WEBVTT - The Nostalgia Factory 0:00:09.400 --> 0:00:12.600 I spent a lot of money, I spent a lot 0:00:12.640 --> 0:00:17.000 of time. That trip remained to Hollywood. Still, for all 0:00:17.040 --> 0:00:19.840 the things you could find an out of bad, do 0:00:20.120 --> 0:00:28.840 you make it? This is the stuff of life, and 0:00:28.880 --> 0:00:32.199 I'm your host, Julie Douglas. In our last episode, we 0:00:32.240 --> 0:00:35.640 explored adolescence, the time when we lived our lives like 0:00:35.680 --> 0:00:38.000 a fever dream and carved out some of our most 0:00:38.159 --> 0:00:42.240 poignant memories. Now we look at how those memories become 0:00:42.320 --> 0:00:45.720 the fertile ground of nostalgia, and how nostalgia works on 0:00:45.800 --> 0:00:50.320 us personally, politically, and culturally. And this way, nostalgia is 0:00:50.360 --> 0:00:53.880 a time machine, stringing together memories to give meaning to 0:00:53.920 --> 0:00:59.200 the present and framing our expectations for the future. I 0:00:59.640 --> 0:01:04.000 my fring was so cold for relicing. That's Curtis. We 0:01:04.120 --> 0:01:06.319 met him in a Washington, d C. Park on the 0:01:06.400 --> 0:01:09.920 evening of President Trump's inauguration, a moment in time when 0:01:09.959 --> 0:01:13.080 many in the US were taking time to reflect. Some 0:01:13.160 --> 0:01:16.360 were jubilant with nostalgia and the idea that we're returning 0:01:16.400 --> 0:01:19.360 to another era, Like Dan, who was on his way 0:01:19.360 --> 0:01:22.679 back from inauguration festivities, We're going to return to the 0:01:22.720 --> 0:01:26.080 constitutional status where people can work to be free, where 0:01:26.080 --> 0:01:28.560 they can work for merit, where they can work for 0:01:28.600 --> 0:01:31.120 their future. And I honestly believe we're in the rising 0:01:31.160 --> 0:01:32.920 tide that will lift all boats if you let it. 0:01:35.840 --> 0:01:40.360 Some people like Curtis Wax nostalgic about in America that 0:01:40.440 --> 0:01:43.440 he thinks no longer exists. The biggest thing in all 0:01:43.480 --> 0:01:47.680 these ways is everybody out here protesting. I spent the 0:01:47.720 --> 0:01:51.320 same amount of time protesting volunteering. We wouldn't have anything 0:01:51.320 --> 0:01:56.240 to protest over. We wouldn't they be anything of protest 0:01:56.320 --> 0:01:59.200 over everyone the beginning, everybody like we used to Nolden 0:01:59.200 --> 0:02:12.000 America helping your neighbors. In this episode Our House Stuff Works, 0:02:12.040 --> 0:02:17.720 coworkers Holly Fry and Christopher Hesiotus discussed the pitfalls of nostalgia. 0:02:18.320 --> 0:02:21.760 I think if you're grasping at the way things used 0:02:21.760 --> 0:02:25.120 to be and imagine that they're better, um, even if 0:02:25.120 --> 0:02:29.520 they were better in certain measurable ways, it can prevent 0:02:29.680 --> 0:02:32.440 you from looking at the world around you as it is. 0:02:33.520 --> 0:02:36.560 And we talked to psychologist Clay Rutledge about how nostalgia 0:02:36.600 --> 0:02:39.680 may just be one of the most potent survival tools 0:02:39.720 --> 0:02:43.480 in our psychological tool kits. The people who are naturally 0:02:43.560 --> 0:02:47.079 using nostalgia as the age seem to be doing pretty 0:02:47.080 --> 0:02:51.359 well in terms of psychological health. But first we talked 0:02:51.360 --> 0:02:55.720 to a professional antique picker, Larry Singleton. He's the decor 0:02:55.840 --> 0:02:58.680 manager of Cracker Barrel and he curates a kind of 0:02:58.720 --> 0:03:03.480 nostalgic nuity for sixty two Cracker Barrel stores in the 0:03:03.560 --> 0:03:08.160 United States, complete with a warehouse full of artifacts at 0:03:08.200 --> 0:03:11.440 the ready for new store openings. I can walk out 0:03:11.440 --> 0:03:16.760 in our warehouse every day and and see something that 0:03:17.360 --> 0:03:20.239 brings back, brings that back to me. It brings back 0:03:20.280 --> 0:03:24.440 that memory of my dad, you know, teaching me how 0:03:24.480 --> 0:03:33.360 to drive a T Model truck. I remember, you know, 