Isn't Asbestos Great?
Novelty Wears the Cloak of Superiority
One of my Sunday School boys attempted to throw a ball made of small suction cups and stick it to the ceiling. I told him he was unlikely to succeed in his quest since the ceiling was a popcorn ceiling.
I then happened to mention to another student that popcorn ceilings usually have asbestos in them, especially the older ones. She didn’t know what asbestos was.
“It’s something they used to use in a lot of building materials. It causes cancer.”
I probably could have chosen my words more carefully; the chicken little look she gave to the ceiling is not easily forgotten. (I assured her that it usually only causes harm when you’re scraping it off - I’m not sure she was reassured).
Quite a few years ago I was part of a demolition project: ripping off the old siding tiles from my grandparents house before they sold it. We went at it hammer and tongs, yes, literally hammer and tongs, or hammer and crowbar at least, breaking, smashing, yanking. I don’t think any of us were wearing masks, but I don’t remember for sure.
Did I mention it was asbestos siding? Mm-hm. Maybe not the greatest idea.
Novelty wears the cloak of superiority. At some point in the not too distant past workers were tacking on that siding that we ripped off long before it had reached the end of its natural life. The natural life of a popcorn ceiling is extremely long, unfortunately, but if we could wave a magic-wand and rid ourselves all those poky ceilings forever, I’m sure we would.
Why did they do it? Why did they expose themselves and demolition crews of the future to the carcinogens in their building materials? Easy: they didn’t know. They were blissfully ignorant, or, at least enough of them were. They really thought asbestos was great. (Hard as it is to believe, at one point people didn’t know that intentionally inhaling smoke might be bad for you, either).
The problem is that asbestos was versatile, it was useful, it was tough. It’s still all those things. So there was no apparent reason not to use it.
Perhaps they couldn’t have known exactly what the downsides were. But what they should have known is that there likely were downsides that they didn’t yet know.
The problem with novelty is that the upsides of new things are often apparent long before the downsides make themselves felt. Think how wonderful social media was supposed to be. It was literally a “what’s not to like?” situation: instant access to the lives of your all your acquaintances, instant communication with long-distance relatives, the possibility of making new friends online that you never would have encountered in real life, so many bells and whistles that the bells and whistles had bells and whistles.
All the doubter could say was to wait. Just wait and see, the downsides will rear their ugly heads eventually. And rear they certainly have.
“Come, try my new diet. Try my new fad. Try my new way of looking at yourself. Try my new way of believing. Try, try, try.” The marketing team is always eager to point out the positives of the new thing, and we, the weary consumer, who tire of all the old things gone bad, are easy marks.
Novelty wears the cloak of superiority. It is apparently superior, but it often lies. Sometimes the new thing is better, yes, but even so it always comes with tradeoffs, tradeoffs that are usually not apparent all at once. The downsides of the old thing are usually obvious, so obvious that they have found a space in our vocabulary (usually a few well-chosen adjectives), they hold a cherished spot in our grievance story about the way things are. That which is, we know to be broken - but it’s not because it’s old, it’s because all things are broken. That which is may be we think may be different, and in so thinking, deceive ourselves.
I like to take a walk in a new neighborhood sometimes. I like to visit a new place, try a new restaurant, or read a new book. But all that I find of good in those new things - good that shouts and sticks its finger in my eye, crying out for my attention - can be found also in the old things: the old neighborhood, the old place, the old restaurant and the old, old story. I may have ceased to notice or appreciate that goodness, but it didn’t fade away, only my perception of it faltered.
And I will also find all the same pitfalls and problems that haunt the old haunts, the same bad ideas that I encountered in the old books, the same poor service that sometimes crops up in all restaurants everywhere. No perfect thing lies just around the corner, not in this world.
Everything in this world is mixed: good with bad, broken with whole, timeless with time-bound, righteous with evil.
Some of the things are just shinier than others.
This really resonates! It’s so easy to think that “maybe this time the thing will be all good.” We (or at least *I*) also tend to beat ourselves up over the things we latched onto that turned out to have so many negative aspects. I guess the best we can do is keep our eyes open, pray for wisdom, and take what comes. That and like you said, look at the old from a fresh perspective!