Nostalgia Was, in Freud’s Day, an Illness Steeped in the Past. Today, It Can Be a Joyful Emotion That Reframes the Future
It also constitutes a delusion even in the limited terms of narrow self-interest: until the image of the glorious past is challenged, it’s easy for many to hanker after a return to a mythical golden age, when in reality almost all were exploited in the time of Empire, those abroad just rather more than those at home.
Jon Alexander • Citizens: Why the Key to Fixing Everything is All of Us
I’m skeptical about movements to restore culture. Whether the project’s conducted by Hitler or Mussolini, Yukio Mishima or Ronald Reagan, or fundamentalists in Iran, Lybia, or Idaho, or by Wovoka and the Ghost Dancers, or by modern communicants who raise their heads heavenward to receive the body and blood, I just don’t think the hoped-for resurrec
... See moreCharles D'Ambrosio • Loitering
In the digital age, cultural artifacts are eroded by abundance. Timelines layer and compress artwork, images, and artifacts into corners of the internet. In my corner, I stumbled across a speech entitled “Perfume, Defense and David Bowie’s Wedding” delivered by Brian Eno in 1992 at the Sadler Wells Theatre in London. In it, Eno predicted the nonlin... See more
The Future Will Be Like Perfume | Are.na Editorial
nostalgia is powerful and the power builds with time; it often reshapes our memories.
Stephanie Stokes Oliver • Black Ink: Literary Legends on the Peril, Power, and Pleasure of Reading and Writing
To take on the past, we don’t need to be driven by a preternatural enthusiasm for self-exploration, we don’t need to be self-pitying or dementedly furious with parents who were only trying to do their best. All that is required is a weary, dutiful realization that the principal way to overcome our history is to address it. We should try to remember
... See moreAlain de Botton • A Therapeutic Journey
Nostalgia is powerful. It is natural, human, to long for the past, particularly when we can remember our histories as better than they were.