Why do people romanticize the past?

[helgaleena]

You lot don't know you are born!

YouTube - Monty Python - Four Yorkshiremen

Bloody historians. :biggrin1:

 

[Bbucko]

I'm 22 and when I look back 30 years these surely wont be the good ole days in most ways.

You'll be amazed: trust me. Time has a way of tinting everything sepia (or rose, depending on your perspective)

 

[earllogjam]

How can a person or country who is always lamenting the loss of the good old days have any kind of future? The mindset is the prerequisite to perpetual unhappiness.

 

[ravenx]

and a far more vigorous and robust health.

That's an interesting point, never thought of that before.

It could be that older people are conflating (perhaps subconsciously) when times were better for them with the question of whether society was better in general.

 

[midlifebear]

It's natural to try and coax "good guys" and "bad guys" out of a narrative, even if by doing so one distorts the truth. History devoid of narrative and this structure (good/bad dichotomy) doesn't fly well with a public spoon-fed on happy endings and absolutes of virtue and evil.

It also doesn't help that history is usually written by older people nostalgic for a time when things seemed less complicated, when they enjoyed the promise of greater opportunity and a far more vigorous and robust health. My grandmothers were endlessly mythologizing their personal histories with obvious and self-evident blind spots to the greater injustices all around them: in fact, they felt entirely justified when confronted with their (occasionally appalling) prejudices.

But Bbucko, I have lots of real, prePhotoshop evidence that I really did have an amazing head of long straight black hair that cascaded down past my butt "way back in the romanticzed past." But it's also true that I've saved a ton of money not needing to buy shampoo and conditioner for the last 25 years. Sigh. :grumble:

 

[Bbucko]

That's an interesting point, never thought of that before.

It could be that older people are conflating (perhaps subconsciously) when times were better for them with the question of whether society was better in general.

Living with HIV for 26 years and in chronic pain for the last nine, I can vouch for that from personal experience, and I'm only 50

But Bbucko, I have lots of real, prePhotoshop evidence that I really did have an amazing head of long straight black hair that cascaded down past my butt "way back in the romanticzed past." But it's also true that I've saved a ton of money not needing to buy shampoo and conditioner for the last 25 years. Sigh. :grumble:

Your hair and my sensational, traffic-stopping legs must be snickering in some other place, congratulating each other on their ability to elude us

 

[StrictlyAvg]

My grandmothers were endlessly mythologizing their personal histories with obvious and self-evident blind spots to the greater injustices all around them: in fact, they felt entirely justified when confronted with their (occasionally appalling) prejudices.

Poetry UK style about this very subject...:biggrin1:

YouTube - The Antipoet - Little old lady