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“The Greek word for ‘return’ is nostos. Algos means ‘suffering.’ So nostalgia is the suffering caused by the unresolved desire to return.
– Milan Kundera, ignorance
Nostalgia is a powerful emotion. A coping mechanism, inspiration, or manipulative rhetorical device. For some time, the people of the West have found themselves recruited on the battlefield of the mind. Society has been reshaping itself or being reshaped at a feverish pace for decades. Nostalgia has proven to be a powerful weapon in the arsenals of every faction on that battlefield.
The power of contrast should never be underestimated. Humans are living, breathing pattern recognition machines. We can only compare the proposed plans and current circumstances with historical results. This is normal, and this is healthy: it allows the human mind to achieve some degree of confidence in predicting what will happen next. The human mind hates unpredictability more than anything else. The unknown noises in the dark are far more terrifying than the wild animals on the ridgeline that you can observe and predict.
The system knows that variation carries such power, because it allows for criticism. This has been Florida State's strength during the coronavirus crisis, for example. Without a country free of lockdowns and mandates, imposing the same conditions on all residents across the board would have caused less negative feelings toward those measures. This was the real cause of the mass psychosis and peer pressure of that era. It's much harder to get someone to take a bite out of a doggedly offered poop sandwich when there are other options.
“The past is a candle in the distance: too close to withdraw, too far for comfort.”
-Amy Bloom, far
“Hireath” is an old Welsh word that describes a feeling of homesickness for something that no longer exists or perhaps never existed. Millennials straddle the pre-9/11 Old World and the New World, carrying memories of a more confident society with far greater prosperity and unity than we have now. These feelings are amplified by the fact that due to their age, the entire pre-transformation era was viewed through the rose-colored glasses of childhood. Essentially, millennials are too young to remember the 1992 Los Angeles riots or the Oklahoma City bombing with any sense of clarity or context, but they are old enough to remember when innocence was valued and optimism about the future was common.
This contrast between a less anxious past and a present consisting of never-ending psychological warfare can be many things. The past can be pointed out as a critique of the extent to which we have fallen and been thrown in the faces of the ruling regime as an opposition. It can also be a coping mechanism, whether healthy or unhealthy. From vaporwave to house, from filtered edits of 1980s Miami to contemplation of the Roman Empire, the aesthetics and contrasts of the past return as strong as the present does not embody Lovecraft.
My personal favorite example of this is the meteoric return of Creed. While the band broke up in 2004, they were miraculously brought back to life. A video of the 2001 Thanksgiving halftime show they performed in Dallas has gone viral. Set just two months after 9/11, this snapshot in time captured the optimism of the time and the resilience of its people. The video entered the narrative bloodstream, sparking remarks about how “we were a real country” and with it the demand that we deserved something better because we had a better day.
Shortly thereafter the Texas Rangers began heading toward the World Series after a rough start. The team gave Creed credit for their comeback, as they started playing constantly in the locker room for motivation. Home games in Dallas blared “Higher” and “My Sacrifice,” prompting fans to sing along in a huge chorus. The Rangers would go on to win the World Series, with Creed attending the game with Jerseys and a newly announced tour across the United States. The winner of this season of The Voice was a burly white man singing Creed's song “Higher” during his finale. In the dark time of “It's Over” lie the burning embers of “We're Back.”
“Every act of rebellion expresses a longing for innocence and an appeal to the essence of existence.”
-Albert Camus, The rebel
But the system also recognizes the power of variation. The solution to this problem was to demolish or change the past. Beloved franchises that influence culture are being vilely slaughtered by the likes of Kathleen Kennedy. Historical fiction films and shows are produced to impose contemporary standards of gender, diversity, and satirical satire on our past. Suddenly, there were always black Scandinavians and African Roman soldiers in Britain, their conquests and achievements of history's greats “reimagined” to give credit to someone else. Wikipedia is edited, and classical literature and its heroes are “reimagined” and judged through a contemporary lens.
Visual media is clearly the most powerful way to do this. string like Weird things It seeks to recreate the most popular possible representation of the 1980s, only to subtly sneak in the values the system wishes to promote as if this situation had always been the norm. Yellowstone It receives critical acclaim only for tough cowboys and patriarchal breeds to spend their spare moments promoting that a good man should be a feminist. Like an angler fish with a nice taste and a venomous bite, designed to entertain you enough to the point where vandalism can creep in.
This adds a certain sense of urgency to stop the rot. That's why we must promote and share the best parts of our past, even if it's just a halftime show performed by Creed. Those of us who remember the time before the world passed must pass on what was normal and what was good to the generations born within the throes of the underworld who don't know any better. It is our duty to shout from the rooftops that this is not the best we can do, and not the best we have ever done. Even if the past should remain in the past, it provides a blueprint for the right kind of future.
This article was published in Bitcoin Magazine “Preliminary issue.” Click here For your annual subscription to Bitcoin Magazine.
Click here to download a PDF of this article.
