restoration of things

TIME Magazine's 40th anniversary issue about the year 1969 featured an article about Kurt Vonnegut (novelist): "God damn it you got to be kind," read the sign Vonnegut put up on the wall of his study in that busy and overheated year.

TIME's story on him goes on --
That command, TIME declared on reviewing his 1969 novel, Slaughterhouse-Five, was the core message of Vonnegut's work, however obscured by sci-fi fantasies, absurdist philosophizing and shockingly bleak humor. "For all his roundhouse swinging at punch-card culture," TIME noted, "his satiric forays are really an appeal for a return to Christ-like behavior in a world never conspicuously able to follow Christ's example...."

Reading that the first time, I thought, "a RETURN to Christ-like behavior??" Maybe we humans could just TRY that, once... I didn't see any precedent for that, which we could really "return" to.

That question / realization made me think of Jacqueline Kennedy's "restoration" of The White House. She made a huge and admirable project of collecting and placing in The White House pieces of furniture and artwork which had been in the house in the past, during various administrations.
[From Donald Spoto's biography of Mrs. Kennedy]:
Margaret Truman...much admired Jackie' s achievements...She also recognized Jackie's brilliance in using the word RESTORATION rather than REDECORATION, for the former term suggested disinterested authenticity rendering the project immune to criticism. As Miss Truman noted, there was, of course, "no previous perfect White House in the past which diligence and research could restore. For most of its long career, the place had been an unnerving mixture of the elegant and the shabby...[But] Jackie hurled herself into her task with a passion that swept away obstacles and enlisted enthusiasts everywhere."

Similar to the era, or example, of Christ-like behavior -- there was really no previous thing to "return" to, or to "restore" --
word-wise, "restoring" something or "returning" to something, seems less scary and more conservative, more something We Ought To Be Doing if we can imagine that it's been done before. Even if it hasn't. Instead of breaking new ground, we seem to be getting off of a bad track & "back" onto the road we should never have left in the first place. We are "returning." "Restoring."

Rationale. Rhetoric that works.