Why do people think that "it was better before"?

[Raphael]

Why do some people think that things were better before? Why do they dream about the "good old times"?

This is strange because sometimes older people share stories about how life was difficult before and points out that we are living in abundance today (at least in the developed world, and when the pandemic will be over).

Do people just loose their memory, or only focus on the positives, or lack education?

What are the psychological mechanisms behind these ideas?

 

[Tim R]

That's nostalgia. Nobody perceives the sensory impressions that affect him unfiltered. We involuntarily filter what we see and hear into important and unimportant things (our memories) and since people constantly rearrange and reinterpret their memories throughout their lives, some memories become more important than others. 

Beautiful and pleasant events seem to be more permanent than sad or boring ones. I guess that's because people are constantly trying to reshape their memories to generate the most successful and happy biography possible. I mean, who would pretend to have led a meaningless life full of failures and embarrassments? On the other hand, sad events can also be permanent (perhaps even more permanent than events that one perceived as beautiful or pleasant) due to their intensity, since it's important whether such an event shaped and changed your life or whether it was decisive in some way. 

Also you could think of Nostalgia as a mechanism to balance your psychic state, especially during rough times (like this whole damn year). Sort of an emotional escape door. Basking in pleasant memories to temporarily forget the shit of today

In German there's a word called "Ostalgie", which refers to nostalgia towards the DDR (eastern part of Germany). And the DDR wasn't exactly a nice place, and it was certainly not a nice place compared with western Germany, especially not nowadays, which is why "Ostalgie" is such a strange phenomenon. 

[Nahm]

Before is a warm blanket to sleep in. 

Where is before? 

When is before?

What is before?

[The_Alchemist]

Because there is good in bad and bad in good>

There are ALWAYS good things about situations, take the worst thing to happen to a child;

GREAT! WHAT???? You got it out of the way
Can anything break you now?
Is there anything worse?
You got it out of the way

Good in bad and bad in good.

So why do they think things were better in the past?

Because they were, it just depends on your values and perspective.

[Consept]

I think it's a way to avoid the present and also gives hope that if they're in suffering today there was a time when people weren't and maybe they could get back to that one day. To give up hope is to live in the present and most people are trying to avoid that 

[aurum]

@Raphael

Part of it could certainly just be a clinging to the past. Or a “grass is always greener” effect that the mind likes to play on itself.

But what I see is that the narrative of societal “development” is largely false.

This narrative essentially says that we were primitive, dumb apes and that we’ve over come that through modern technology and human civilization.
 

In other words, it’s a belief that life was “nasty, brutish and short” as Hobbes puts it. But over time we’ve overcome nature to make it better.

In some comes that may be true. It’s 1000x more comfortable and less risky to travel around the world than it would have been before modern civilization. And yet, with all these supposed advancements, what has been lost?

For instance, you likely do not grow or procure your own food. This would never have happened before modern civilization. While this may be more efficient, what is the cost of something like that? One cost is that you are totally disconnected from the food you eat. You have no idea how it was made and what went into that.

Another example could be the shift from manual labor to knowledge workers. Modern society incentivizes people who work with their head (engineers. CEOs, programmers, etc) and tends to disincentivize manual labor. What is the cost of that? Perhaps that we now live sedentary lifestyles and must use the money we make at our job in order to purchase a gym membership or a personal trainer.

Another example could be the development of temperature control, i.e heating and air conditioning. What is the cost of that? Well it you study something like Wim Hof method, you know that the body is highly adaptive and can be trained. In fact, extreme temperatures can be tremendous mental and physical benefits, e.g ice baths and saunas.

My point is that we have made many attempts to try and control life. And we associate these attempts at control with progress, not understanding their true costs.

So I think there is something to the “good ol days” narrative, albeit for different reasons than many people would claim.

[JosephKnecht]

1 hour ago, Raphael said:

Why do some people think that things were better before? Why do they dream about the "good old times"?

Because people resist change. They would rather have predictable hell, than unpredictable heaven. 

[No Self]

[Osaid]

Nostalgia. People add sentimental value on top of what was before.

