# Nostalgia: What would you bring back?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nostalgia-what-would-you-bring-back/502799>\
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion\
**Created:** [July 13, 2009, 12:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nostalgia-what-would-you-bring-back/502799 "2009-07-13T00:29:26Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 75

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**Author:** ![Rhythmdvl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/85f322/32.png) [@Rhythmdvl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rhythmdvl)\
**Post date:** [July 15, 2009, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nostalgia-what-would-you-bring-back/502799/75 "2009-07-15T20:07:57Z")

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I certainly don’t want to drag the pit thread into this, but there was a choice quote in there (snipped to avoid some entanglements):

> [@Starving Artist Has Issues With Long Hair](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/starving-artist-has-issues-with-long-hair/502775/76):
>
> Maybe the reason so many people have an idealized view of the American 50’s is because it was in fact ideal. Not ideal because of progress, or civil rights, but because we were _ **fucking rich.** _ And I do not mean “rich”, I mean _ **“fucking rich”.** _ I don’t mean “we’ve got a pool”-rich. I mean “we own the water”-rich. I don’t mean “let them eat cake”-rich. I mean “let them eat the Spam they bought from us with money we loaned to them with interest”-rich.

I don’t think this nostalgia is as chimerical as wishing for the Wall Street boom of the eighties or the Dot Com boom of the nineties (though some folks made off quite well). I think — and nostalgia is almost by definition rooted in assumptions — that the prosperity and global domination of the fifties, bolstered by an odd sort of optimism (yes, there was the cold war, but there was a much clearer sense that we were wearing the white hats) that made for an interesting time. In addition to being a geopolitical leader, and having a burgeoning service industry, we also had a substantial manufacturing and resources base.

Perhaps that could be said of the Gilded Age too, or other periods of allegedly long and general prosperity (heck, bring me some Pax Romana), and of course, there were plenty of flies in the ointment to keep the time from being Utopia, but in general, \*\* Weird With Words \*\* point is a good one. Forgetting for the moment about being _individually_ rich, the national wealth created some (nostalgically) interesting times.

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