0:03:33.480 --> 0:03:37.520 him telling me the stories of his adventures growing up 0:03:37.600 --> 0:03:41.680 and taking a trip in a T Model to Indiana 0:03:41.800 --> 0:03:45.320 with a friend, you know, to pick up rabbits. They 0:03:45.320 --> 0:03:47.880 were going to go into the raising rabbit business. You 0:03:47.920 --> 0:03:50.640 know that. You know, it just kind of when I 0:03:50.680 --> 0:03:53.840 see something like that here or you know, it just 0:03:54.040 --> 0:03:57.480 it brings back family. It brings back, you know, that 0:03:58.240 --> 0:04:02.760 connection to my history three and my family's history. It 0:04:02.920 --> 0:04:05.480 just you know, and it and it's it's always a 0:04:05.520 --> 0:04:08.760 good feeling, you know, it's always that connection to him. 0:04:08.960 --> 0:04:13.280 You know, Dan w. Evans opened that first Cracker Barrel 0:04:13.520 --> 0:04:17.600 in Lebanon, Tennessee. Danny decided to you know, he'd come 0:04:17.680 --> 0:04:19.840 up with the idea, you know, him and some folks 0:04:19.920 --> 0:04:23.280 about doing a little place out on the interstate for 0:04:23.440 --> 0:04:27.960 families to stop and uh, you know, serve them food 0:04:28.040 --> 0:04:31.240 and serve some gasoline. He got mom and dad to 0:04:31.279 --> 0:04:35.679 come in and set up the first first restaurant, uh, 0:04:35.800 --> 0:04:40.240 and that was in September nineteen. Each Cracker Barrel has 0:04:40.240 --> 0:04:43.720 a kind of old tiny general store looked to it 0:04:43.760 --> 0:04:47.279 with rocking chairs on the front porch, creating that old 0:04:48.240 --> 0:04:52.279 atmosphere in that field that he he had remembered. He 0:04:52.320 --> 0:04:55.760 brought that to uh, you know, to a place out 0:04:55.760 --> 0:04:58.400 on the interstates that other people could you know, set 0:04:58.480 --> 0:05:03.039 set in and enjoy. Slow down, you know, slow down 0:05:03.040 --> 0:05:06.960 and take it easy. The retail area has all kinds 0:05:07.000 --> 0:05:10.000 of wears, from sweets and candles to quilts and old 0:05:10.000 --> 0:05:13.960 fashioned toys. Inside the restaurant, trays of chicken and dumplings 0:05:14.000 --> 0:05:17.560 emerged from the kitchen. Everywhere you look, there's an admixture 0:05:17.600 --> 0:05:21.719 of antiques and objects that evoke by gone days. Talking 0:05:21.960 --> 0:05:25.640 black and white family photos, butter churn a fiddle hanging 0:05:25.680 --> 0:05:28.960 above that. Oh, I look at the things we hail 0:05:29.120 --> 0:05:31.760 and the tools and the you know, I mean it 0:05:31.920 --> 0:05:35.520 is what you know, these are the things that forged 0:05:35.680 --> 0:05:39.560 and made our country. You know, these these farms, these 0:05:39.640 --> 0:05:44.040 rural communities, these you know, as they were building industries 0:05:44.120 --> 0:05:46.640 and making things, you know, these are all the things 0:05:46.680 --> 0:05:49.680 they used to make that. A lot of the pieces 0:05:49.720 --> 0:05:53.279 are you know, from when you know, America was really 0:05:53.320 --> 0:05:58.800 really growing and and you know, uh, we're establishing you know, 0:05:59.080 --> 0:06:02.720 I don't know about pioneers, but I mean I think 0:06:02.760 --> 0:06:07.520 they were established in industry and community, you know, so 0:06:07.560 --> 0:06:11.560 I think they they do have a connection. The antiques 0:06:11.560 --> 0:06:14.920 differ from store to store, but among the five thousand items, 0:06:14.920 --> 0:06:19.280 each store has the same. Five types of antiques can 0:06:19.320 --> 0:06:23.080 be found. An ox yoke and a horseshoe hang above 0:06:23.160 --> 0:06:26.320 each front door, a traffic light over the entrance to 0:06:26.320 --> 0:06:29.640 the restrooms, a wall telephone next to the mantel, a 0:06:29.720 --> 0:06:32.839 cracker barrel with a checkerboard in front of the fireplace, 0:06:33.279 --> 0:06:36.159 and a deer head and a rifle over the mantel. 