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Celtic Thunder does a deeply nostalgic song whose chorus
goes something like: “Sing me the songs of our gold and silver days, days
filled with innocence and light. Not a penny to our name, we were happy just
the same, in our gold and silver days.” (2024
5 Million Community Video Final 720P (Horizontal)).
The “good old days” sensibility can be illustrated in any
number of ways. An illogical argument that a dollar could buy so much more “then,”
than it does “now” seems like a “good old thing,” for instance… if we neglect inflation.
It may well be a non-negotiable characteristic of being
human, namely that we end up comparing our present to our past unfavourably.
Aging provides an obvious case in point. We pick out certain features of our
past and give them a “gold and silver” sheen, then compare them to the worst
of our present.
There are those among us who understand the difference
between an objective understanding of the past and nostalgia. We call them historians,
and their work allows them to see the earth and all life on it engaged in a
constantly evolving process. Unfortunately, most of us are too bound up in the
frenzy of daily life to allow for that kind of attention to the “hows and whys”
of our being and doing. So our analyses of what’s good and what’s bad in the
world are simple, subjective.
And so we come to the downside of a “gold and silver”
assessment of the past, evidenced in how easily we conclude that “it’s getting
worse and worse,” and someone, or some ones, are to blame. And the obvious
targets must be the institutions we can name: World Health Organization, NATO,
the Liberal, Democratic or Conservative Party, the Muslim religion, Carney, the
pope or the ones we can’t name like the Deep State, Antifa, the Woke, or whatever new conspiracy
theory is floated on social media.
Mind you, The Calgary Stampede is now on, a reenactment of a
bygone age complete with costuming. For some, there’s pleasure in the spectacle
of men and women doing competitively what were work-a-day activities in “the
good old days.” None of the spectacles there are reminiscent of my olden
days, and I’m more bound to see the entire show as a celebration of conquest,
most like the spectacle of the Roman
gladiatorial arena. It could be argued that this is not dissimilar to
Professional Sports, where the zero-sum, victor vs. vanquished event whets
something desirable in us. Seems it’s normal in human nature to live in the
competitive world vicariously, if not literally.[i]
I guess this is a plea to all of us to balance our nostalgia
with our knowledge of history, of the world, of our communities and of
ourselves.
The most ubiquitous of words found in nostalgia might be home.
I learned in an Art Aesthetics class long ago why it is that landscapes with
high mountains and dark clouds, with a lighted cottage with smoke drifting up
lazily find such appeal. Home is about safety, comfort, predictability
and love. So nostalgically wished for in eras of rapid social change.
[i][i]
Vicariously means “experienced or realized through imaginative or sympathetic participation
in the experience of another.” – Merriam-Webster. Sports watching allows an observer to
celebrate a victory to which he made no contribution.
Well said George!
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