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Nostalgia is becoming increasingly poisonous. It's an insidious little beast of a thing that gets in under your radar, with feelings of comfort and ease, while making it easy for bigotry to spread.
Facebook is particularly bad for it, but it's on all kinds of social media. But Facebook makes it easy. Groups for people to share pictures and memories and the good old days. To reminisce, not about how good it was, but about how much better it was.
You know. Before.
It starts with the before. It starts with complaining about how things are. About how kids these days spend too much time on their phones, or how kids are being raised in the wrong way. It's concern, it's worry, it's anger.
But really, what it's also doing? It's making clear that 'then' was better. Something changed. Something got worse. And after that change happened, everything got worse, until now, well, we just don't recognise the world around us. The past was better.
In fact, that was taken from us, wasn't it? Look at how much better it was, and what it's like now. Someone took it. We need someone to blame now. And it isn't us, because look - we did it right.
So now, it's about looking for something that's around which wasn't around then, back when everything was better. Maybe it's phones. Maybe it's video games. Maybe it's gay people. Maybe it's trans people. Maybe it's non-white people.
One of the weirdest things about this are the things that have always been around, but they just didn't know about them. "We didn't have lactose intolerant / food intolerances / mental health". No. People just got sick and/or died.
"Why are there more gay/bi/trans people around now? Wasn't like this back when..."
...back when coming out might have involved being arrested, beaten or killed.
...back when coming out might have involved being arrested, beaten or killed.
Sure, as people learn more about how being gay/bi/trans/pan/poly/asexual/intersexual/etc, they might be more able to explore those things and realise things about themselves they didn't before. But there were plenty of people who just weren't out.
And the number of people complaining about immigration in these forums that were, say, Irish, is unbelievable. Because it really doesn't take long for some immigrants to stop seeing themselves as immigrants. Or at least, better than others.
And young people these day astound me. Their ability to understand issues around climate, race, sexuality, gender is awe-inspiring in places. There's an empathy that we should inspire to.
