Going Nostalgic
Remember the 1980's? Reagan's decade? MTV and pastels? A time when many of the technologies we take for granted were first market (like PC's, VCR's, cell phones, video game consoles, etc)?
According to conventional wisdom, we should be remembering the 80's. Because according to this doctrine, we must celebrate the decade which was two decades ago.
But why must we? If things are going so good, why do we need to look back?
I will give a little history lesson here.
Americans generally were not a nostalgic people. We looked ahead. Europe looked back to the "good ole days" which was sometime in the thirteenth century, when there were castles, knights, cathedrals, wizards, warlocks, knomes, etc. We were looking west, toward the frontier, to look for a way to develop it.
We kept looking ahead until the 1970's. Sometime around 1972, America had multiple convulsions that shocked those who were raising kids - those who graduated from high school before 1964. These people looked toward the days before the protests, the Vietnam war, the government scandals, the sex-drugs-rocknroll, the vocifirous leftwing radicalism (in all it's manifestations), the terrorism, the hippies. The 1950's began to look good compared to the 1960's, and many people wished to go back in time.
American Grafitti is probably the one of the most influential movies of all time. While it is set ten years before, it was largely about the culture before all this stuff came up. People wanted more. Hence, Happy Days, Oldies stations, collectors cars. During the 1970's, the 1950's were in vogue.
The 1950's never went away in American mythology. Happy Days had three spin-off series, and lasted until the mid 1980's (it went into the 1960's, before all that stuff happened. Imagine if it went into 1968 or 1969 - would Fonzie haved embraced the hippie culture?). Oldies stations lasted a long, long, time. A '57 Chevy is one of the most sought-after cars today.
When the 1980's came up, Reagan got elected. Another generation got disaffected. They looked back to their good ole days, when they were hippies who protested the war, engaged in lots of sex-drugs-rocknroll, as well as revolutionary activity. This looked much better to them than Reagan. So they put their culture on a pedestal, where they had their classic rock stations, their fashions, and the days of their activism was taught in the classrooms as well as the media.
Notice a pattern here? Well, at least the media thought so. Thus, they prepared for the 1990's. On December 31, 1989 - January 1, 1990, Almost Live (a show that was a Seattle version of SNL, only funnier), at the end of it's New Year's Special, did a contest about something about the 1970's. Because we all were going to look back at that decade just like we looked back at the 1950's and 1960's. Right?
Not really. This enthusiasm began to die down. A 1970's station was started, but it flopped - while the Oldies and the Classic Rock station continued. A few movies were made. KISS, and the Pistols, had their reunion tours.
But the 1970's were a bad decade - see my earlier column "sucking the the '00's". The only people who looked back at this as a golden age were the Arabs and the Soviets. For America, this was not a happy time. So people did not look at this Remember, people are not clamoring for cars made in the 1970's - unlike those from the 1950's and the 1960's - for not only do they conjure up bad images, but they are largely ugly gashogs.
But the media, looking for something to sell, are trying to push the 1980's. As I graduated in 1989, I should be looking joyously toward this decade, right? Not really. Sure, I would like to have Reagan in place of Bush, and it was good time for all those Soviet colonies to shake of the communist yoke, and the prosperity was nice, but generally, there was not a lot culturally to look back favorably toward.
In a way, when nostalgic, people look toward the culture of the decade and want to re-live it. Music, art, movies, lifestyles, sports (although the way the games are played change little-to-little over the decades, unlike other cultural forms) and other aspects of culture are what people want to go back to.
However, people cannot look back forever. This is a recent cultural phenomon. The parents of the boomers did not want to relive the 1930's and the 1940's, for example. There was somewhat of nostalgia in the 1950's, however, for the 1920's, when the theme was prosperity with easy living (something to look back to in a very staid decade, at least for the parents), but those individuals had already had plenty of other experiences to look back at, had their kids, and were looking forward to the good times they would have in retirement, so they did not get carried away like subsequent generations did.
There were two other dominant period of nostalgia in early America. The first was when America was deluged by immigrants, and those of English stock, prone toward nativism, tried to replicate the styles of America before the immigrants came - especially on houses.
