The world is constantly changing, and we are living in a time where we see ideas become obsolete in our own lifetime, and sometimes things that were socially acceptable when we were little are definitely not now. It can be hard to adjust, and to reconcile our feelings with our thoughts. But we also don't want to toss the baby out with the bathwater, and just because some things are outdated and didn't age well doesn't mean that they should be completely set aside.
This is one place where I feel like we have to engage both our critical thinking and our ability to see things from another perspective. Just because we don't agree with an idea today, doesn't mean we can't see how our ancestors might have viewed something (and how it could have been something good for them while simultaneously being not good for us).
One of my favorite examples of this is with mythology. Many modern practitioners accept myths as a version of teaching stories. They were a way that our ancestors tried to make sense of the world around them, especially when they lacked the understanding to explain things in a way that made sense to them, and so creating a story to explain what was going on helped them accept changes and situations that would otherwise create anxiety and stress for them.
A lot of myths talk about how things came to be. Perhaps they are explaining the universe or why humans are different from other life on the planet, or they might be explaining unusual natural phenomenon (like eclipses or earthquakes). Our ancestors would see a thing, and it wouldn't match with the rest of the world, and they would try to figure out why this thing was different.
Of course, today we often know the reasons why the earth shakes or how humans evolved to develop speech and use tools. And this may cause us to question our love of myth, because we have two conflicting sources of information (or more, especially if you follow multiple pantheons and now have multiple creation stories for different things).
But we also have more levels of understanding on how our own brains work. We have the left brain, the thinking brain, the ego, and that part is the one that likes knowing the why. In our modern lives, this is the part that often turns to science and logic. We also have the right brain, the child self, the id, and this part of us loves whimsy and play and symbols. (yes, these different parts don't quite line up, and then there is the superego/higher self....but you get the idea)
And that is where we can love a thing and also understand why it's not Truth (with a capital T). Things don't have to be 'real' to be real....a story can be completely made up and still carry weight. It can move us, in ways that logic and science don't always. It can bring us to a place of magic.
With outdated ideas, this can sometimes bring real conflict. Thinking about some of the earliest books on Paganism that I read, there were a lot of really inappropriate ideas about how people interact with each other (being skyclad, sexual initiations, power dynamic, gender duality, cultural appropriation). Even at the time, I knew some of the things I was reading didn't 'work' for me, I just kind of assumed I was the odd duck out, I must have been just not ready to be that open or that connected to other people.
But even the parts I was conflicted about imprinted in my brain as examples of 'how magic works' (especially magic with multiple people). I think I will always have romantic ideology about dancing naked in the woods or a working partner, and I kind of tuck those thoughts away in the fantasy part of my brain (you know, the part that idly dreams about movie stars and being rich...yeah that part).
The thing is...I can enjoy those thoughts in my brain, even though if I were to be in that situation in realty I'd definitely be freaking out and highly anxious. Things aren't black and white, and there are a lot of places where we can live in the grey area.
We may be absolutely opposed to any kind of nakedness with other people, and still enjoy reading a novel where a coven holds those kinds of meetings. We can watch a movie that embraces very sketchy magical practices....and like the movie, but still condone real world work in those areas. We can examine a historical document and recognize that we have methods available to us today that simply weren't there before (and thus our ancestors had to take a very different approach when put in a bad situation).
Everyone has to decide their own levels of comfort with things that haven't aged well. For some, it may make them uncomfortable enough they want to avoid it altogether, and that's fine. For others, they may be okay with sifting through the troubling bits and pulling out the parts that are okay. Or enjoying something in a purely entertainment fashion and recognizing that the things we may enjoy in a bit of fiction aren't things that we actually support. The important thing is to know that there are different ways to approach this, and you don't have to completely avoid things that haven't aged well, if you don't want to.
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