Kozlowski: Out with the old? Not necessarily.

The United States is a country in which elected politicians are sworn in and then cussed out…. The United States is a country in which elected politicians are sworn in and then cussed out. What’s remarkable is not why people swear at them, but  rather to what federal officeholders swear allegiance. They don’t swear an oath to the people or to the nation. They swear allegiance to the nation’s blueprint — the Constitution of the United States. The new Republican majority in the House thought it would be a good idea to read the Constitution aloud on the floor to give the representatives a better idea of the oath they took.

One of the most bandied about statements about the reading of the Constitution on the floor of the House came from blogger Ezra Klein of The Washington Post who said the problem with the Constitution is that it was written over 100 years ago, and consequently nobody really understands it.

In Klein’s defense, he didn’t really say a lot of the things people have accused him of saying.. But he did say that nobody can understand the Constitution because it’s old. This is non sequitur. People routinely read and understand Shakespeare, whose work is 400 years old and deliberately ambiguous. Others puzzle out Geoffrey Chaucer, whose work is so old he doesn’t really speak “our” language.

Ultimately more important than a 10-second sound byte is the underlying disdain Klein demonstrated toward things that seem ancient. This disdain has infiltrated our culture thoroughly: Nobody wants yesterday’s computer, cell phone or fashion statement. A handy put-down is to say that somebody’s outfit or outlook is “so last year.” And yesterday’s fads don’t have much staying power. Who fights over Beanie Babies anymore?

And yet, we should not give up on the old so easily. The old stuff that is still around has benefitted from editing. Every era produces a lot of crap, like the geocentric solar system model or Microsoft Windows 95. The long and thorough vetting process of time ensures that this crap is forgotten and the worthwhile stuff survives. We hail the Romans as engineering geniuses, which they were. But our perception is skewed because lousy Roman buildings fell down, burned or were torn down as eyesores. What was left was a brilliant series of aqueducts, roads and temples, some of them still in use today.

OK, so the Romans came up with concrete. But what about ideas? Here too, old doesn’t mean worthless. Humans haven’t changed much in thousands of years. The Ancient Israelites would not understand cell phones, but what they would understand is our envy of our neighbor’s better model, our willingness to steal that model and our obsessive following of celebrities on Smartphones. Why did the Israelites frown on envy, theft and idol worship? Because they understood them, and understood that rampant theft, murder, lying and envy weren’t good for any neighborhood. The Ten Commandments they accepted as a sort of “dos and don’ts” list have lost none of their force or clarity in 2,500 years.

We can also see the timelessness of humanity and inhumanity in the literature of the past. Medea was one seriously ticked-off witch who could probably have had a soap opera of her own. Antigone was trying to do the right thing in defiance of very, very serious peer pressure. Shakespeare’s popularity endures not because his works are archaic but because they speak to us. You can update Macbeth so that the lines of Act II, Scene 1 read “OMG! Is this a dagger i c b4 me?” But you won’t improve upon the original play.

The Constitution itself is a fine example of old ideas being good ideas. What did the Framers seek to accomplish? The synthesis of all the best ideas of government into one handy blueprint. Did they pull it off? More or less. What sorts of ideas did they follow? Limited government, the separation of powers and so forth. Have those ideas been improved upon? Not really. Limited government is still relevant to all sides of the political spectrum, whether it’s the Patriot Act or Obamacare you hate. I don’t see anybody advocating the end of representation, much as people might hate our representatives. Separation of power is likewise cherished by whichever party happens to be in the minority at the time.

Is the Constitution not understandable because of its age? Indeed, it is a remarkably clear document. It’s short, only 4,400 words. Bills of attainder are no good. Congress can’t take money out of the Treasury without a publicly available receipt. If you hold office, nobody should give a hoot about your knowledge of theology.

Whether it is constitutions, literature, engineering or music, we are capable of understanding the old. Old does not mean worthy of disdain, impenetrable or worthless. When we overcome this disdain of old things, we find that some of the best ideas are those which have been considered good for hundreds of years already.

Write kozthought@gmail.com.