Progressives and negative conservatives have something in common; they both tend to think that history’s progression or regression, depending which side of the spectrum you are on will determine which, is inexorable. They both in different ways tend to leave out one very important variable: human nature. Who would have thought that vinyl records would have given me such profound insight?

I’ve always thought of those who tend toward these mindsets as Utopians in some sense. Progressives, of course, are striving toward a Utopia of the future; pessimistic conservatives want to take us back to a supposed Utopia of the past. Certainly I generalize, but having read much these last three decades I think I’m on to something.

If you’re of my generation having grown up in the 60s and 70s, you listened to music on vinyl records. On the inevitable move away from vinyl we started with 8 track tapes, then cassette tapes, then CDs, all driven by convenience, not quality. By the 1990s vinyl was well on its way to the grave yard, or so we thought. Digital was the final death of records, or so we thought; add to convenience the ultimate in personalization. Who would want to listen to a record from beginning to end, just one artist or band? I might not like all the songs! And look at all the time and hassle of pulling out a big piece of plastic and putting it on a record player, having to actually manually put the needle on the record. What a hassle.

But something funny happened on the way to the vinyl funeral; it wouldn’t die! Eric Felton in the Wall Street Journal tells the story of vinyl’s comeback. The beauty of its resurgence is what it says about the inevitability of inevitability; no such thing. Back in the hay day of the turn of the millennium we were told the internet meant the end of brick and mortar, until it was clear that wasn’t going to happen. People like virtual, but they also like real. Now as everything goes digital we’re told books made of paper are on their way out, newspapers and magazines are passé, not to mention unprofitable. I really like Mr. Felton’s take on all this:

Substantial. That’s the word I keep hearing from the fans of vinyl. Records are admirably physical, the antithesis of the everywhere-and-nowhere airiness of “the cloud.”

The embrace of vinyl isn’t just some retro fad, but a push-back against the techno-triumphalism that insists there is no future for physical artifacts like books and newspapers. It’s a small declaration of independence, a refusal to let the march of progress stomp on one’s pleasures.

Vinyl is an assertion that efficiency isn’t everything. Cars may have done in the buggy, but there still are people who like horses. Engines on watercraft have long obviated the need to mess about with furling and unfurling canvas, luffing and gybing and all the other soggy inconveniences. And yet there are those who choose sailboats. Who needs wine corks when bottle-caps do the job?

Vinyl is decidedly inconvenient, which is the very reason it appeals.

Techno-triumphalism, I like that phrase. No matter how much things change, human beings never will, because we are more than a bunch of molecules and cells that fell together through millions of years and implausible, to say the least, coincidences. Rulers and philosophers have tried for millennia to make human beings fit into boxes of their choosing, and doggone if they don’t always find a way to break out.