As one who tends towards the nostalgic (that's why I'm an old guy who still loves the Beatles) I find this post so helpful. To confront the reality of the past and not my own idealized of it challenges me and folks of my baby boomer
generation. I've always thought that boomers are the most nostalgic generation in history. We love talking about our idealized versions of the 1960s. It can be fun, but it is not a good of seeing the reality of our present. And it sets us up for a politics of nostalgia. MAGA anyone?
I'm so glad you found this helpful, Bob!! As someone who's always been tempted by the "grass is always greener...over there," I need to check my impulse to romanticize and escape where I happen to be planted. :P
I think it's so interesting how so many of the political choices being made now are based on nostalgia for a time that is genuinely a historical outlier. The boomer generation really experienced a crazy confluence of circumstances that are impossible to replicate (and yet, we keep on trying).
I've just remembered the Woody Allen movie "Midnight in Paris," where Owen Wilson' character finds himself in his "golden age" with Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, then follows Marion Cotillard's character to La Belle Epoque which is her "golden age." Wilson's character realizes that he could continue that way forever, following the past back and back and back. And so he decides to stay where he is, in the present, honestly addressing its difficult decisions and relationships. Perhaps a lesson in there for us all, non?
As one who tends towards the nostalgic (that's why I'm an old guy who still loves the Beatles) I find this post so helpful. To confront the reality of the past and not my own idealized of it challenges me and folks of my baby boomer
generation. I've always thought that boomers are the most nostalgic generation in history. We love talking about our idealized versions of the 1960s. It can be fun, but it is not a good of seeing the reality of our present. And it sets us up for a politics of nostalgia. MAGA anyone?
I'm so glad you found this helpful, Bob!! As someone who's always been tempted by the "grass is always greener...over there," I need to check my impulse to romanticize and escape where I happen to be planted. :P
I think it's so interesting how so many of the political choices being made now are based on nostalgia for a time that is genuinely a historical outlier. The boomer generation really experienced a crazy confluence of circumstances that are impossible to replicate (and yet, we keep on trying).
I've just remembered the Woody Allen movie "Midnight in Paris," where Owen Wilson' character finds himself in his "golden age" with Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, then follows Marion Cotillard's character to La Belle Epoque which is her "golden age." Wilson's character realizes that he could continue that way forever, following the past back and back and back. And so he decides to stay where he is, in the present, honestly addressing its difficult decisions and relationships. Perhaps a lesson in there for us all, non?