At the risk of outing myself here, I don't like Indian food *or* sushi, which may be the most un-neoliberal fact about me, but it's not because I lament their inclusion in the American marketplace of cultural or anything weird like those folks. Just not flavors I enjoy.
I've been taken aback by the extent to which you see the same tendencies on the left, honestly. A lot of critiques of "consumerism" end up recapitulating very similar points. Or vaguely anarchist valorizing of small, tight-knit communities.
I don't think it's better vs. worse as much as complex vs. simple. Affluent modern people have a bewildering array of choice in life, not only in pizza, kebabs, or brown bread for dinner but in who to date and marry, what career to enter into, where to live, what kind of relationships to maintain, lifestyle, and so on. There are a lot of content people in the world, but there are a lot of people in high-powered fields that wish they didn't spend nearly as much time in the office, or on the other end people in who took a middle path who wish they'd been more ambitious in their early years. There are people underwater on houses they wish they'd never bought. There are people who languished in loveless marriages and regret entering them. There are people who regret having kids.
What people find appealing in this first list aside from what it brings back for 70 somethings who have the totally human impulse to feel nostalgia for when they were young and fit and their parents, siblings, and friends were still all around is the definitiveness. Everything "was", "was for", "was for" this, and not "that". The idea is that there was a time when things were certain, the structure of a good life was clear, that everyone belonged and any reason someone didn't was possibly suspect, and that "is this all there is?" wasn't really something people thought about if for no reason other than that they were too tired to at the end of the day.
This is obviously not a material analysis of nostalgia politics. Life in the 80s in the US sucked compared to today. Life in the UK in the 50s sucked immeasurably more and those were some of the richest societies in the world at both times. Speaking philosophically and especially psychologically the sheer abundance and possibility of modernity, especially now with the internet and social media, is messing with peoples' own sense of the finitude and limits of their individual lives than ever before.
This is excellent and I have more complete thoughts later when everything at work doesn't require the immediate-est of attentions, but Tom Nichols wrote a piece in a similar vein but oriented towards rust-belt politics here:
There's no way. I was born in 2002 and if you ever went to the school nurse in elementary/middle school you were 100% given Ginger Ale and Saltines and that's it. There has to be some other distinct thing lmao
Joe Rogan tried to pull the "cities are bad for people" schtick on Matt Y when he was promoting his book, citing some studies that involved rats getting anxious when they're crowded together, and I think Matt said something to the effect of "well....good thing people aren't rats".
Great article. As you asked about the UK - yes, postwar then pasta was fairly unknown, and olive oil only sold in pharmacists (to clean out your ears with, I believe). Use of pasta spread fairly slowly through the 50s and 60s. See the famous April Fools Spaghetti Harvest on BBC TV in 1957 (it's on YouTube, two minutes long), which could only have worked if many people a) knew what pasta was and b) knew very little about it.
In terms of British nostalgia, the only element you identify that doesn't ring true is nostalgia for the Empire, which was always less important for the British culturally than one might think, and doesn't have any contemporary resonance. The First and Second World Wars, with an overwhelming focus on the home front and Europe, are far more important.
I'll tell you what the Pasta comment is.
It's anti Italian discrimination.
This was so good, so sensible, that it turned me into a paid subscriber.
Thanks for the support! Really happy to see posts that connect with people.
Thanks for the excellent article documenting this!
Seriously though, who has an issue with curry and sushi?! Does the existence of spices cause an existential crisis with these folks?
It's basically just xenophobia
At the risk of outing myself here, I don't like Indian food *or* sushi, which may be the most un-neoliberal fact about me, but it's not because I lament their inclusion in the American marketplace of cultural or anything weird like those folks. Just not flavors I enjoy.
I've been taken aback by the extent to which you see the same tendencies on the left, honestly. A lot of critiques of "consumerism" end up recapitulating very similar points. Or vaguely anarchist valorizing of small, tight-knit communities.
I don't think it's better vs. worse as much as complex vs. simple. Affluent modern people have a bewildering array of choice in life, not only in pizza, kebabs, or brown bread for dinner but in who to date and marry, what career to enter into, where to live, what kind of relationships to maintain, lifestyle, and so on. There are a lot of content people in the world, but there are a lot of people in high-powered fields that wish they didn't spend nearly as much time in the office, or on the other end people in who took a middle path who wish they'd been more ambitious in their early years. There are people underwater on houses they wish they'd never bought. There are people who languished in loveless marriages and regret entering them. There are people who regret having kids.
What people find appealing in this first list aside from what it brings back for 70 somethings who have the totally human impulse to feel nostalgia for when they were young and fit and their parents, siblings, and friends were still all around is the definitiveness. Everything "was", "was for", "was for" this, and not "that". The idea is that there was a time when things were certain, the structure of a good life was clear, that everyone belonged and any reason someone didn't was possibly suspect, and that "is this all there is?" wasn't really something people thought about if for no reason other than that they were too tired to at the end of the day.
This is obviously not a material analysis of nostalgia politics. Life in the 80s in the US sucked compared to today. Life in the UK in the 50s sucked immeasurably more and those were some of the richest societies in the world at both times. Speaking philosophically and especially psychologically the sheer abundance and possibility of modernity, especially now with the internet and social media, is messing with peoples' own sense of the finitude and limits of their individual lives than ever before.
This is excellent and I have more complete thoughts later when everything at work doesn't require the immediate-est of attentions, but Tom Nichols wrote a piece in a similar vein but oriented towards rust-belt politics here:
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/08/the-american-obsession-with-decline/619656/
Love Tom Nichols, great piece
> What being sick in the 80s was like
There's no way. I was born in 2002 and if you ever went to the school nurse in elementary/middle school you were 100% given Ginger Ale and Saltines and that's it. There has to be some other distinct thing lmao
Joe Rogan tried to pull the "cities are bad for people" schtick on Matt Y when he was promoting his book, citing some studies that involved rats getting anxious when they're crowded together, and I think Matt said something to the effect of "well....good thing people aren't rats".
Also, Rogan...."California and LA are liberal hellholes I'm moving to the red-state paradise of...Austin."
Great article. As you asked about the UK - yes, postwar then pasta was fairly unknown, and olive oil only sold in pharmacists (to clean out your ears with, I believe). Use of pasta spread fairly slowly through the 50s and 60s. See the famous April Fools Spaghetti Harvest on BBC TV in 1957 (it's on YouTube, two minutes long), which could only have worked if many people a) knew what pasta was and b) knew very little about it.
In terms of British nostalgia, the only element you identify that doesn't ring true is nostalgia for the Empire, which was always less important for the British culturally than one might think, and doesn't have any contemporary resonance. The First and Second World Wars, with an overwhelming focus on the home front and Europe, are far more important.
So much of this "things used to be better" crap is just that person used to be better (younger) in the past.
"The height of pop culture just happens to be when I was 13-26 years old, why do you ask?" - every generation