Doublereed Archive - Posting 000008.txt from 2003/03

From: Oboeeee@-----.com
Subj: [DR-L] [Dblrd-L] Quote of the Day
Date: Sun, 2 Mar 2003 23:44:03 -0500

"We need to distinguish between nostalgia and the reassuring memory of happy
times, which serves to link the present to the past and to provide a sense of
continuity. The emotional appeal of happy memories does not depend on
disparagement of the present, the hallmark of the nostalgic attitude.
Nostalgia appeals to the feeling that the past offered delights no longer
obtainable. Nostalgic representations of the past evoke a time irretrievably
lost and for that reason timeless and unchanging. Strictly speaking,
nostalgia does not entail the exercise of memory at all, since the past it
idealizes stands outside time, frozen in unchanging perfection. Memory too
may idealize the past, but not in order to condemn the present. It draws hope
and comfort from the past in order to enrich the present and to face what
comes with good cheer."

-Christopher Lasch (b. 1932) U.S. historian
"The True and Only Heaven: Progress and Its Critics," ch. 3, Norton (1991)