Musing 48

One of the most interesting things of late I’ve read in literature is how the solution to our problems isn’t the new, but a return to the old.

Ascendance of a Bookworm had this in spades, where the literal solution to most of the political problems was literally “the gods told you what to do, do it in the way they told you to do it, no shortcuts”. And I can’t count the number of “return to monke” memes I’ve seen.

But what is the underlying heart issue going on? It’s simply “the world is broken, and the old days weren’t so bad”. But here’s the truth we don’t want to hear - the world was just as broken then as now. The way in which it’s broken may be different, but it’s still broken.

Especially looking back on a middler class childhood free from most of life’s worries, I get the temptation to look back at a simpler time. But it is tiring to hear on a somewhat regular basis that we just need to go back to the 1950s to fix our problems (nevermind that those who advocate for this often squirm under questions about specifics like tax rates)

And as much as there is truth in that the old paths are well-tried, the reality is that for us there is only one path to take - that of repentance and faith in Christ. Every age has tried to destroy this path and despite the world’s efforts, God laughs at the vanity of it.