0:06:37.279 --> 0:06:39.720 We just kind of follow that tradition, you know, the 0:06:40.320 --> 0:06:44.000 deer head and the gun that mantle that fireplace is 0:06:44.080 --> 0:06:49.080 just a central focus when you come into the dining room. 0:06:49.240 --> 0:06:53.120 So you know, it's it's kind of it's kind of 0:06:53.120 --> 0:06:57.520 from memory. It's kind of from you know, our you know, 0:06:58.080 --> 0:07:03.760 we've seen our places and stores and cabins and houses, 0:07:03.839 --> 0:07:06.440 and that's you know a lot of times that's that's 0:07:06.480 --> 0:07:11.400 what they use. So we've just kind of followed that tradition. Larry, 0:07:11.480 --> 0:07:14.800 who has purchased more than six hundred thousand original artifacts 0:07:14.800 --> 0:07:17.440 over the years for Cracker Barrel, comes from a family 0:07:17.520 --> 0:07:20.680 of antique pickers, and in some ways, the warehouse that 0:07:20.760 --> 0:07:26.960 contains Cracker Barrel antiques also contains Larry's memories. I mean 0:07:27.000 --> 0:07:29.200 a lot of it's, you know, the memory of my 0:07:29.200 --> 0:07:32.640 my family and mom and dad, and a lot of 0:07:32.640 --> 0:07:35.280 it is today it's it's about the memories of the 0:07:35.280 --> 0:07:38.240 guys that I uh, you know, have dealt with us 0:07:38.280 --> 0:07:41.160 and bought from over the years. And there's been a 0:07:41.200 --> 0:07:45.520 lot of interested phones, you know, so that they're great memories, 0:07:45.600 --> 0:07:48.600 you know, they really are those guys is you know, 0:07:48.640 --> 0:08:00.320 they were my teachers, just like my mom and dad. Yeah, 0:08:18.360 --> 0:08:21.600 Nostalgia is a powerful driver and for something it feels 0:08:21.640 --> 0:08:24.440 like an actual physical ache for the absence of the 0:08:24.480 --> 0:08:27.760 thing or person that was loved and lost suddenly resurrected 0:08:27.760 --> 0:08:30.840 in the memory like an apparition. Perhaps this is why 0:08:31.000 --> 0:08:34.800 during the American Civil War the song Home, Sweet Home 0:08:34.960 --> 0:08:38.760 was banned from being played. The homesickness, the depression and 0:08:38.800 --> 0:08:42.640 anxiety that resulted from the song's yearning sentiment was thought 0:08:42.720 --> 0:08:48.000 to stoke what was regarded as a disease of nostalgia. 0:08:48.559 --> 0:08:51.680 In fact, there were more than fifty cases recorded of 0:08:51.760 --> 0:08:55.600 nostalgia in the General Surgeon's records, with seventy four deaths 0:08:55.640 --> 0:08:59.680 attributed to nostalgia during the Civil War. Today, we better 0:08:59.800 --> 0:09:02.520 under stand the bitter sweet nature of nostalgia and the 0:09:02.520 --> 0:09:05.599 ways the bitter can be tamped down and the sweetness 0:09:05.960 --> 0:09:09.360 once again offered up, something explored in the A MC 0:09:09.600 --> 0:09:13.880 drama Madman and this scene. Don Draper forwards through Codex 0:09:13.960 --> 0:09:17.160 new slide projector the carousel, using photos of his own 0:09:17.200 --> 0:09:20.320 family from the last decade in front of him, A simpler, 0:09:20.440 --> 0:09:25.120 happier looking life flicks before his eyes. Teddy told me 0:09:25.160 --> 0:09:30.160 that in Greek, nostalgia literally means the pain from an 0:09:30.160 --> 0:09:39.760 old wound. It's a twinge in your heart, far more 0:09:39.760 --> 0:09:50.360 powerful than memory. Alone. This device isn't a spaceship. It's 0:09:50.400 --> 0:10:04.640 a time machine go backwards and forwards. It takes us 0:10:04.640 --> 0:10:15.959 to a place where we ache to go again. It's 0:10:16.000 --> 0:10:26.079 not called the wheel, It's called the carousel. Let's just 0:10:26.160 --> 0:10:33.840 travel the way the child travels round and round, back 0:10:33.880 --> 0:10:42.040 home again to a place where we know we are loved. 0:10:51.520 --> 0:10:54.160 When I started doing the Stalgia research, I wasn't surprised 0:10:54.559 --> 0:10:57.640 that when people engage in nostalgia and makes them happy. 0:10:57.840 --> 0:11:01.880 I mean, look at the marketplace or nostalgia, whether it's 0:11:01.920 --> 0:11:06.760 rebooting movies, rereleasing music, fashions coming back around. I mean, 0:11:06.800 --> 0:11:10.400 nostalgia is big business. Anyone in consumer psychology or in 0:11:10.720 --> 0:11:13.960 behavioral economics can tell you that. My name is Clay Relige. 