rambling about nostalgia

[redbird]

browngirl has an interesting post in which she points out the flaws in a certain kind of nostalgia, the sort that sees seatbelts and lead-free paint as threats to, um, something or other.

Somewhere in the comments is the observation that people who talk about the wonders of the family of the past tend to stop dead when asked to specify what year they're talking about. Small wonder.

People want to live in a hypothetical, broadly sketched, past with all modern conveniences. They want to be rid of seatbelt laws, but probably not to drive a 1950s car, even a brand new one, but without the air conditioning or the modern brake systems. They want to use rollerblades without helmets or kneepads, not the old-style roller skates you attached to your sneakers with a key. And, of course, they want the Internet, cheap long distance phone calls and affordable air travel, and such.

The past is a foreign country, and they don't have tourist facilities.

Comments

[treadpath.livejournal.com]

Those pro-nostalgia posts always struck me as attempts to explain happy childhood experiences by glorifying past technology. As if we could regain the innocence of childhood--get back all that time where we were not required to be responsible, or necessarily understand the big picture of the world around us--by just going back to the ways of the past. As if not having seatbelts really made the world a better place--it didn't, it's just that we were kids and there were no seatbelts and now we're adults and we have seatbelts... so what changed? Us??? No way!!! It must've been the seatbelts.

I think, in general, people just want to regain that lost childhood, where life seemed simpler and easier than it is now--not because it actually was, but because of who they were when they perceived it.

long ago

[replyhazy.livejournal.com]

As if we could regain the innocence of childhood--get back all that time where we were not required to be responsible....

Oh, I think this is right on! For a lot of people. Although it's a bit different when it comes to my mom, who is 80. She literally wants 1959 back again-- before all "these weirdos" moved in, before her town got "so overdeveloped" (in other words, when there were a few houses and a lot of fields and only gravel roads). If you mention the dangerousness of the old cars, she contends that her Corvair "was just the nicest car to drive, and Nader took them away."

There literally is no argument you can use with her, although once I said, "If you could go back then now, wouldn't you miss your microwave?" That actually gave her some pause.

Re: long ago

[ailsaek.livejournal.com]

My microwave is a big space-consuming kitchen timer. If I didn't have one, I wouldn't miss it.

And fields are a very good thing. They're where food comes from.

Re: long ago

[replyhazy.livejournal.com]

I do not believe I meant to imply that

(a)microwaves are wonderful

or

(b)fields are bad.

Merely that my mother likes them both. I regret if my post was not clear enough.

Re: long ago

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

Your mother has a point about the Corvair. It wasn't any more unsafe than a Volkswagen of the same era or substantially later, and in fact shared a number of design features with the Volkswagen. But Volkswagens, being a nostalgia icon in their own right, haven't been visited with the same stigma. The attack on the Corvair was hardly the high point of Nader's career, if it has any.

Re: long ago

[treadpath.livejournal.com]

For some reason I have the sudden urge to make t-shirts bearing the legend "Ralph Nader Stole My Lawn Darts." If not shirts than at least stickers. Or a lj icon. :)