Individual Entry Archive: Consider This

Praise the Past and Condemn the Present?

Is it not the common practice of the old men to praise the past and condemn the present? And this may probably operate much further than one would at first imagine. When those that have more experience than we, and therefore, we are apt to think, more wisdom, are almost continually harping upon this, the degeneracy of the world, is it any wonder if, being accustomed from our infancy to hear how much better the world was formerly than it is now, (and so it really seemed to them, when they were young, and when the cheerfulness of youth gave a pleasing air to all that was around them,) the idea of the world's being worse and worse should naturally grow up with us? And so it will till we, in our turn, grow peevish, fretful, discontented, and full of melancholy complaints: 'How wicked the world is grown! How much better it was when we were young, in the golden days that we can remember!
—unknown

Source: Former Times, written in the 1700's, provided by my dear friend, David Roberts, on Friday September 1, 2006