The more dominent example is that of the Western genre. From the time that Karl May wrote about the "Old West," Americans (and Germans, too) were fascinated about the days when cowboys, Indians, outlaws, and the US Calvary trounced all over the Rocky Mountains and the Great Plains. Basically, the literary efforts focused on the 1870's and the 1880's. People looked back with nostalgia in this era until about the mid-1970's, when individuals shifted toward literary efforts about space as the new frontier. There have been a few Westerns since that time, but this theme is nowhere near as dominent as it was more than a generation ago.
The nostalgia of the 1950's, the 1960's, and latter decades will not last as long as the Old West nostalgia. Basically, this is because Wyatt Earp, Jesse James, George Custer, and Geromino are far more exciting and interesting characters than Marilyn Monroe, Elvis, and "The Fonz".
Even today, the Old West is looked upon favorably. You do not see a tourist "1950's town" (who would want to see one?), but to qualify as a "ghost town," an old town must look like something from the 1870's. People still dress up in clothing from that period. The most popular piece of clothing from the decade, denim trousers (known as jeans) have become one of the most pieces clothing to wear in the last ten years.
However, the nostalgia of the 1950's and the 1960's is dying away (we won't even count the 1970's or the 1980's, as this gets less and less). There are less movies about these two decades, less TV shows. The "Oldies" stations now play the Beatles and other British Invasion bands (in lieu of the more interesting Do-Wop groups) while the "Classic Rock" stations play very little Beatles, Stones, or Santana and instead play lots of Van Halen, Zepplin, and AC/DC. The cars at least stay - but that is because '57 Chevy's and '65 Mustangs are rare, neat-looking cars.
About fifteen years ago, I was given a journal about culture written for conservative university intelligentsia by one of my favorite history professors, Dr. Zoltan Kramar. I think I still have it, but I misplaced it. An article in this magazine wrote about this very topic. It noted that early Americans thought that nostalgia was some kind of sickness, and how they thought it was more important to look toward the future. As there is a lot to look forward to, I think that this nostalga trend will come to an end, and we will look to what is going on now, and the future.
According to conventional wisdom, we should be remembering the 80's. Because according to this doctrine, we must celebrate the decade which was two decades ago.
But why must we? If things are going so good, why do we need to look back?
I will give a little history lesson here.
Americans generally were not a nostalgic people. We looked ahead. Europe looked back to the "good ole days" which was sometime in the thirteenth century, when there were castles, knights, cathedrals, wizards, warlocks, knomes, etc. We were looking west, toward the frontier, to look for a way to develop it.
We kept looking ahead until the 1970's. Sometime around 1972, America had multiple convulsions that shocked those who were raising kids - those who graduated from high school before 1964. These people looked toward the days before the protests, the Vietnam war, the government scandals, the sex-drugs-rocknroll, the vocifirous leftwing radicalism (in all it's manifestations), the terrorism, the hippies. The 1950's began to look good compared to the 1960's, and many people wished to go back in time.
American Grafitti is probably the one of the most influential movies of all time. While it is set ten years before, it was largely about the culture before all this stuff came up. People wanted more. Hence, Happy Days, Oldies stations, collectors cars. During the 1970's, the 1950's were in vogue.
The 1950's never went away in American mythology. Happy Days had three spin-off series, and lasted until the mid 1980's (it went into the 1960's, before all that stuff happened. Imagine if it went into 1968 or 1969 - would Fonzie haved embraced the hippie culture?). Oldies stations lasted a long, long, time. A '57 Chevy is one of the most sought-after cars today.
When the 1980's came up, Reagan got elected. Another generation got disaffected. They looked back to their good ole days, when they were hippies who protested the war, engaged in lots of sex-drugs-rocknroll, as well as revolutionary activity. This looked much better to them than Reagan. So they put their culture on a pedestal, where they had their classic rock stations, their fashions, and the days of their activism was taught in the classrooms as well as the media.
