The Promise of Nostalgia

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By contrast, Lears notes the continuing appeal of nostalgia--from Happy Days reruns to Civil War paraphernalia--for everyday Americans and wonders why this should cause such consternation among intellectual elites: 'Surely the longing for times lost deserves to be treated as more than a symptom of intellectual weakness. Surely the devotees of a past Golden Age deserve as much credibility as those whose Golden Age lies in the future. Why grant legitimacy to one form of sentimentality and not the other?'

Nostalgia, he says, doesn't necessarily mean a retreat from the future; it might actually aid us in efforts to create a better society. The environmental movement, for instance, has shown that the pursuit of progress sometimes causes more problems than it solves. 'Renewed respect for nostalgia could provide a powerful antidote to linear notions of progress--by underwriting the conviction that once, at least in some ways, life was more humane and satisfying than it is today,' he writes.

'There is no doubt that nostalgia can cripple serious thought,' Lears admits--just as blind allegiance to progress can. But it can also offer an important insight often overlooked in the hurly-burly of our quest for technological and economic innovation: 'the recognition that something of value might have been lost on the way to the present.

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