I would like to start with an excerpt from a book I read recently. The book is Henry David Thoreau's Walden. Walden is a thoughtful commentary sparked by the author's experience living on Walden Pond by himself for a year. Overall I highly recommend the reading. One passage, however, was a bit surprising and curious, especially if taken out of context like I have done here. It brought to mind a scripture that the Lord’s servants mentioned multiple times this General Conference. See if you can guess which scripture it was.
"Age is no better, hardly so well, qualified for an instructor as youth, for it has not profited so much as it has lost. One may almost doubt if the wisest man has learned anything of absolute value by living. Practically, the old have no very important advice to give the young, their own experience has been so partial, and their lives have been such miserable failures, for private reasons, as they must believe; and it may be that they have some faith left which belied that experience, and they are only less young than they were. I have lived some thirty years on this planet, and I have yet to hear the first syllable of valuable or even earnest advice from my seniors. They have told me nothing, and probably cannot tell me anything, to the purpose.”
While I disagree with some aspects of the point Thoreau seems to be making, the passage did bring to mind a scripture: 1 Timothy 4:12. "Let no man despise thy youth." As a result of my experience on the way to becoming a patent attorney I am perceptive of the need for people to expand our vision of the world. Blindly following the path laid by “Age” does not lead human-kind to cook their food (an example from Thoreau). At some former time, someone with youth as an instructor considered adding fuel to the fire and look where that took us. Age, only, does not lead a person to plow his field for a particular crop, nor does it lead a man to build a boat, or a factory, or an iPhone. These innovations were created by people who did not let any man despise them for their youthful and novel ideas.
Thoreau’s passage also led me to consider a bigger point that I would like to make in the second half of this essay. I have observed in my generation a renewed vigor to not only let no man despise their youth, but to actively despise others for their non-youth. And not just people, but whole philosophies are being thrown out as remnants of old traditions and old people. Many youth have forgotten the sound advice contained in this classic bit of poetry (quoted from Elder Packer’s conference address):
The old crow is getting slow;
the young crow is not.
Of what the young crow does not know,
the old crow knows a lot.
Knowing things, the old crow is still the young crow's master.
What does the slow old crow not know?
How to go faster.
The young crow flies above below and rings ‘round the slow old crow.
What does the fast young crow not know?
Where to go.
A modern fallacy holds that personal and individual observation and opinion take precedence over anything that contradicts with this observation. Especially if it comes from what an old person has to say. For example, Thoreau observes that the ox pulling the plough has vegetable-made bones. As a result, any attempt by the old farmer to tell him that he “cannot live on vegetable food solely” must be false. It is helpful to Thoreau that “science” has lent support to his argument that man does not require the eating of meat to survive. However, a man commits error when he sees an example of science “proving” old counsel obsolete and takes that to mean that all old counsel is obsolete. That man must concoct the whole of morality on his own, a task none should embark on lightly.
Yet, I have seen this sentiment many times as I have become familiar with the legal community. Many law-school friends and professors, and judges whose opinions I read, have thrown out all forms of morality not invented by “smart people” during the modern era in their jurisdiction. These lawyers fail to recognize that a lawyer’s duty to argue cases based on pre-decided law does not mean they have to determine the moral code the same way. This tendency has trickled into many other communities in this country as well and people have begun to approach morality and legality equivalently. The only immoral behavior is illegal activity. Furthermore, anything that is codified as acceptable in a statute must not really be “immoral” and anyone arguing that it is must be merely "religious," and therefore ignored.
My desire today is to share a plea to avoid this trap. Old ideas are not wrong just because they are old. Right and wrong are not subject to democracy, not subject to an individual’s internal “feelings.” When we apply the correct context, we can know when Age is a qualified instructor on a given topic. We CAN know when to accept the counsel of our elders and when to reject it in favor of new ideas. Paul’s letter to Timothy that I referenced earlier also contains the counsel to “put the brethren in remembrance of [the word of God and prayer.]” This is the correct context. If we remember the scriptures and remember prayer, we will end up being the kind of old crow that young crows should listen to.
