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Nostalgia, is a national disease?

TheCatWoman

The Good Old Days, when things were all rosy and better.

The Good Old Days, when we had real music, etc etc

It seems to me that nostalgia is a sort of national disease, we keep harping back to it as some golden age, except it wasn't really and every generation has it's Golden Age.. I was struck by nostalgia for the 1990's, I mean really, what was so great about the nineties?

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'm an historian by training and I hate nostalgia, for its distortions, the way it stops us being honest about the past, the effects it's had upon us and the world and the lengths we will go to to protect it's leftovers. I do think think archaelogical sites should be protected and historic buildings, but that should stop us from investing in the new. The past should inform the present, we should learn its lessons, and build a better future, even if it's just in our architecture and music.

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  • 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.

  • in reply to Iain

    The trouble is, as you have demonstrated there, people look back and see what was good, ignoring the bad, and look at now and see what's bad and ignore what's good.

    To the rose tinted glasses wearer, the days when things were best were during their childhood, twenties and early thirties. The fact that this is pretty much always the same for people of every generation is a pretty obvious sign that this is just a human trait that has little bearing on the reality of the situation.

    I am in my mid forties now and have observed "good old days" thinking for a long time, always guarding against falling into the trap myself. I now see people my age succumbing to it and I just see it as lazy thinking to be honest. Cynicism masquerading as wisdom.

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  • in reply to Iain

    The trouble is, as you have demonstrated there, people look back and see what was good, ignoring the bad, and look at now and see what's bad and ignore what's good.

    To the rose tinted glasses wearer, the days when things were best were during their childhood, twenties and early thirties. The fact that this is pretty much always the same for people of every generation is a pretty obvious sign that this is just a human trait that has little bearing on the reality of the situation.

    I am in my mid forties now and have observed "good old days" thinking for a long time, always guarding against falling into the trap myself. I now see people my age succumbing to it and I just see it as lazy thinking to be honest. Cynicism masquerading as wisdom.

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  • in reply to McFrost

    I think that's very true McFrost, in my head I'm in my mid thirties, when I was at my fittest, slimest and strongest and had the most energy, but I tend to forget the intense loneliness I felt and how out of step with everyone else I felt. I was poorer then too, I remember having to decide if I was going to buy new nickers to replace the falling apart ones I had or buying washing powder to wash them again and hope they really didn't fall apart anymore. 

    I think many people lack perspective about the past, especially thier own and can get quite defensive if someone elses experience didn't match thiers.

  • in reply to McFrost

    Having thought about this more, I think there are too types of nostalgic "good old days" thinking. One is the "everything was better in my day, the world is going to ***" type thinking and the other is the much more personal feelings about your own time of life. Maybe you feel you peaked in your early 30's, you were physically fit, you had some money, maybe you hadn't had kids yet, or maybe you had a really idyllic, carefree childhood. The trouble is that I think people mistake the latter for the former. They take their personal feelings of ageing, stress, difficult life etc and extrapolate it out to feeling like everything else around you has got worse.