I have always associated the word “nostalgia” with familiar scented candles, music that is forgotten until when it is not, or my favorite blanket that I dragged with me everywhere. All these sentimental moments and objects have the same thing in common each other and that is the past. I want to know, why is that? Why do we have a connection to the past? Why do we curate a way of punishing ourselves by living in the past? These questions can only be answered with speculation and the answers also differ between every individual. I want to take attempt at answering these questions. I argue that our longing for the past not only has the deeper implications of violence and death but also entertains the human quality of wanting something that we can not have.
Before I move on and bring examples to help justify my claim, I would like to first define what I mean by “human quality.” I am referring to ordinary human elements that can be described as less than perfect. These elements are essential to living a normal human life that we will be forced to experience at one point in our life.
In Farewell, My Lovely, the notorious opening scene objectifies a human being just for the color of his skin. The readers in this time period wouldn’t have given much thought to the language of objectifying a black man. This opening scene allows insight for the readers of today to see how life was back then, how it is different from today, and how the cultural values have changed over time. The first line of the book states, “It was one of the mixed blocks over on Central Avenue the blocks that are not yet all negro.” The writer is characterizing black people as an invasive species that is taking what belongs to the whites. When in reality that was never the case. Black people have always been around Central Avenue, but why does the author feel that something is being taken from him like it was better before the “negros” came to central avenue?
That is the toxicity of nostalgia. Where you lie to yourself that everything was better back then. I believe that people do this because it has to do with the fact that we want something that never was. Wanting something that never existed in the first place already dooms the fulfillment of this expectation, which can make people lead to violent outbursts. Which can lead to no happy endings. Like the black man that was killed by Moose. A modern example is the White Christian Nationalists rioting at the capital on January 6th, because they believe the “Christian values” are gone in the USA. As stated by Professor Samuel Perry of the University of Oklahoma on CNN news, when white Americans hear the language of Christian nationalism they feel a sense of nostalgia for a time when the “right kind of people” had cultural-political influence. When minorities hear this language they gain hope for a chance of accountability for the past. So to sum White Christian nationalism wants to “take back America,” to satisfy their nostalgia for something that never was.
What’s more tragic than living in the past? What is more heartbreaking than thinking that the grass is greener where you once were compared to where you are now? Why can’t people ever be satisfied with what they have? Nostalgia is meant to reminisce on good memories. It is not meant to torture us and force us to lie to ourselves to the point of destruction.
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I think your points about nostalgia are really important for our discussion of noir, as people tend to think the descent into the darkness started when things stopped being the way they used to. They long for this time before the darkness, however, when often than not the darkness existed much worse then, but many were ignorant of it. You can see this especially in arguments today about how this generation is sensitive, but the reality is that many marginalized people suffered in silence and the darkness. Now that they are demanding a space for them in society, the people who had it easy before feel their place threatened, like it is a zero-sum game. However, there is a spot for everyone if we look toward the future rather than focusing on a gilded past.