And part of conserving good things is having the discernment to see essential from accidental, to sift the kernel from the chaff, to look without simple nostalgia at the forms of the past and see which were essential, and which were simply historical accidents. And among those which were essential to tradition, which actually can be conserved in the world today, and which must be let go.

Some good things may die natural deaths, only to be replaced with bad things, because the nature of the world as it stands is toxic to these good things.

If we look at a rose bush that cannot grow in polluted soil, or in soil robbed of its nutrients, and if this soil is beyond redemption, then trying in vain to save it out of nostalgia and sincere love of its past beauty is noble, but doomed.

But realizing that there are other flowers, perhaps, of the past that can grow in such toxic soils, and may even thrive in them, and in so doing perhaps even enrich the soil – conserving such things is the act of a man of discernment.

T.S. Eliot knew more than people gave him credit for.