Is the desire for a return to "the good ol' days" a new phenomenon?
Or is this the case for all people throughout history?
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The only new part about this phenomenon is the phrase “good old days”.
I think it is human nature to hark back to some idealized time in the past.
These are the good old days.
It’s a relatively new phenomenon for me personally.
all old people think “everything was better back in the past” and “youth these days…”
that has been true in ancient greece and it is true now.
@ragingloli I’m not old but .. I’ll admit that some things really were better in the past.. and I certainly don’t understand youth these days.
@NaturalMineralWater I think it’s because you relate to things in different era’s better than others, humans are evolving much faster these days, there more intelligent and advanced at a much younger age…
I remember my Grandmother harkening for the “Good ol’ days”
Perhaps it is part of that desire to return to childhood when things were less complicated and we could enjoy the world.
Think about it – back then they could enjoy the sun on their face without worrying about skin cancer or global warming.
@OutOfTheBlue Really? Humans are evolving faster these days? XD Thanks for the laugh.
No, it’s nothing new. People have constantly felt nostalgic about the past. Same goes for the whole “kids these days” thing. People have been saying that for centuries. I agree with @ragingloli.
What is strange is that I’m nostalgic for a time I never even experienced. I miss the days when kids played outside, didn’t have a tv or a cell phone, and weren’t so concerned about their latest twitter. I think, to a certain extent, technology has warped the youth of today. Perhaps it has benefited them as well and it balances out but.. there’s something wholesome and right about a kid building a fort in the backyard instead of texting all day in his dimly lit bedroom.
I think humans for the most part just don’t like change. The “good old days” are the days we are use to. Days things were simple and understandable.
But fast-forward a bit and the present becomes the new “good old days.”
@DominicX From time to time, they do. But if given the option .. nowadays… I bet you could figure out which one a kid would pick… especially a teenager.
I think the old days were better in a lot of ways. You could trust your neighbour, being a thug wasn’t glamorized like it is today, you could light up a smoke in public without yuppies looking at you like you just whipped it out and started pissing in their face, the upper class was made fun of instead of being idolized by the working class. It wasn’t perfect, but I think I’d be a lot happier had I been born 50 years sooner.
If this is a recent phenomena or not, I don’t know.
@NaturalMineralWater
Yeah, but I wouldn’t expect a teenager to do that in the first place. That’s a little old to be doing something like that. Also, how many times do teenagers decide to hang out with their friends? I can’t tell you how much time I spent downtown with my friends. That wasn’t “texting”, we were outside, and we were older.
@hookecho
And I certainly don’t agree that the upper class is something to make fun of. Nor to idolize, either. How about to leave alone and mind your own business and stop comparing yourself to them?
What kills me is when you see teens thinking there a hippy and are in love with that time and era, it cracks me ^
@DominicX We’re making generalizations. My only point is that I honestly think teenagers and younger kids alike would be better off were they to be extremely limited on such mind numbing activities as texting and mtv. LOL… I do sound like an old man. oh well… that’s me.
@Mat74UK I guess I am. I’ll be happy to answer your questions. LOL
@NaturalMineralWater
MTV I can see being mind-numbing (it is), but texting? Isn’t that communication with your friends? Since when is talking to your friends mind-numbing?
I do agree that people rely on technology too much for communication and there’s nothing like communicating with someone in person, but texting is still communication, which is better than no communication.
@hookecho _Actually those problems did occur in the good old days- just on a smaller level. The old west bandits were considered heroes and there were neighbor disputes.
I will admit that such things were not promoted via television to the world though.
@DominicX I think it’s normal for the working class to want to poke some fun at the rich. Whats not normal is to put their face on every magazine cover, have people following them around snapping pictures of them coming out of some club so the working class can spend $10 to look at their pictures and say “oh, I wish my life was that glamorous..”
I grew up in the ‘60s and ‘70s. Let’s see…..sex, drugs, rock ‘n roll, being able to hitch hike anywhere safely and quickly, a progressive and fun youth culture, etc. Well, I suppose it could have been worse. See ya….Gary/wtf
@hookecho
I almost think that in a way, those pictures in the magazines just ridicule the celebrities even more. At least, in the tabloids. The Enquirer is just…wow…
@Dog The good old days I would like to live in would be more 1910–1950’s, not wild west days. Obviously not perfect (great depression..) but socially I think it was a better time.
