We live in a world where the greatest compliment is not to be thought wise, right or just but in tune, on trend and leading edge. Are you now, of the moment, in vogue? Fresh, contemporary, the coming thing? Novelty increasingly trumps quality, and anything durable that has weathered the ages is not respected for its resilience but considered quaintly embarrassing for hanging around, like an aunt at an orgy, when it should really just push off and stop cramping our style.

So we ditch female news presenters when they turn 55, require our best professionals, whether diplomats or headteachers, to wander off into the sunset when they're at the top of their game, we prefer stores that sell clothes which won't outlast the season to patching and darning items of real quality, we turn the search for new talent into a national crusade every autumn, cheering on Danyl or Stacey, while forgetting after just a few months the new faces we fawned over just a year ago. We throw out perfectly good transistors with flawless reception because they can’t pick up radio stations we never listen to, we abandon perfectly adequate mobile phones for new models that boast applications we have no time to learn how to use, and we ignore novels and histories of proven merit in pursuit of the literary establishment's latest pash.

And everywhere you look our culture seems to be afflicted by attention deficit disorder. That which has endured must, by definition, be tainted, stolid, boring, stuck. Incapable of holding our gaze, or keeping our affections. Like a sultan in a harem who has tasted what every girl has to offer, we impatiently demand fresh sensations, but the fault lies in ourselves, because we've become addicted to the excitement of the new rather than the enjoyment of the good. This malaise affects every part of our culture. In the art world the dominant aesthetic, driven by Young British Artists from Damien Hirst to Sarah Lucas and supported by arbiters of taste from Frieze magazine to Jay Jopling, is all about novelty, the ground-breaking, the shocking, the transgressive. Artworks are judged on the supposed originality of the concept that lies behind them rather than the accomplished display of traditional virtues such as draughtmanship, brushwork or sculpting skill. The greatest works of graphic art in our culture are portraits and landscapes. When was the last time any contemporary British artist was lauded for a memorable effort at either?

And what is true of high art is truer still of high culture. Watching the X Factor on Saturday, I was uncomfortably struck by how insistent every judge was that the contestants take a new direction, demonstrate contemporaneity, prove themselves of the moment, rather than appraising them on talent alone, and the quality, above all, of their voices. Surely, the X factor that society yearns to see exhibited more prominently is straightforward talent, not slavish modernity.

It is one of the sadnesses of our time when, for every reason, from the environmental to the emotional, we should be investing in the durable and long-lasting that we are in thrall to the empty thrill of novelty. Never mind what’s happening to cars, the whole nation now appears to be committed to one giant, perpetual, scrappage scheme.

Perfect madness

One of the most malign symptoms of our national refusal to see the virtue of the weather-beaten is the growing popularity of plastic surgery. A practice the British once, rightly, ridiculed as an absurd fixation of Californians, who were so obsessed with their bodies they had quite lost their minds, has now become the fastest-growing business within the beauty world. But, before we forever slip the moorings that keep us connected to the firm ground of reason and float off into permanent narcissism, can I put in a plea to halt this folly? When teenage girls take a knife to themselves, we call it self-harm. But when middle-aged ladies willingly submit to the scalpel, we ooh and ahh at their freshly hacked-about features. Can’t we see that this desperate quest to hold back time reflects not mastery of nature but the triumph of fear? Far from empowering anyone, it legitimises those who judge by surfaces alone. And that way madness lies . . .

Darned impossible

Perhaps the most drearily wearying manifestation of our society’s infatuation with the new is the disappearance from our shops of the staples on which any sane man must rely. To illustrate my point, I’ll start from the feet up and mention just two this week. It is now almost impossible to find proper thin laces long enough to fit shoes with more than a couple of grommets. And it’s now easier to find five different kinds of hoummos in Marks & Spencer than a single pair of proper woollen socks. Can I offer a prayer to St Michael, patron saint of gussets and hosiery, please, please can we have something to put on our feet that is at least 85 per cent wool? There’s a limit to how much darning even an Aberdonian can practise ...

Michael Gove is Conservative MP for Surrey Heath

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