0:11:14.240 --> 0:11:18.080 I am a social psychologist and professor of psychology at 0:11:18.120 --> 0:11:22.240 North Dakota State University, and I study, among other things, 0:11:22.360 --> 0:11:27.000 the psychology of nostalgia. I'm interested in the big questions. 0:11:27.080 --> 0:11:29.520 So what is it they give us meaning in life? 0:11:29.559 --> 0:11:35.880 How do we cope with insecurities about things like death, loneliness, 0:11:36.520 --> 0:11:40.400 and those sorts of issues that are uniquely human concerns? 0:11:41.360 --> 0:11:45.040 So how does someone who studies nostalgia define it and 0:11:45.120 --> 0:11:54.880 what triggers it Stalgia defined is a sentimental or wistful 0:11:54.960 --> 0:11:59.320 longing for the past. Now what that means for most people, 0:11:59.679 --> 0:12:05.160 based stun our analyzes of over you know, several thousand cases, 0:12:05.480 --> 0:12:09.800 um for sure is nostalgia seems to be these special 0:12:09.840 --> 0:12:13.440 memories that we hold dear, that we cherish, and that 0:12:13.520 --> 0:12:16.960 we bring to mind when we want to revisit the 0:12:17.600 --> 0:12:20.520 you know, some of the more important times in our 0:12:20.559 --> 0:12:22.960 life are the times that we think are really important 0:12:22.960 --> 0:12:24.840 to our our sense of self and our sense of 0:12:24.880 --> 0:12:28.800 meaning in life. So there seems to be two general 0:12:29.240 --> 0:12:34.559 classes of nostalgia triggers. One is, I think the most obvious, 0:12:34.640 --> 0:12:37.320 which is we could call like a sensory trigger ac 0:12:37.360 --> 0:12:41.080 cues that serve as reminders of the past. So they 0:12:41.120 --> 0:12:45.040 might be familiar smells or sits, or things like music. 0:12:45.559 --> 0:12:47.480 You hear an old song from you know, when you 0:12:47.480 --> 0:12:50.559 were a teenager, and it brings to mind the memories 0:12:50.559 --> 0:12:54.520 associate with that. You smell your mom's you know, grandmother's 0:12:54.600 --> 0:12:56.880 apple pie baking in the oven, and it reminds you 0:12:56.920 --> 0:12:59.080 of when you had it when you were a kid. 0:13:01.320 --> 0:13:04.600 Seasonal changes can remind you, you know, the first snowfall 0:13:04.679 --> 0:13:06.400 can remind you of when you were a little kid 0:13:06.400 --> 0:13:09.760 and used to gosside build snowman UM. So there's those 0:13:09.760 --> 0:13:13.800 types of century triggers UM that are really just primes 0:13:13.840 --> 0:13:17.200 of you know, they're just they're just reminding you of 0:13:17.280 --> 0:13:22.720 the past. The second class of triggers has to do 0:13:23.040 --> 0:13:27.760 with feeling a psychological threat. These are things like loneliness, 0:13:28.200 --> 0:13:34.440 feeling meaningless um, even boredom. And what nostalgia seems to 0:13:35.240 --> 0:13:38.080 do is that when people have these sorts of experiences 0:13:38.160 --> 0:13:42.560 that make them feel feel vulnerable UM or scared, or 0:13:42.600 --> 0:13:45.840 some sense of loss and meaninglessness UM, they bring to 0:13:45.920 --> 0:13:50.000 mind these nostalgic memories as a compensatory response or as 0:13:50.040 --> 0:13:54.280 a coping mechanism UM to reassure themselves, to right the ship, 0:13:54.400 --> 0:13:56.880 to feel like you know, no, I'm fine. So loneliness 0:13:57.000 --> 0:13:59.160 is a good example because it's a very powerful trigger 0:13:59.160 --> 0:14:03.160 of nostalgia. When you feel lonely UM, it inspires you 0:14:03.360 --> 0:14:06.480 to remind yourself of times where you've had, you know, 0:14:06.559 --> 0:14:10.480 relationships with people, and to remind you to remind yourself 0:14:10.480 --> 0:14:12.200 that there are people that care about you, There are 0:14:12.240 --> 0:14:14.600 people that you know love you, that you have had 0:14:14.640 --> 0:14:19.120 experiences in your life of relationship success, and you can 0:14:19.240 --> 0:14:22.800 use those memories as a way to boost your confidence. 