“Kids these days.”  Lately we’ve been grumbling about novelty and new-fangled nonsense.  The only good new stuff is the old new stuff, yessir.  Grumbling that way is part of our charm.   In the mist of the jeremiads, bashful Nathaniel raised a timid hand.  “But, sir,” the little fellow piped, “I like reading new books and discovering new ideas.  Please, sir, is it very wicked?”

Curse his insolence anyway.  He’s forced me to think.

Some novelty is bad just because the novelty itself is bad.  Crack cocaine in its day, for instance.  Some novelty is harmless in itself but still somehow seems to work an evil.  On the other hand, some new things, like discovering new books, learning new things, new babies, new springs, the new life that Christ offers, are good new things.  What’s the difference?

New things enlarge you.  New books are like entering a large hall full of potential friends.  You don’t erase the old friendships you had when you make new ones.  You don’t erase your past history of learning when you read something new.  New babies don’t make other babies less worthwhile.  New springs don’t make former springs less sweet.  If anything, each new spring is enhanced by the memories of the ones that went before, and recalls those memories to mind.

But novelty diminishes you.  Novelty, in the guise of fashion or fads, is a way of marking out who has status and who doesn’t.  Who is with it?  The ones who don’t adapt fast enough are social losers, to be treated as such.  The purpose of this kind of novelty is to narrow one’s circle.  Novelty, in the guise of “this time it’s different” arguments, is meant to allow discarding prior knowledge.  Finally novelty, in any variety, is meant to distract us from prior failures or even successes, where reflection might bring wisdom.