Deep Caring
There is a second perspective on guardianship that I wish to offer. It concerns the four types of generativity that are to be found in the lifespan of most “generative” human beings (Bergquist and Quehl, 2019). At its heart, generativity is about deep caring: we discover those things that we care about and then invest extensive time, energy and talent in making sure that these things are cared for.
We care for our children (generativity one), the people with whom we work (two) and the community in which we live (four). We also care about the past and wish to extend it into the future (generativity three). We preserve stories from our childhood, family heirlooms, photographs, and awards from our own past. Our bookshelves are filled with memorabilia. They become vertical “alters” representing what we truly care about in our life (Ruesch and Kees, 1969).
With all of this, we can discover in the sons of J. S. Bach a desire to care deeply about their father’s work. While his manuscripts might not be placed on Philip Emanuel Bach’s bookcase, they could be stored in one of his trunks (to be retrieved years later and performed by other composers such as Felix Mendelsohn) (Wolff, 1983, p. 263). Generativity Three is fully manifest in the actions takes by the sons of J.S. Bach and we are benefactors of the preservation completed by these men in the midst of their own abundant compositional work.
They Might Be Right
There is one additional lesson to be learned from the Bach sons. This lesson concerns our sustained regard for the potential relevance of the past in addressing our present-day realities. We might just find that those in the past better understand our current world than we do. As Orson Welles declared: “They might be right!” He offered this declaration in “Is it Always Right to Be Right?” (Schmidt, 1970) a cartoon feature he hosted many years ago that won an Academy Award. What if “they” are right even if they are “not contemporary” but instead come from the past?
What if someone who is now “out of date” happens to offer a perspective that is still relevant today (or perhaps that is even more relevant and insightful than present day perspectives). Can people have something important to say even if they come from a different time and lived under different societal conditions? I am aware of a graduate school of psychology that doesn’t allow their doctoral students to cite any reference more than 10 years old. Apparently, there is nothing to learn from the past. We are now “smarter” than we were eleven years ago. I will take the challenge even further: what if someone from the past is right even coming from a different political or religious perspective?
Even more generally, there might be a good idea or there might be a valuable insight contained in something from the past. Those who engaged many years ago in something called Spectrum Analysis suggested that there is a kernel of truth or the seed of a good idea to be found in any statement being offered in a problem-solving group. The real talent is engaged when seeking to discover and articulate this kernel or seed.
It might have been one of the great musical talents of J.S. Bach’s sons to fully appreciate the contributions made by their father. Their own success as the composers of some of the first “classical” music of the Western World (preceding Haydn and Mozart) might be attributed at least in part to their appreciation (and use of) musical elements and structures found in their father’s work. It is from these men that we discover one of the key lessons to be learned regarding retaining relationships in the midst of differences: the differences are to be honored across different generations.