Notice a pattern here? Well, at least the media thought so. Thus, they prepared for the 1990's. On December 31, 1989 - January 1, 1990, Almost Live (a show that was a Seattle version of SNL, only funnier), at the end of it's New Year's Special, did a contest about something about the 1970's. Because we all were going to look back at that decade just like we looked back at the 1950's and 1960's. Right?
Not really. This enthusiasm began to die down. A 1970's station was started, but it flopped - while the Oldies and the Classic Rock station continued. A few movies were made. KISS, and the Pistols, had their reunion tours.
But the 1970's were a bad decade - see my earlier column "sucking the the '00's". The only people who looked back at this as a golden age were the Arabs and the Soviets. For America, this was not a happy time. So people did not look at this Remember, people are not clamoring for cars made in the 1970's - unlike those from the 1950's and the 1960's - for not only do they conjure up bad images, but they are largely ugly gashogs.
But the media, looking for something to sell, are trying to push the 1980's. As I graduated in 1989, I should be looking joyously toward this decade, right? Not really. Sure, I would like to have Reagan in place of Bush, and it was good time for all those Soviet colonies to shake of the communist yoke, and the prosperity was nice, but generally, there was not a lot culturally to look back favorably toward.
In a way, when nostalgic, people look toward the culture of the decade and want to re-live it. Music, art, movies, lifestyles, sports (although the way the games are played change little-to-little over the decades, unlike other cultural forms) and other aspects of culture are what people want to go back to.
However, people cannot look back forever. This is a recent cultural phenomon. The parents of the boomers did not want to relive the 1930's and the 1940's, for example. There was somewhat of nostalgia in the 1950's, however, for the 1920's, when the theme was prosperity with easy living (something to look back to in a very staid decade, at least for the parents), but those individuals had already had plenty of other experiences to look back at, had their kids, and were looking forward to the good times they would have in retirement, so they did not get carried away like subsequent generations did.
There were two other dominant period of nostalgia in early America. The first was when America was deluged by immigrants, and those of English stock, prone toward nativism, tried to replicate the styles of America before the immigrants came - especially on houses.
The more dominent example is that of the Western genre. From the time that Karl May wrote about the "Old West," Americans (and Germans, too) were fascinated about the days when cowboys, Indians, outlaws, and the US Calvary trounced all over the Rocky Mountains and the Great Plains. Basically, the literary efforts focused on the 1870's and the 1880's. People looked back with nostalgia in this era until about the mid-1970's, when individuals shifted toward literary efforts about space as the new frontier. There have been a few Westerns since that time, but this theme is nowhere near as dominent as it was more than a generation ago.
The nostalgia of the 1950's, the 1960's, and latter decades will not last as long as the Old West nostalgia. Basically, this is because Wyatt Earp, Jesse James, George Custer, and Geromino are far more exciting and interesting characters than Marilyn Monroe, Elvis, and "The Fonz".
Even today, the Old West is looked upon favorably. You do not see a tourist "1950's town" (who would want to see one?), but to qualify as a "ghost town," an old town must look like something from the 1870's. People still dress up in clothing from that period. The most popular piece of clothing from the decade, denim trousers (known as jeans) have become one of the most pieces clothing to wear in the last ten years.
However, the nostalgia of the 1950's and the 1960's is dying away (we won't even count the 1970's or the 1980's, as this gets less and less). There are less movies about these two decades, less TV shows. The "Oldies" stations now play the Beatles and other British Invasion bands (in lieu of the more interesting Do-Wop groups) while the "Classic Rock" stations play very little Beatles, Stones, or Santana and instead play lots of Van Halen, Zepplin, and AC/DC. The cars at least stay - but that is because '57 Chevy's and '65 Mustangs are rare, neat-looking cars.
About fifteen years ago, I was given a journal about culture written for conservative university intelligentsia by one of my favorite history professors, Dr. Zoltan Kramar. I think I still have it, but I misplaced it. An article in this magazine wrote about this very topic. It noted that early Americans thought that nostalgia was some kind of sickness, and how they thought it was more important to look toward the future. As there is a lot to look forward to, I think that this nostalga trend will come to an end, and we will look to what is going on now, and the future.
posted by EricMatthew at 7:48 PM
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