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

[browngirl.livejournal.com]

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

Yeah, this is exactly it. And, like a foreign country, the past is all of one piece; one can't *have* the nice bits of, say, the Fifties without the bad bits. That last bit is, I guess, the fear that underlies my annoyance with some kinds of nostalgia; I wonder if people who practice it *would* willing trade things like easy birth control and the Internet and the ability of my friends to hold a same-sex wedding, for their idealized past back.

I don't know whether to hope that the past manages its tourist facilities, or that that *never* happens.

[ailsaek.livejournal.com]

I don't want to go back to then, I want to change now. Figure out some way to stop more fields from becoming rows of horrid soulless McMansions. Figure out a way to convince school boards that they aren't parents, and that parents do get to make some decisions and even disagree with school boards. Give people back the freedom to take risks. Stop giving out fake awards, and save them for people who earned them. Make kids do their damn homework. Realize that people do get hurt, and that it isn't necessarily someone's fault.

Not roll back gay rights. Not do away with what little racial equality we have in this country (I don't claim to speak from any great fount of knowlege here, but it doesn't seem like we've done very well yet). Not send anyone back to the kitchen who doesn't want to go (although acknowleging that some people would really rather be in the kitchen than in the boardroom would be nice).

And we already live with funerals resulting from unsafe behaviors. I remember a teenager getting killed while rock climbing up home a few years back. She was very well-lliked and many people were sad. And snippy's niece wasn't killed when she fell off her horse, but she could have been. I'm not prepared to say that no one may climb rocks or ride horses, though. Or, for that matter, hike, or ski, or fly in airplanes. IMO, the definition of "unnecessary risk" is one that everyone needs to make for themselves. Fuzz factor for children, yes, but I think everyone agrees that the banner call of "Protect the children!" can be carried way too far.

[browngirl.livejournal.com]

I think everyone agrees that the banner call of "Protect the children!" can be carried way too far

I certainly agree with you there, and the rest of this comment.:) I certainly don't want a cottonball world either.