Welcome to the advancements of the modern world: the internet, ipods, cell phones and all your favorite TV shows on DVD. So much has changed since our parents were kids. With so much information at my fingertips it's hard for me not to think that I am better educated and have a better understanding of my world than my parents ever had of theirs. However, Solomon's famous saying, "there is nothing new under the sun," just doesn't seem to match up with this sentiment of superiority I feel because of my contemporary experience of all our modern advancements. Aren't there new things under the sun everyday? It often feels like so many things are new that our world is advancing at an exponential rate. The more discoveries and advancements we make, the more discoveries and advancements we are able to make and at a much more rapid pace.
C.S. Lewis coined the term "chronological snobbery" for just this sort of thinking. "Chronological snobbery is the presumption, fueled by the modern conception of progress, that all thinking, all art, and all science of an earlier time are inherently inferior, indeed childlike or even imbecilic, compared to that of the present." When we engage in chronological snobbery we cut ourselves off from worlds of thinking, art and science, but also worlds of people. People like our parents and grandparents, who we sometimes think are "nice people" but just don't "get it," or even people like Solomon and Plato who almost every college student has read (and most likely taken for granted).
A new short film by Glenn Harris (below) touches on this very idea. We are all human, despite what age we live/lived in and because of this there are things that are distinct about humanity that isn't affected by time. Maybe when it comes to who we are as humans there isn't anything new under the sun. What is it about us that is innate, that stands up from age to age, that we share with Solomon and Plato, as well as Michael J. Fox's character from Back to the Future II?
check out another Glenn Harris video here
