Why we yearn for the good old days
Historians and politicians dismiss nostalgia as mass delusion - but that's exactly the point of it
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The Telegraph, 6:30AM GMT 16 Jan 2015
If you’ve been feeling anxious about the times we live in, I bring glad
tidings. Turns out Western civilisation isn’t doomed after all. It’s just a
trick of the mind.
According to a survey conducted for The Human Zoo, Radio 4’s psychology
programme, 70 per cent of the British population suffers from the belief
that “things are worse than they used to be”. This despite that fact that we
are, overall, richer, healthier and longer-living than ever before.
This irrational conviction is known as “declinism”, and is caused, according
to the experts, by the fact that our strongest memories are laid down
between the ages of 15 and 25. The vibrancy of youth, and the thrill of
experiencing things for the first time, creates a “memory bump” compared
with which later life does seem a bit drab.
Declinism (or nostalgia, as it was known in the Good Old Days) is not
fashionable. Psychologists explain it away gently, as a mental defect beyond
our control. Politicians deride but also fear it: hence, their constant
poo-poohing of Ukip’s “nostalgic” desire to return to a prelapsarian Britain
that never really existed.
Historians, too, tend to dismiss nostalgia as a kind of mass delusion. In
his wonderful new history of the English people, Robert Tombs argues
that, since the end of the Second World War, the British have suffered from
an entirely unjustified declinism. Sure, we lost an Empire – but it was so
vast and unwieldy that it never really brought in much money anyway. And
yes, Britain no longer rules the waves, but that’s because we no longer need
a huge Navy to patrol that unnecessary Empire.
Economically, argues Tombs, Britain has not declined at all. Panic set in
after the war, when the American and European economies accelerated much
faster than Britain’s. But we caught up soon enough.
All of which is reassuring. But as a lifelong sufferer of nostalgia, I can’t help feeling rather defensive. Declinism, like pessimism, isn’t wholly irrational. Progress always goes hand-in-hand with loss. Many of the things that older people mourn from their youths – front doors left unlocked, neighbours looking out for each other’s children, trust in the police, respect for teachers – really did exist.
Some were casualties of battles that needed to be fought: the migration of women into the workplace, for example, means that we are no longer available to perform many of our traditional neighbourly duties. To my mind, the pros outweigh the cons, but we should at least acknowledge that the cons exist.
Ultimately, though, you can’t defend – or cure – nostalgia by totting up the balance sheet of progress. It isn’t an intellectual mistake: it’s an emotional strategy, something comforting to snuggle up to when the present day seems intolerably bleak. The word nostalgia comes from the Greek nostos, meaning “homecoming”, and algos, meaning “pain”. And it does feel like a kind of homesickness – a yearning for a place of comfort.
Growing up in the Seventies, that period of supreme ugliness and gloom, I took refuge in nostalgia long before I’d had time to accrue a “memory bump” of my own. Instead, I plundered the memories of previous generations. My reading habits (Beano, the Secret Seven, Our Island Story) gave me all the material I needed to summon up a more colourful, less defeated country: a nation of brave knights and teachers in mortar boards and bosomy housekeepers laying on a smashing high tea.
I have a better grasp of history now: I know about slums and corporal punishment and the evils of colonialism. I’m glad we live in a more egalitarian age. Yet still I feel strangely patriotic towards the Olden Days. It may have been total bunkum, but it felt like home.
All of which is reassuring. But as a lifelong sufferer of nostalgia, I can’t help feeling rather defensive. Declinism, like pessimism, isn’t wholly irrational. Progress always goes hand-in-hand with loss. Many of the things that older people mourn from their youths – front doors left unlocked, neighbours looking out for each other’s children, trust in the police, respect for teachers – really did exist.
Some were casualties of battles that needed to be fought: the migration of women into the workplace, for example, means that we are no longer available to perform many of our traditional neighbourly duties. To my mind, the pros outweigh the cons, but we should at least acknowledge that the cons exist.
Ultimately, though, you can’t defend – or cure – nostalgia by totting up the balance sheet of progress. It isn’t an intellectual mistake: it’s an emotional strategy, something comforting to snuggle up to when the present day seems intolerably bleak. The word nostalgia comes from the Greek nostos, meaning “homecoming”, and algos, meaning “pain”. And it does feel like a kind of homesickness – a yearning for a place of comfort.
Growing up in the Seventies, that period of supreme ugliness and gloom, I took refuge in nostalgia long before I’d had time to accrue a “memory bump” of my own. Instead, I plundered the memories of previous generations. My reading habits (Beano, the Secret Seven, Our Island Story) gave me all the material I needed to summon up a more colourful, less defeated country: a nation of brave knights and teachers in mortar boards and bosomy housekeepers laying on a smashing high tea.
I have a better grasp of history now: I know about slums and corporal punishment and the evils of colonialism. I’m glad we live in a more egalitarian age. Yet still I feel strangely patriotic towards the Olden Days. It may have been total bunkum, but it felt like home.
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