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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.

Parents

  • Couldn't agree more. I'm not sure if it's a national disease though. I would imagine this sort of lazy thinking exists everywhere in the world. It's a kind of shutting up shop at a certain age and refusing to engage with anything new. That doesn't mean you can't preserve what is good and call out what is bad of course, as you say.

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  • Couldn't agree more. I'm not sure if it's a national disease though. I would imagine this sort of lazy thinking exists everywhere in the world. It's a kind of shutting up shop at a certain age and refusing to engage with anything new. That doesn't mean you can't preserve what is good and call out what is bad of course, as you say.

Children
  • in reply to McFrost

    I agree ArchaeC and McFrost. I see this mentally shutting up shop to anything new particularly in men of my age group, things like there was no good music made after 1980 or mad stuff like that, they dress the same way they did in 1980 too. There was some really good bands and music, Bowie, Elton John etc, but there was an awful lot of garbage and one hit wonders too..

    I'm glad to live in a time when so many of the things that were common in my youth are no longer acceptable and may have become criminal, all the casual racism, sexism, ableism, homophobia etc. I'm glad that comedy is no longer a constant stream of mother in law jokes.

    I miss some of the shops Robert has mentioned, BHS and Woolies in particular, they still exist online, but what I miss is actual shops in an actual town centre, where you could walk in and buy something and take it home with you rather than be told they don't have your size/colour, whatever and to buy it online.