Why My Generation Is Drunk on Nostalgia
“We know that the world we’re living in is falling apart. We know that the digital age we were born into isn’t working. And so we long. We’re nostalgic for eras that we truly know nothing about because we’re convinced that somewhere, left behind in the ’80s and ’90s, is the thing we’re missing.” - TGC
I am with Mr. Burks on overdoses of nostagia--it always amuses me when I see a teenager wearing an old Rolling Stones "hot lips" t shirt that originally came out in the 1970s or so--but it also strikes me that there are times where one can favor certain things of the past simply because they were better. When I am subjected to the special effects-heavy and plot-and-character-light movies of today, I do think back to the movies of the 1960s and before where they didn't have computers to do the special effects--and where the Hays code kept certain levels of violence and exposure off the silver screen.
Part of what is going on, though, is that we've forgotten the mediocre stuff of the past. So when we listen to an "oldies" station, the horrible stuff is already gone. You'll get a couple of one hit wonders, but not the "B" sides, and the like. Same basic thing that goes on with music in the church; the Wesley brothers wrote something like 8000 hymns, and only about 20 of them appear on modern Methodist and Wesleyan hymnals.
Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.
The author used a couple passages from Ecclesiastes, but he didn’t use the passage that’s always been a rebuke to me when I longer for older (“better, simpler”) times:
Ecc. 7:10 - ‘Say not, “Why were the former days better than these?” For it is not from wisdom that you ask this.’
That verse speaks directly to the idea that nostalgia is not going to be the solution our hearts’ longing, any more than older times were. No doubt, some things were better at some points in past days, but those aren’t the days God has given us. And, as Bert mentioned, we tend to ignore or gloss over the things about the past that were not so good.
Our society today is terrible at providing meaning, but it’s certain that older times (even the so-called Golden Ages) couldn’t do so either, which should help convince us that true meaning will come only from a better, eternal source.
Dave Barnhart
In some ways, I find the looking back encouraging. One of the stand-out pathologies of our time is the short attention-span and lack of awareness of history. Nostalgia is a kind of sentimental flavor of attention to history, but at least it is some awareness that is a history there. I also find it encouraging that when the mad rush into What’s New gets overwhelming or seems to be missing something, people think that looking back might be helpful.
Because it is.
Ecclesiastes reminds us that it’s all still “under the sun,” and temporary, but when you look back and then look at now again, you have a better idea of what has proved to be enduring and where value lies.
And if you look back far enough you get to Scripture.
So they are right that “the answers” are, in a lot of ways, in the “old days.”
But as others have pointed out, and Ecclesiastes relentlessly points out, there is no time under the sun when we all, as humans, had our act together.
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
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