“I used to be with it, but then they changed what it was. Now what I'm with isn't it,
and what's it seems weird and scary to me. It'll happen to you.”
–Abraham Simpson
People keep telling me that a work of art “didn’t age well.” This seems to mean that the work endorses (or contains) ideas that are considered passé. Fine, but I find this form of critique unfair and a little xenophobic. Don’t be so hard on the past. You will be the past someday, too.
William Gibson wrote, “The future is already here, it’s just not evenly distributed.” This is the problem with judging art from different times. There is no neutral. You judge the past with the material of the now, but being alive after other people isn't a moral high ground.
You are welcome to challenge old ideas, but stompeth not on your grandma’s identity. The problem cannot be other people. The artists of yore weren’t evil, even if they formed ideas unthinkable now. They were makers who drew from the material of their available universe. You do the same thing (in the un-special time known as) “today.”
It’s not the point of art to age well, because no one can predict the future. The truth is what you believe for now, and art is a reflection of “what you believe for nows” across the infinite smear of nows we call time. The word “Shaboozey” could be a slur in 2928. It’s not the point of art to age well, because no one can predict the future.
So don’t be so hard on your ancestors. Replace your condemnation with the smallest mote of gratitude for anyone who dared to share an idea ("wrong" ones, "right" ones, or not yet right ones) in stone, on film, upon canvas, or through pixels made of light.
This is great!