0:14:22.840 --> 0:14:25.480 You're into personal confidence that you know this. This might 0:14:25.520 --> 0:14:27.600 be a tough time, but you can get through it 0:14:27.720 --> 0:14:30.920 and the future is the future of your social life 0:14:31.160 --> 0:14:35.240 could be bright. Again. This can be heavy stuff, especially 0:14:35.320 --> 0:14:40.760 when just the right piece of music hits us don't 0:14:40.880 --> 0:14:52.160 make you take a say, making better. The way I 0:14:52.160 --> 0:14:53.880 think about it is we we kind of have a 0:14:53.920 --> 0:14:56.560 soundtrack for our lives and for different times in our life. 0:14:56.880 --> 0:15:01.120 Music is very meanful. I mean, it's it's pervasive in 0:15:01.160 --> 0:15:03.560 all areas of culture, whether it's you know, religious or 0:15:03.560 --> 0:15:08.360 secular culture. Um, whether it's you know then you know nationalism, 0:15:08.600 --> 0:15:11.720 your national anthem or song junior at church, or even 0:15:11.760 --> 0:15:13.640 just you know, the music you like to listen to 0:15:13.680 --> 0:15:16.360 on your iPod. It does seem to be woven into 0:15:16.440 --> 0:15:20.359 the fabric of of culture. And so it's not surprising 0:15:20.440 --> 0:15:23.240 that that goes hand in hand with when we access 0:15:23.280 --> 0:15:26.160 our memories of wanting, you know, wanting that soundtrack to 0:15:26.200 --> 0:15:32.760 go with them. These snatches of nostalgia do something pretty magical, 0:15:33.280 --> 0:15:37.000 mainly giving a person a sense of continuity, as though 0:15:37.040 --> 0:15:41.280 there's a cohesive self among all the disparate thoughts and 0:15:41.320 --> 0:15:46.480 actions contained in one person self continus is the sense 0:15:46.480 --> 0:15:48.840 of stability and the self that I'm the same person 0:15:49.240 --> 0:15:51.200 that I used to be and even though my life 0:15:51.760 --> 0:15:54.520 you know, goes through twists and turns that you know, 0:15:54.560 --> 0:15:56.720 there's some core part of me or some sense of 0:15:56.760 --> 0:15:59.960 me that remains stable and the same. And this seem 0:16:00.200 --> 0:16:04.240 to be good for psychological well being to feel like 0:16:04.320 --> 0:16:07.200 you have like a stable sense of self. Um. What 0:16:07.320 --> 0:16:11.800 now nostalgia can do, especially in times of upheaval, whether 0:16:11.840 --> 0:16:16.760 it be economic change or major life transitions like going 0:16:16.760 --> 0:16:20.320 off to college or starting a new job or retirement. 0:16:21.000 --> 0:16:23.040 And what nostalgia can do is sort of serve as 0:16:23.040 --> 0:16:27.080 a reminder, allow you to access these memories about who 0:16:27.120 --> 0:16:29.680 you are, who your close friends and your family are 0:16:30.240 --> 0:16:33.720 as a way to um regain some sense of stability. Yeah, 0:16:33.880 --> 0:16:35.760 moving to a new place, I'm starting a new job, 0:16:35.800 --> 0:16:39.280 I'm going off to college and getting a new retire um, 0:16:39.320 --> 0:16:40.960 but I'm still the same person I used to be. 0:16:41.000 --> 0:16:44.280 I still have the same um, you know, thoughts and 0:16:44.280 --> 0:16:49.000 feelings and interests. In Clay's research, he found that people 0:16:49.080 --> 0:16:53.560 who engage in nostalgic reflection get a motivational charge. We 0:16:53.680 --> 0:16:57.000 found that having people listen to nostalgic music, for instance, 0:16:57.440 --> 0:17:01.840 or having them write about a nostalgic memory again um 0:17:02.000 --> 0:17:04.960 increase their desire to meet new people, their willingness to 0:17:05.760 --> 0:17:10.280 um to work with strangers on a task, They're confidence 0:17:10.400 --> 0:17:13.960 that they could solve problems they're having in their relationships, 0:17:14.640 --> 0:17:17.480 and their desire to to make new friends and to 0:17:17.560 --> 0:17:20.440 try new things. So it doesn't just seem to make 0:17:20.440 --> 0:17:23.199 people feel meaningful, doesn't just seem to like make them 0:17:23.240 --> 0:17:29.119 feel energetic. It seems to also mobilize people for pursuing 0:17:29.240 --> 0:17:32.880 new opportunities, which