Nostalgia, is a national disease?

TheCatWoman said:

I was struck by nostalgia for the 1990's, I mean really, what was so great about the nineties?

There were plenty of good things but it all depended on your lived experience.

I got to leave a bad long term relationship I was trapped in, my career was the best it ever got to be (travelling the world business class and with a 6 figure salary), I had independence, wealth, recognition and had adapted my home to cater to all my interests (motorbikes, music, home entertainment system, computer workshop etc).

I don't consider it a disease to look back to when things were good and miss them.

TheCatWoman said:

I think this constant harping on about how great things were years ago, stops us moving forward, it stops us investing in the future, personally, politically and in thingd like our infrastructure and buildings.

I don't believe this is nostalga holding it back, but rather our short term thinking. We are not willing to spend extra now to make things better in 10 or 20 years when everyone seems to be saying "what's in it for me now?"

There is much less willingness to make a sacrefice today for some future benefit when it is you having to make the sacrefice. Everyone seems to have developed a victim mentality and feels hard done by if this happens.

There is much less appreciation for the bigger picture or the "greater good" as people have just become more selfish.

A lot of it may depend on how your life was at a particular time, but many people are nostaligic for times before they were born or at least when they were children and probably sheltered from bad things by thier parents.

I've wondered many times about why we either don't invest or do it once and expect it to last forever, you hear people going on about how we had the greatest railway system in the world, but they seem to forget how long ago that was and that many other countries if they did industrialise early have kept on investing or they've industrialised fairly recently and have the latest technology.

But this short is centuries old, it was being complained about in Tudor times when Henry VIII built the navy and after when sucessive governments allowed to it to decay.

I wonder how much of our unwillingness to invest in the future is because of the huge profit margins and shareholder payments that seem to plague us unchecked? For example one of the big betting companies has said that despite it's billion plus turnover it can only manage a profit of 5K and if the government puts a gambling tax on them similar to that on alcohol and tobacco they would imediately close all thier high street shops which are running at a loss anyway. Do they think our heads do up at the back? Do they think we believe that they're running these shops as some kind of charity to keep people employed? I think this is an example of governments being in hock to big business, which then leads to there not being enough money to invest in things, like the health service, just think of what the tax raising profits could do if they were channeled into mental health services?

I also think nostalgia is one of the appeals of the populist right, they tell everyone if we reset ourselves to a supposed golden age when children behaved themselves, there were bobbies on the beat and everyone knew their place and had a job everything will be fine. What they don't tell us is the past they yearn for is one where there were vast inequalities and those with money could do what they liked to whom they liked with little or no comeback. 

I think the nostalgia industry is a sop to keep us compliant and not look at whats really going on around us, the housing crisis, the lack of health care in many areas, the poverty that so many people live in, the total mess that these short sighted politicians have brought us. I think people are willing to do things for the common good if they see the result for the common good, not the back pockets of the already wealthy and superwealthy.

A lot of it may depend on how your life was at a particular time, but many people are nostaligic for times before they were born or at least when they were children and probably sheltered from bad things by thier parents.

I've wondered many times about why we either don't invest or do it once and expect it to last forever, you hear people going on about how we had the greatest railway system in the world, but they seem to forget how long ago that was and that many other countries if they did industrialise early have kept on investing or they've industrialised fairly recently and have the latest technology.

But this short is centuries old, it was being complained about in Tudor times when Henry VIII built the navy and after when sucessive governments allowed to it to decay.

I wonder how much of our unwillingness to invest in the future is because of the huge profit margins and shareholder payments that seem to plague us unchecked? For example one of the big betting companies has said that despite it's billion plus turnover it can only manage a profit of 5K and if the government puts a gambling tax on them similar to that on alcohol and tobacco they would imediately close all thier high street shops which are running at a loss anyway. Do they think our heads do up at the back? Do they think we believe that they're running these shops as some kind of charity to keep people employed? I think this is an example of governments being in hock to big business, which then leads to there not being enough money to invest in things, like the health service, just think of what the tax raising profits could do if they were channeled into mental health services?

I also think nostalgia is one of the appeals of the populist right, they tell everyone if we reset ourselves to a supposed golden age when children behaved themselves, there were bobbies on the beat and everyone knew their place and had a job everything will be fine. What they don't tell us is the past they yearn for is one where there were vast inequalities and those with money could do what they liked to whom they liked with little or no comeback. 

I think the nostalgia industry is a sop to keep us compliant and not look at whats really going on around us, the housing crisis, the lack of health care in many areas, the poverty that so many people live in, the total mess that these short sighted politicians have brought us. I think people are willing to do things for the common good if they see the result for the common good, not the back pockets of the already wealthy and superwealthy.