The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/Looking at the Past: Nostalgia as Technique in The Naked and the Dead and For Whom the Bell Tolls: Difference between revisions
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numerous examples of nostalgia assuming a kind of starring role across mediums, from blockbuster films, such as ''Forrest Gump'' or ''Titanic,'' to popular television shows, music, books, and fashion. Nostalgia is also closely associated with certain presidents, such as Ronald Reagan, or with presidential eras, like John F. Kennedy’s Camelot. | numerous examples of nostalgia assuming a kind of starring role across mediums, from blockbuster films, such as ''Forrest Gump'' or ''Titanic,'' to popular television shows, music, books, and fashion. Nostalgia is also closely associated with certain presidents, such as Ronald Reagan, or with presidential eras, like John F. Kennedy’s Camelot. | ||
Much of nostalgia’s allure is in providing people with a way to explain the past in favorable terms, a kind of self-persuasion or possibly even delusion. According to Linda Charnes, “We cannot, nor would we want to, abandon the important project of understanding how people lived in times before | Much of nostalgia’s allure is in providing people with a way to explain the past in favorable terms, a kind of self-persuasion or possibly even delusion. According to Linda Charnes, “We cannot, nor would we want to, abandon the important project of understanding how people lived in times before ours—what they experienced in their own cultural present.”{{sfn|Charnes|2009|p=73}} She contends, however, that scholars also need to “acknowledge the inherent limitations of the cognitive framework that continues to organize our ideological relationship to time.”{{sfn|Charnes|2009|p=73}} Since life unfolds in chronological terms, taking measure of past milestones or events seems logical. Yet, when given a fanciful spin, nostalgia is less history and more fairytale. | ||
ours—what they experienced in their own cultural present.”{{sfn|Charnes|2009|p=73}} She contends, however, that scholars also need to “acknowledge the inherent limitations of the cognitive framework that continues to organize our ideological relationship to time.”{{sfn|Charnes|2009|p=73}} Since life unfolds in chronological terms, taking measure of past milestones or events seems logical. Yet, when given a fanciful spin, nostalgia is less history and more fairytale. | |||
Despite the overriding negativity surrounding nostalgia—basically, that it strips history of its complexities and enables individuals and society to yearn for a mythical past—a careful examination uncovers a different approach to looking at the past. From this alternative perspective, nostalgia can be interpreted as a positive force. Or, as Christine Sprengler explains, “[nostalgia] tells us something about our own historical consciousness, about the myths we construct and circulate and about our desire to make history meaningful on a personal and collective level.”{{sfn|Sprengler|2009|p=3}} Rather than simply brushing it off as a form of camp or romanticism, I argue that nostalgia is a central component in enabling individuals to create worldviews while also | Despite the overriding negativity surrounding nostalgia—basically, that it strips history of its complexities and enables individuals and society to yearn for a mythical past—a careful examination uncovers a different approach to looking at the past. From this alternative perspective, nostalgia can be interpreted as a positive force. Or, as Christine Sprengler explains, “[nostalgia] tells us something about our own historical consciousness, about the myths we construct and circulate and about our desire to make history meaningful on a personal and collective level.”{{sfn|Sprengler|2009|p=3}} Rather than simply brushing it off as a form of camp or romanticism, I argue that nostalgia is a central component in enabling individuals to create worldviews while also | ||