  I just got back from Borders. I went there to get a book on grammar (Check out Eats, Shoots & Leaves .
Looks great), then I realized I only had $7. What can you buy with $7 anymore? So I was walking through the aisles (or whatever) and thinking: There are A LOT of books. Have you ever really thought about how many books there are? Think about it, then add an exponent of about 5 to that already unpronouncably huge number for every book that isn't in publication anymore.
It's wild. I figure that, at best, only 60% are well written, and 70% are worth reading. I started reading Chaucer's Canterbury Tale s, and I just don't get why people want to "keep it classical. " I'm not saying it's bad, just that I personally don't understand what joy people get out of trudging through texts so archaic it takes a day to read a page.
There are progressives, those concerned with the future of things, and there are regressives, who ardently push old conventions because they are right or they are the way it should be . There is no right or wrong, damnit. There's only what you like, which is all that matters. Leave the people you don't agree with alone. Regressing back to Chauceric language won't help us colonize other planets faster. Hell, it might make everything go slower.
So you think that Dante's Divine Comedy is great? Great! But don't complain that modern writing doesn't resemble it (There probably are writers that write like Dante but they probably don't get published, and for good reason; it's not what people want to read today. ) The same goes for any sort of regressive: Just because it's new doesn't mean it's bad, and old doesn't necessarily mean good. It drives me nuts hearing people who only listen to classic rock or old jazz say that today's music is bad.
Today's music is no worse than the music of era you choose to listen to, it's just different (there are always bad artists). Without progression everything stays the same, there is no reason to live when everything's the same. Everything is a chore then. Everything is predictable. Where is the joy in predictability? I'm out. NP: The Beatles - Back in the USSR, Dear Prudence. 