[Raphael]

Thanks for your answers guys.

I also want to add that it seems like the fast progress and increasing complexities in societies makes many people unable to handle change and cause them to cling to the past.

[Raphael]

On 12/26/2020 at 7:50 PM, aurum said:

In other words, it’s a belief that life was “nasty, brutish and short” as Hobbes puts it. But over time we’ve overcome nature to make it better.

In some comes that may be true. It’s 1000x more comfortable and less risky to travel around the world than it would have been before modern civilization. And yet, with all these supposed advancements, what has been lost?

For instance, you likely do not grow or procure your own food. This would never have happened before modern civilization. While this may be more efficient, what is the cost of something like that? One cost is that you are totally disconnected from the food you eat. You have no idea how it was made and what went into that.

Another example could be the shift from manual labor to knowledge workers. Modern society incentivizes people who work with their head (engineers. CEOs, programmers, etc) and tends to disincentivize manual labor. What is the cost of that? Perhaps that we now live sedentary lifestyles and must use the money we make at our job in order to purchase a gym membership or a personal trainer.

Another example could be the development of temperature control, i.e heating and air conditioning. What is the cost of that? Well it you study something like Wim Hof method, you know that the body is highly adaptive and can be trained. In fact, extreme temperatures can be tremendous mental and physical benefits, e.g ice baths and saunas.

My point is that we have made many attempts to try and control life. And we associate these attempts at control with progress, not understanding their true costs.

So I think there is something to the “good ol days” narrative, albeit for different reasons than many people would claim.

Your answer is interesting.

Do you think that all of these progresses includes restructuring human activities to be more focused on certain aspects of life rather than other one? And also creating new form of activities (like going to the gym) in order to deal with the deficiency created by those changes?

Would there be activities that could be eliminated without consequences?

[aurum]

39 minutes ago, Raphael said:

Do you think that all of these progresses includes restructuring human activities to be more focused on certain aspects of life rather than other one?

Absolutely.

The way our economic system works is that you specialize your talents in one particular area in order to then make a wage from that skill. That wage then pays for all the other things that you lack skill in (growing food, constructing shelter etc), which someone else is turn has specialized in.

The more we do this, the better we get at it. Someone who has specialized in technology can invent something for farmers that now allows a single farmer to feed massive amounts of people. Now even less people need to be farmers and procure food directly. And those people who are now "free" from doing that can in turn specialize in creating even more powerful technology. Which will then make farming even more efficient.

So certain activities are incentivized and some are dis-incentivized. You not are incentivized to procure your own food, you are incentivized to sit in an office and learn programming.

This works fine. Except until we realize that we've completely thrown off the balance of the ecology.

55 minutes ago, Raphael said:

And also creating new form of activities (like going to the gym) in order to deal with the deficiency created by those changes?

Yes exactly, you got it.

Who needs a gym if you're hunting or farming all day? In fact, rather than going to the gym to get glamour muscles, physical strength would just be pragmatic. If I'm stronger, I can do more labor. That would be the only purpose.

I also used the example of ice baths and saunas. But if someone lived more directly with nature, such activities would likely be unnecessary because they would be exposed to the natural temperature variations.

Another example could be entertainment. We now pay specialists to entertain us (movies, music, comedy etc). In the absence of specialization, any entertainment would likely be self-generated.

[Raphael]

12 hours ago, aurum said:

So certain activities are incentivized and some are dis-incentivized. You not are incentivized to procure your own food, you are incentivized to sit in an office and learn programming.

This works fine. Except until we realize that we've completely thrown off the balance of the ecology.

Yeah, and also creating deficiencies in some activities looks fine for me as long as we can cover the necessary need. Going to the gym 3 times per week is enough to stay fit while we can still have a cognitively demanding job.

But, to go back to the subject it looks like it's always the same thing. People who think that "it was better before" think that way because for many years they worked and lived by exercising some parts of their brain (or body) and now need to change, but have trouble to change because it looks like they are loosing some stuff (and it can be true in some cases) and are also usually older and more rigid.