DISPARAGEMENT. The other extreme is represented
by the position that old things are bad because they
are _old_, and new things good because they are _new_. This is
illustrated in an extreme though trivial form by faddists of
every kind. There are people who chiefly pride themselves
on being up-to-the-minute, and exhibit an almost pathological
fear of being behind the times. This thirst for the novel is
seen on various levels, from those who wear the newest styles,
and dine at the newest hotels, to those who make a point of
reading only the newest books, hearing only the newest music,
and discussing the latest theories. For such temperaments,
and more or less to most people, there is an intrinsic glamour
about the word "new." The physical qualities that are so
often associated with newness are carried over into social and
intellectual matters, where they do not so completely apply.
The new is bright and unfrayed; it has not yet suffered senility
and decay. The new is smart and striking; it catches the
eye and the attention. Just as old things are dog-eared, worn,
and tattered, so are old institutions, habits, and ideas. Just
as we want the newest books and phonographs, the latest
conveniences in housing and sanitation, so we want the latest
modernities in political, social, and intellectual matters.
Especially about new ideas, there is the freshness and infinite
possibility of youth; every new idea is as yet an unbroken
promise. It has not been subjected to the frustrations,
disillusions, and compromises to which all theory is subjected in
the world of action.[1] Every new idea is an experiment, a
possibility, a hope. It may be the long-awaited miracle; it
may be the prayed-for solution of all our difficulties.

[Footnote 1: "Real life is, to most men, a long second-best, a
perpetual compromise between the ideal and the possible; but the
world of pure reason knows no compromise, no practical limitations,
no barrier to the creative activity embodying in splendid edifices
the passionate aspiration after the perfect from which all great
work springs. Remote from human passions, remote even from the
pitiful facts of nature, the generations have gradually created
an ordered cosmos, where pure thought can dwell as in its natural
home, and where one, at least, of our nobler impulses can escape
from the dreary exile of the actual world." (Bertrand Russell:
_Mysticism and Logic_, pp. 60-61.)]

This susceptibility to the nov