The Narrative of Decline

In the 18th century there was an ongoing debate referred to as “The Ancients-Moderns controversy,” in which one side argued that the present was clearly inferior to the past, especially in terms of art, virtue, and the state of civilization in general. The other side trumpeted the superiority of the present and future over the relatively ignorant past. That debate is still going on.

My instinct is to favor the “ancients” is this debate, but I am increasingly prone to say, with Theobald (Romeo and Juliet), “a plague on both your houses.” It has always been, in my estimation, “the best of times and the worst of times” (Dickens)—and always will be.

That said, I am increasing tired of the “narrative of decline” among conservatives and evangelicals. We are inundated with moaning about how bad things are in light of how good things supposedly once were. I think perhaps R.S. Thomas, the Welsh poet I have cited previously in these posts, is on to something when he writes in his poem “Postscript”:

As life improved, their poems
Grew sadder and sadder.

Thomas does not say in the poem who “their” refers to, but the poem seems a subtle indictment of the emptiness of modern, consumerist society. The poem also includes the lines:

Among the forests
Of metal the one human
Sound was the lament of
The poets for deciduous language.

I would like to use Thomas’ poem for another purpose. Why, given the hope we Christians claim in God, grace, creation and love, are we so consistently mournful and pissed-off about the contemporary world–writing sadder and sadder poems, so to speak?