@DominicX true, but those same magazines will then devote pages of beauty and fashion tips to let you know how worthless you are unless you look exactly like that rich celebrity.
I was a 70’s 80’s kid in a small group of villages I could go where and do what I liked!
My Grandpa was really jealous he grew up in London during the blitz and told me all about visiting bomb sites and collecting shrapnel but it was him that was jealous of my childhood and said that I had a proper Tom Sawyer Childhood!
Every time Tim (my bestest mate at that period) and I went around he insisted on taking a photo of us with our catch or us on our motorbike, he didn’t really hide that jealousy!
@DominicX There’s nothing wrong with communicating with friends. It’s just that kids used to do it in person. Instead of an emoticon.. there was an actual smiling face. Instead of a little, red, angry looking emoticon.. there was a friend right there in front of you who you could punch, or argue with, or talk it out with.
@OutOfTheBlue This question doesn’t concern “expectation”. I’m only addressing the question. As far as what I expect.. well.. I expect more of the same… until we’re all plugged into the matrix and are no longer able to determine what is wholesome and good anymore.. lol
I just think that people get on a nostalgia trip and begin to not think logically. Is the early 20th century really as great as people say? How about legalized and widespread racism and sexism? How about the KKK with 5 million members in the early 1920s? How about pressure for women to do nothing but get married and live in a suburban home and be submissive to their husband? How about homosexuality being classified as a mental illness and illegalization of gay sex acts? How about cigarette ads at every corner? How about military drafts? How about less medicine and treatment available? How about greater adherence to gender stereotypes?
Yes, there were things that were good about that time, but that doesn’t mean you can just overlook the bad. And since during that time, being homosexual would’ve been extremely difficult, I don’t think I would ever want to live back then if it meant that I had to abstain from true love if I expected to get anywhere in life.
@OutOfTheBlue Does it need shoving down kids throats though?
Can we not let them have a childhood? They can have all the digital things they want once they’ve achieved adulthood!
@DominicX We could concentrate on the negative aspects of any era. That doesn’t mean there weren’t positives.
@DominicX Who mentioned the early 20th century I was as I said a 70/80’s child!
@DominicX And don’t forget the world was radioheadless until the 90’s
@DominicX exactly, thats why I said it wouldn’t be perfect. But it seems to me that the cost of society becoming more tolerant has been a degrading of morals in other areas. I don’t understand why our society can’t accept gay people and abhor thugs instead of making the “thug life” seem glamorous, for example.But thats another topic.
@hookecho thats the tabloid press that people will keep buying and believing.
@hookecho
The two have no relation to each other. It’s simply a fad right now. No one says it’ll last forever. And I’d rather not get into this, because then I’m going to have to start defending the music I listen to and I never feel like doing that…
@DominicX its a pretty harmful fad when it encourages people to steal and be a lazy useless fuck feeding off the hardworking in society.
@all How do you think it would have been accepted in… let’s say the 50’s… if a musician were to “sing” about killing cops? I think even music was better in the past. But… then again.. that’s me… lol… no one is saying you have to agree..
I would have probably shot myself in the 50’s….
@OutOfTheBlue Why? You have to admit that the cars were pretty cool at least!
(Not as cool as the 60’s but total awesome power!)
@dog Damnit, ya got me, the cars where awesome!
@OutOfTheBlue Now you’ve got me curious too.. What was so terrible about the fifties that would make you want to blow your brains out? XD
@Mat74UK LMAO @ THE FONZ HAHA! Maybe if i hadn’t lived now and know what i know and seen what ive seen, the 50’s wouldn’t be so bad, but damn, it just looked so boring..
The only things I don’t like about the 50’s in popular culture would be Elvis and I love Lucy. Everything I can stomach, even the cheesy b-movies.
@OutOfTheBlue It is all what you make of it. I would be partying and dragging for pinks.
I love working on old cars. I think I would adapt pretty well.
Oh and BOMB SHELTERS! That would be cool!
Not hardly!
It’s such a cliche that even our kids make fun of it. Why, when I was a child…..
and you can add on any ridiculous thing you want. My favorite is typewriters. But does anyone remember the mythical buggy whip?
