¶ Custom
Index Entry
Custom: Lest One Good Custom Corrupt the World:
'The old order changeth, yielding place to the new,
And God fulfills himself in many ways,
Lest one good custom should corrupt the world.’
"Tennyson saw that a custom once appropriate to a given time,
adapted by virtue of ‘being realistic’ might survive too long.
He thought the bad customs would take care of themselves.
But–since change is inexorable–it’s the good customs that
may hold up change and bring great delays and lurches in the
inevitable evolutionary trends. It is an interesting notion
of Tennyson’s. The only thing that counts is not customs
and culture but what the evolutionary trends of Universe may
be."
Cite RBF to World Game Workshop; Phila., PA; 22 Jun’77