I thought it was really cool because, 0:17:32.920 --> 0:17:34.880 like I said, I mean, we think of nostalgia's, oh, 0:17:34.920 --> 0:17:37.679 it's just you kind of avoiding the president and hiding 0:17:37.680 --> 0:17:39.600 in the past. But it really seems to be a 0:17:39.640 --> 0:17:44.880 catalyst for um future oriented behavior. Again, this comes down 0:17:44.880 --> 0:17:47.400 to a kind of time travel, the ability to move 0:17:47.480 --> 0:17:51.240 between the past, present, and future and create sense from it. 0:17:51.400 --> 0:17:55.080 Something that drove Clay to research nostalgia in the first place. 0:17:56.280 --> 0:17:59.440 When I was in graduate school working down my PhD. 0:18:00.119 --> 0:18:05.200 I was interested in the fact that human beings are 0:18:05.280 --> 0:18:13.280 the only species capable of a very sophisticated appreciation of time. 0:18:13.760 --> 0:18:17.200 By being able to access memories and tell ourselves, are 0:18:17.320 --> 0:18:21.440 you know, fashion our own life narrative? Um, we are 0:18:21.480 --> 0:18:23.679 able to deal with some of the some of the 0:18:23.720 --> 0:18:27.280 consequences of this awareness of time. You know, when we 0:18:27.320 --> 0:18:29.120 can think about the future and think about the fact 0:18:29.160 --> 0:18:30.439 that one day we're going to die, but at the 0:18:30.440 --> 0:18:33.159 same time we can say to ourselves, well, I'm going 0:18:33.200 --> 0:18:34.880 to do everything I can to live the best life. 0:18:34.880 --> 0:18:39.800 I can make a meaningful contribution, to leave a legacy 0:18:39.920 --> 0:18:43.080 and to live on in the memories of others. And 0:18:43.160 --> 0:18:47.280 so that process um of thinking about the future and 0:18:47.320 --> 0:18:50.240 what that might inspire UM in my mind got me 0:18:50.240 --> 0:18:53.159 thinking about the past. How people can use the past, 0:18:53.600 --> 0:18:55.960 use their memories for past as a way to cope 0:18:55.960 --> 0:18:59.960 with these existential anxieties. So that's how I first got 0:19:00.000 --> 0:19:02.880 into it, was just thinking about, well if the if 0:19:02.880 --> 0:19:05.600 you're kind of afraid of the future, can you use 0:19:05.680 --> 0:19:08.480 the past as a way to cope with that fear? Um, 0:19:08.520 --> 0:19:10.360 And then it started going from there, Well, it looks 0:19:10.359 --> 0:19:12.040 like the past can do lots of stuff for us 0:19:17.440 --> 0:19:19.760 and puzzling out the pieces of our lives and how 0:19:19.800 --> 0:19:23.920 they fit together. Nostalgia can be incredibly useful. But there's 0:19:24.000 --> 0:19:27.320 also the temptation to use nostalgia like a movie set, 0:19:27.960 --> 0:19:31.280 rolling it in and out of our lives, mistaking the 0:19:31.359 --> 0:19:35.040 movie set as a reality, and glossing over the details 0:19:35.080 --> 0:19:43.359 that are less charming or wonderful than we've remembered. In 0:19:43.440 --> 0:19:46.320 her essay in the New York Review of Books, Z. D. Smith, 0:19:46.400 --> 0:19:49.919 who is of Jamaican descent, rights of nostalgia, quote, in 0:19:49.960 --> 0:19:53.080 that period, I could not vote marrying my husband, have 0:19:53.280 --> 0:19:56.600 my children work in the university, I work in, or 0:19:56.720 --> 0:20:01.000 live in my neighborhood. Time travel is a dis grecitionary art, 0:20:01.480 --> 0:20:05.480 a pleasure trip for some and a horror story for others. 0:20:07.760 --> 0:20:12.600 The initial like uh uh. The mechanism of it in 0:20:12.680 --> 0:20:15.119 terms of survival is like, oh, it's a coping mechanism, 0:20:15.160 --> 0:20:18.560 and you will be you know, sort of soothed, presumably. 0:20:18.760 --> 0:20:23.320 But instead what's happening is angry. Now used to be better, 0:20:23.760 --> 0:20:26.560 real angry. It's not back then like it. It's there's 0:20:26.600 --> 0:20:29.960 some problem going on where it's not soothing at all anymore. 