"We've lost more than we'll ever know"

A remarkable essay by R.R. Reno, We Need Roots.

Life is better—richer, deeper, thicker—for our loyalties and loves.

I share this Chestertonian sensibility, which is why the new music from the English folk band, Show of Hands, gives me goose bumps.

  “Redbrick cottage where I was born / Is the empty shell of a holiday home. / Most of year there’s no one there. / The village is dead and they don’t care.”
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“Country Life” is not a polemic against free markets or Thatcherism. It thrusts against the left as well. “No one marched to subsidize and save the country way of life,” they sing. We are reminded that so-called progressive politics long ago shifted its focus toward securing lifestyle freedoms for the new-economy winners (gay-pride marches, women’s rights marches), as well as toward movements to satisfy the refined moral palates of the educated elites (animal rights, nuclear disarmament, global warming). The local guy with a high-school education and ordinary expectations from life gets pushed to the side.
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The major premise of “Roots” is simple: “Without our stories or our songs / How will we know where we come from?” The minor premise is implied: England now encourages cultural forgetfulness rather than memory. The conclusion: an urgent imperative of cultural renewal that gives this song extraordinary emotional power.
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Social capital is not a fixed asset. It requires regular reinvestment, which we do by committing resources of memory, love, and loyalty. One of the signal features of our age is the belief that we can have everything for nothing. Our multicultural therapists imagine that we can discharge the batteries of national identity, reap gains in tolerance, and pay no costs. But there are costs. As the Show of Hands sings, “We’ve lost more than we’ll ever know.” We can’t stand forever at a distance with our critical doubts and moral reservations. Love rewards only those who venture her commitments.

This loss of "more than we'll ever know" echoes in Degeneration, the number one song in Quebec for by the band called Mes Aieux (My Ancestors)

HT Ron Dreher