“Everything’s been done before” Louis Armstrong laments in an old song. A refrain often heard about ambition not long ago. Then the song slyly adds “when I’m with you, I just want to do, what’s been done before .”
There is confusion today. In terms of being human, it more or less remains true that not only has everything been done before, but it is being done right now by hundreds or even millions of others. How can anyone possibly be unique? We remain anonymous molecules in the sea. Only a fortunate few can escape .
The second part is even more challenging, because in many ways we can never do what’s been done before. The habits and societies of our ancestors are gone forever. We hardly recognize the social patterns of mere decades past. We may cheer, we may regret, but we cannot recreate.
Historians lecture it’s been that way for a while now, since maybe the Renaissance, for sure during the industrial revolution. Okay, change is normal. But the accelerating asymptotic rate of change is worrisome, possibly destructive .
Can civilization survive? Many dystopian writers and filmmakers say no. Of course, the collapse of active civilizations has also – too often – been done before .
HuntingtonHarborThoughts 