0:20:30.040 --> 0:20:32.960 It's just like the longing has superseded any sort of 0:20:33.000 --> 0:20:36.719 benefit the pleasant memory had, and now it's sort of 0:20:36.760 --> 0:20:39.000 like this weird anger Maker for a Lot of People 0:20:39.600 --> 0:20:43.480 podcast co host Holly Fry and editor Christopher Hasiotis explore 0:20:43.520 --> 0:20:48.119 the problem of imagining a past that wasn't If you 0:20:48.160 --> 0:20:50.000 look at ed Greece when has written in the seventies 0:20:50.000 --> 0:20:51.320 and the film that came out in the eighties, it's 0:20:51.359 --> 0:20:55.160 looking at the fifties in a very very nostalgic rosie view. 0:20:55.160 --> 0:20:58.840 Everything's great, everyone's dancing, and the dancing is great, but 0:20:58.920 --> 0:21:02.600 it completely ignored as all the social upheaval about around 0:21:02.600 --> 0:21:05.720 the corner. It ignores the poor living conditions for a 0:21:05.720 --> 0:21:09.720 significant amount of the population. And so I wonder if 0:21:09.800 --> 0:21:12.760 we take this thing, which on a personal, you know, 0:21:13.720 --> 0:21:18.320 individual animal basis, is helpful, and if it's applied culturally, 0:21:19.320 --> 0:21:23.840 it prevents us from I don't know, looking accurately at 0:21:23.840 --> 0:21:26.520 our at our own past. Well, first of all, let's 0:21:26.560 --> 0:21:29.200 get it straight, like clearly Greece as a documentary and 0:21:29.240 --> 0:21:32.560 it's accurate. Now, I'm not like a big grease person. 0:21:32.640 --> 0:21:35.840 I just I'm sure there are people that think that's 0:21:35.840 --> 0:21:54.119 exactly what the fifties was. Like you, I know I 0:21:54.160 --> 0:21:56.760 did when my sister watched that movie every two days 0:21:56.880 --> 0:21:58.719 when she was a kid, and I thought, oh, that, well, 0:21:58.760 --> 0:22:01.119 that's what it was like a long time ago, in 0:22:01.160 --> 0:22:04.080 the past, years ago, at the time you were innocent 0:22:04.160 --> 0:22:05.960 in that you were ignorant of the things going on 0:22:06.040 --> 0:22:09.480 around you. So it feels like that time was wonderful 0:22:09.640 --> 0:22:13.959 and delightful and full of nothing but glitter and breakfast cereal. 0:22:14.080 --> 0:22:18.120 But in fact, really you're just longing for the time 0:22:18.160 --> 0:22:22.679 when you didn't know better. The problem is that this 0:22:22.800 --> 0:22:26.959 kind of rhetoric, this a simpler time, become such an 0:22:27.119 --> 0:22:32.359 ingrained idea that it's taken as a universal truth, which 0:22:32.400 --> 0:22:34.960 is what I think nostalgia does, at least when it's 0:22:35.000 --> 0:22:38.359 like this sort of super crowdsourced and nostalgia, there was 0:22:38.440 --> 0:22:42.200 one truth. It was great, we had good times all 0:22:42.200 --> 0:22:45.640 the time. And it's like, no, it's there's so much 0:22:45.720 --> 0:22:48.600 more texture to any given moment in history than that 0:22:48.960 --> 0:22:51.600 times before you were even born. You look back on 0:22:51.680 --> 0:22:54.280 these these things that must have been great back then. 0:22:54.359 --> 0:22:56.879 But you know, if you gave me a time machine, 0:22:56.880 --> 0:22:58.240 I could take you somewhere and show you that it 0:22:58.320 --> 0:23:00.879 was much worse than you think it was. And when 0:23:00.960 --> 0:23:04.600 it comes to childhood nostalgia, the memories created in the 0:23:04.640 --> 0:23:08.120 nostalgia factories of the mind can be very different from 0:23:08.160 --> 0:23:15.240 other family members experiences. I sort of experience that with 0:23:15.440 --> 0:23:18.439 my siblings sometimes and my friends. I don't know if 0:23:18.440 --> 0:23:20.520 it's just because I'm super cynical, but like, I mean, 0:23:20.560 --> 0:23:23.440 like any family, we had complicated stuff and it sometimes 0:23:23.440 --> 0:23:27.000 we're great and sometimes weren't. But as we've aged and 0:23:27.040 --> 0:23:29.680 like my mom has passed, and when my siblings talk 0:23:29.720 --> 0:23:32.160 about are growing up years and there's a big gap 0:23:32.200 --> 0:23:34.800 between them and me, So there's there's a different childhood 0:23:34.840 --> 0:23:37.240 experience as part of it. But like they'll just talk 0:23:37.280 --> 0:23:41.200 about like this magical, wonderful thing, and I'm like, did 0:23:41.240 --> 0:23:44.080 we grow up in the same house? Like sometimes it 0:23:44.160 --> 0:23:48.760 was cool, but do you remember the Okay, okay, hey 0:23:48.800 --> 0:23:51.879 you're happy. I'm not gonna mess it up. And it 0:23:52.000 --> 0:23:54.439 is kind of an interesting I mean, that's it's like 0:23:54.520 --> 0:23:57.360 nostalgia has driven the bus at that point, and it's 0:23:57.400 --> 0:24:00.480 kind of like covering the puddles that were ad and 0:24:01.280 --> 0:24:05.680 just whitewashing the yucky bits and everything's good. It's all happy. 