Every generation thinks they discovered something new for the first time. And when they do they will embrace their discovery or rebel against it and sometimes ignore it.

Those who embrace it, they do it with religious fervor, waving it’s banner, cock-sure that they have started a new age of enlightenment. Those that rebel against it do the same, reenacting battles that have already been fought, won and/or lost and recorded in the history books for posterity.

And in every generation there are those whole fail to understand history, fail to learn from past experiences, blindly forging ahead because of their certain rightness.

Contemporary examples include hyperbole about fundamentalism, right and left far politics and the media. As if these ideologies and professions have not been beset with the same sort of rhetoric and in practice the same sort of machinations for ages.

But, when it serves the purpose to make a point, mock and make obscure the “other side,” reason leaves the room, and suddenly all is made new again.

And I make note of this myself, since everything I just said has been said a million times before.