@daloon The buggy whip was mythical?
I love cars, always have! But i also like technology and back then i would have just been bored LOL kind of like i am now though!
I like Elvis and I love Lucy. =/
But I think I actually would have liked the 20’s better.. at least… the idea in my head of the 20’s… incorrect or not.
Funny thing is, i am into Antiques, i am in the process of opening an Antique store..
Everything was better when I was young. We still had an Emperor!
I would like the 1890’s myself.
(But I would miss the muscle cars)
I would love to see the Hetch Hetchy Valley before it was turned into a huge water reservoir for San Francisco. It was said to be incredibly beautiful.
I think I would love to be a naturalist in the late 1800’s.
@Mat74UK Yep, sure do. Along with a lot of other music.
As for the fifties, I wrote a whole long essay response on wis.dm about how the 50s weren’t so great in several respects. It was like the greatest thing I had ever written and now it’s gone. :(
I still sample some older 60’s music for some of my productions, mainly 70’s funk records but some old horns and sax off of the 50’s records are cool…
@DominicX Again, it’s one of the easiest things ever to pick all the negatives out of something. Hell, the media does it every single day. But when it comes to the positive aspects… a lot of people have trouble acknowledging them.
The whole point of the thing I wrote was that everyone was focusing on the positives and completely ignoring the negatives and so I brought them up; didn’t mean that I completely ignored the positives.
@Dog The buggy whip most certainly is mythical. A lot of people take its name in vain, and have no idea what they are saying. It has grown to symbolize the entire plenum of obsolete technology.
Just because it’s mythical, doesn’t mean it wasn’t real.
Well, Plato said Socrates said this, but it’s right up there with every other curmudgeon-y thing people say when they talk about the old days and “these darn kids today”:
“The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they allow disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children now are tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers.”
If I ever say “the good ol’ days” in a non-ironic manner, shoot me. The past is in the past. There is no way we can transpose values and mores from one era to another. We live in a different world.
I’m sure this is not a new phenomenon. I think people who dream of those days are people who have trouble adapting to new ideas, new people and a changing culture. They are either unwilling to change or have difficulty with the idea. There will always be people like this, and I am sure it has always been as such.
The way I see it, it is easier to live in the world when you adapt to change. Nostalgia is a product of a selective and faulty memory.
I see the world as belonging to the young. It is their future and they have the right to cultivate it as they wish. Do me proud @DominicX.
Those who think ‘thugs’ are still idolized and heroified are a little behind the times. That’s already phasing out.
@tinyfaery Most sensible thing in this whole thread IMHO
I think that it’s a relatively new idea, meaning from the past 50 years. I feel like I’ve always tried to keep things simple, life is easier that way. I think where you come from is also a big factor. I’ve lived in the country all my life, but have moved to a major city 2 years ago. I take life at a slower pace than most people in the city. I try not to fill my life with gadgets and gizmos…instead of sending e-mails out to my parents, I write them real letters and send them via “snail-mail”, I think it’s much more personal that way. Anyways, my point is that I think people just feel disconnected from everything around them, even if technology is supposed to have the contrary effect(as in bring them closer to their surroundings), which is why alot of them are reverting to the idea of “the good ol’ days”.
@mclaugh Agreed, finding that balance is where it’s at ;)
As an American: You know what I think of when I hear someone say that they want “to return to the good old days”?
Homophobia, racism, and ethnocentrism.
When you hear a conservative pundit speak about how America had was in its golden days in the 60’s, when they scream at the top of the lungs with fearful angst, when they proclaim they want “their America back”, chances are that that’s what they want. They want “White Christian America” back.
Unfortunate how such a nostalgic, rather tame phrase has become twisted, at least in my mind.
Wouldn’t it be awesome if future generations said our generation was so closed minded, racist and bigoted? Think of how incredible that would mean the future is!
@Grisaille yes because clearly everyone who says there were good things about the old days is a conservative bible-thumping racist. Nice generalization.
Unfortunate how such a nostalgic, rather tame phrase has become twisted, at least in my mind.
Unfortunate how such phrase has become twisted, at least in my mind.
at least in my mind
in my mind
my mind
my
“Good Old Days” are a function of selective memory. Every generation has their own conception of what they were. In reality there never were any.
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