0:24:06.000 --> 0:24:09.240 Remember those amazing cakes that we got on our birthday, 0:24:09.320 --> 0:24:11.480 So those we're pretty great, And maybe that's a you 0:24:11.520 --> 0:24:14.040 know again, that's a cultural survival mechanism. It keeps your 0:24:14.040 --> 0:24:16.040 family closer that if you actually had to talk about 0:24:16.080 --> 0:24:18.520 all the things that were complicated all the time with 0:24:18.560 --> 0:24:22.960 your family, families wouldn't stick together. The problem is when 0:24:23.000 --> 0:24:28.520 nostalgia is used as a manipulating force, fomenting hyper nationalistic 0:24:28.680 --> 0:24:32.600 pride that would have wide swaths of the population cast 0:24:32.640 --> 0:24:36.320 aside in favor of an America that never really existed 0:24:36.359 --> 0:24:38.159 in the first place. And I wonder how much of 0:24:38.160 --> 0:24:40.960 that is at play with UM A lot of what's 0:24:41.000 --> 0:24:43.120 going on around the world right now politically in terms 0:24:43.200 --> 0:24:46.480 of I mean, it's so we're recording a couple of 0:24:46.520 --> 0:24:49.520 days after the vote for the Brexit and the referendum 0:24:49.640 --> 0:24:52.639 on that it seems like from a lot of the 0:24:52.720 --> 0:24:56.600 data that was driven by the older electorate UM and 0:24:56.640 --> 0:24:58.560 a lot of people who express that they are really 0:24:59.600 --> 0:25:02.320 no check for lack of a better word, about the 0:25:02.359 --> 0:25:05.679 way things used to be before the EU before you know, 0:25:05.840 --> 0:25:09.679 there was before borders were as open, before labor markets 0:25:09.680 --> 0:25:12.920 were as open. And I think we see that a 0:25:12.960 --> 0:25:15.200 lot of that in the US too, in certain political movements, 0:25:15.560 --> 0:25:17.960 people wanting things to be the way they were when 0:25:18.840 --> 0:25:21.040 when they were younger, or when they understood things better 0:25:21.240 --> 0:25:24.520 when there was more. Do you think they were exactly 0:25:26.240 --> 0:25:31.040 To all Americans tonight, in all of our cities and 0:25:31.119 --> 0:25:36.480 in all of our towns, I make this promise. We 0:25:36.520 --> 0:25:45.360 will make America strong again. We will make America proud again, 0:25:46.960 --> 0:25:54.119 we will make America safe again, and we will make 0:25:54.240 --> 0:25:58.480 America great again. To be clear, nobody here is begrudging 0:25:58.520 --> 0:26:01.919 anyone of their nostalgia used in its best form. It 0:26:01.920 --> 0:26:04.719 can be something when you return to again and again, 0:26:05.200 --> 0:26:11.720 propping us up when we need it. I um bathe 0:26:11.760 --> 0:26:13.840 in it, do you know what I mean? Like our 0:26:14.000 --> 0:26:18.000 entire house, my husband is the same, is filled with 0:26:18.040 --> 0:26:21.720 Star Wars toys that we had when we were kids, 0:26:21.760 --> 0:26:24.080 all the way up to new stuffs, kind of like this, 0:26:24.080 --> 0:26:26.840 this hallway that's always open to you to like kind 0:26:26.880 --> 0:26:30.520 of still remember and retain that childlike wonder at something. 0:26:45.880 --> 0:26:50.080 Holly's idea of nostalgia is beautiful, even helpful, in thinking 0:26:50.119 --> 0:26:53.719 of the past as a touchstone to something elemental about 0:26:53.760 --> 0:26:58.000 our existence, something full of awe, a reminder that on 0:26:58.080 --> 0:27:02.600 this planet, in this galaxy, in this universe, we somehow 0:27:03.160 --> 0:27:25.159