked conservation fossilizes ideas and practices, ultimately strangling everyone and everything.

They need each to balance the other. Ancient humanity knew this. That’s why they invented the concepts of both yin AND yang.

Innovation and conservation helps people re-remember

Over time, we forget things. Not only “we” individually, but “we” collectively, as a society.

Here’s a brief example. In ancient Judea, around the time of Jesus, Judaism has religious laws about pork. Basically, no one was allowed to eat it. Why such a law? Because, pork is unclean and unclean things are unholy. Of course.

This answer was sufficient for its time, before indoor plumbing, effective sanitation or the Black Plague. For today, though, this explanation is simplistic to the point of ridiculousness. To arrive at an answer that satisfies the interrelatedness, the intricacies, the sensibility of today’s unimaginably complex world took a few centuries of innovation. In modern terms, the answer looks this.

Pigs have cannot sweat. And since they can’t sweat, they have a hard time regulating their body temperature. Still, they found their own piggish way to stay cool and not die of heatstroke: they lie in the mud. The wetter the better.

But there’s a drawback. Nasty things also live in the mud. All kinds of parasites, worms, bacteria and other foul microorganisms love moist soil even more than pigs. When the pigs show up, all those revolting parasites make their way into the pig's body. If you end up eating the meat from a parasite infested pig without cooking it sufficiently, the parasites can get into you, and that’s a bad, bad scene.

Trichinosis, anyone? A severe case can be fatal. Especially if you live in pre-germ theory Palestine two-thousand years ago.

Ancient Jews discovered that undercooked pork could kill you, but they had a very limited idea of why. The wisest solution, given their constraints, was to ban it altogether. Today, it’s still wise to cook pork well, even very well, before eating.

Across the centuries, the wisdom remains, and innovation helps us to re-remember why it is so.

But it takes patience, grasshopper

Humanity will continue to grow and evolve socially, emotionally, technologically, even biologically. (Did you know that humans are evolving an extra artery in their arms?)

As we evolve, our understanding of everything grows as well. The insights we gain today help us understand the past in greater detail. The innovation of today and tomorrow will show us in heretofore unrealized ways why and how wisdom is valuable.

In our personal lives, let’s have the patience to conserve what we know works well, while we look to innovation to help understand more of the mystery of life.

Yes, this takes real patience, perhaps even faith. Wisdom typically works well, even if you don’t know why it works, even if it’s a slow path to achieve.

If we can do this, exercise patience on one hand while we pursue innovative investigation on the other, we can understand in brand new ways why the wisdom handed down to us is so valuable.