# "The past was much more glorious" in fiction. What is this called? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 24, 2025, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-past-was-much-more-glorious-in-fiction-what-is-this-called/1017454 "2025-04-24T19:40:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Frodo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/frodo/32/302_2.png) [@Frodo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frodo)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2025, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-past-was-much-more-glorious-in-fiction-what-is-this-called/1017454/21 "2025-04-24T22:01:11Z")
Ugh… 🤮 ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2025, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-past-was-much-more-glorious-in-fiction-what-is-this-called/1017454/22 "2025-04-24T22:01:32Z")
**Moderating** Please keep politics out of The Cafe. Especially a non-political like this. ---
**Author:** ![commasense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/commasense/32/3017_2.png) [@commasense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/commasense)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2025, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-past-was-much-more-glorious-in-fiction-what-is-this-called/1017454/23 "2025-04-24T22:16:40Z")
Jean Shepherd, author, broadcaster, raconteur, and source of the stories that were made into _A Christmas Story_, wrote about “The glorious past, the wonderful future and the crummy now.” ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2025, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-past-was-much-more-glorious-in-fiction-what-is-this-called/1017454/24 "2025-04-25T00:00:01Z")
> [@Charlie\_Tan](#): > > Shamanism under Odin? I can’t really makes those two things work together. > **[Seiðr](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sei%C3%B0r)** > > In Old Norse, seiðr (sometimes anglicized as seidhr, seidh, seidr, seithr, seith, or seid) was a type of magic which was practiced in Norse society during the Late Scandinavian Iron Age. The practice of seiðr is believed to be a form of magic which is related to both the telling and the shaping of the future. Connected to the Old Norse religion, its origins are largely unknown, and its practice gradually declined after the Christianization of Scandinavia. Accounts of seiðr later made it into sa... > [@Charlie\_Tan](#): > > Can we please drop the whole Dark Ages myth. It’s extremely Eurocentric. And even if we confine ourselves to Western Europe (since Eastern was Byzantium and certainly not dark), the Dark Ages introduced the University to the world. I don’t believe that I referenced the topic? ---
**Author:** ![Charlie\_Tan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/charlie_tan/32/12582_2.png) [@Charlie\_Tan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Charlie_Tan)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2025, 8:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-past-was-much-more-glorious-in-fiction-what-is-this-called/1017454/25 "2025-04-25T08:41:28Z")
Sorry, I should’ve included a * * * to separate that from my question to you. It was more of a general observation. * * * However shamanism is a subset of magic, which is present in most religions.. Your cite from wiki says: > Various scholars have debated the nature of seiðr, some of them have argued that it was shamanic in context, involving visionary journeys by its practitioners. without attributing any sources. Later there is this: > Author Jan Fries regards seiðr as a form of “shamanic trembling”, which he relates to “seething”, used as a shamanic technique, **the idea being his own** and developed through experimentation. which is… well one guy linking shamanism to the Norse pantheon (my bolding). [Wiki’s page on shamanism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shamanism) lists this, since there is no real consensus on what exactly it is: > \*To refer to “anybody who contacts a spirit world while in an altered state of consciousness”. > \*Those who contact a spirit world while in an altered state of consciousness at the behest of others. In an attempt to distinguish shamans from other magico-religious specialists who are believed to contact spirits, such as “mediums”, “witch doctors”, “spiritual healers” or “prophets,” this definition suggests that shamans undertake some particular technique not used by the others. > \*However, scholars advocating the third view have failed to agree on what the defining technique should be. > \*“Shamanism” referring to the Indigenous religions of Siberia and neighboring parts of Asia. This sure is nitpicky, but I asked the question because I’ve never heard of shamanism connected to Norse beliefs. And following your link I still think it’s a stretch. ---
**Author:** ![griffin1977](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@griffin1977](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/griffin1977)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2025, 9:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-past-was-much-more-glorious-in-fiction-what-is-this-called/1017454/26 "2025-04-25T09:23:02Z")
> [@Roderick\_Femm](#): > > I don’t think there are many historians who would call the Roman Empire a golden age It was a sophisticated economy able to support a large urban population through long distance trade of staples (including not just the ultra rich elite but also a fairly well off literate urban artisanal and merchant class). When that economy collapsed with the western Roman empire it was utterly.devestating for huge swathes of Europe. No one is talking about it the way Gibbons did (as the best time to be alive) but there is no doubt it was definitely “better” before the collapse for an awful lot of people not just a few ultra rich who lost their nice villas. ---
**Author:** ![griffin1977](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@griffin1977](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/griffin1977)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2025, 9:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-past-was-much-more-glorious-in-fiction-what-is-this-called/1017454/27 "2025-04-25T09:34:13Z")
> [@Charlie\_Tan](#): > > Can we please drop the whole Dark Ages myth I don’t get this. The dark ages were 100% definitely not a myth. The dark ages refers to the period in western Europe, after the collapse of the western Roman empire, when **written accounts** became incredibly scarce. The dark bit refers to the lack of written records not the quality of life or the Europeans of that era. And that massive reduction in written records absolutely happened its a crazy thing to deny. Society went from a urban literate one (or relatively so) to a rural illiterate one. No one denies that. ---
**Author:** ![griffin1977](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@griffin1977](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/griffin1977)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2025, 10:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-past-was-much-more-glorious-in-fiction-what-is-this-called/1017454/28 "2025-04-25T10:04:49Z")
> [@Roderick\_Femm](#): > > Has there ever been a time in human history when this was true, i.e. when there was a much better time in the past? I think this is missing the point of the “golden age” myth a little. It’s not just about stuff being better, as in more prosperous and peaceful in the past. It’s about people and society being more heroic, brave and moral in the past, compared to the money grabbing, fractious and petty people nowadays. People in the past did great deeds whereas people nowadays are lucky it they can decide which overpriced fancy garment they are going to purchase today. In fact in some examples of it the problem is all the peace and prosperity that’s making people lazy, money grabbing and petty. The classic example being the Romans of their imperial golden age looking back at the Republic (during the objectively worse days of the punic wars, etc ) and the bemoaning how much more brave, hardy and unified Romans were then There is even a theory that everything we think we know about the golden age of Sparta (the infanticide, the brutally tough child rearing, etc) was invented by the Romans as a way to convince their compatriots to be tougher and more like Romans (and Spartans) of old. ---
**Author:** ![Hypno-Toad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b2d939/32.png) [@Hypno-Toad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hypno-Toad)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2025, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-past-was-much-more-glorious-in-fiction-what-is-this-called/1017454/29 "2025-04-25T13:42:27Z")
The golden age idea is huge in western civilization because of the belief in the Garden of Eden and Man as a Fallen Being due to our sin. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2025, 2:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-past-was-much-more-glorious-in-fiction-what-is-this-called/1017454/30 "2025-04-25T14:20:27Z")
Though as mentioned it even antecedes the christianization of the Greco-Roman world. Many of our predecessor cultures have the myth of a glorious “Age of Heroes” when the gods walked the Earth. ---
**Author:** ![Roderick\_Femm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/roderick_femm/32/14875_2.png) [@Roderick\_Femm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roderick_Femm)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2025, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-past-was-much-more-glorious-in-fiction-what-is-this-called/1017454/31 "2025-04-25T14:34:38Z")
> [@griffin1977](#): > > I think this is missing the point of the “golden age” myth a little. Perhaps I didn’t express myself thoroughly. I was questioning the validity of the myth, not its background causes. Perhaps I should have asked “Was this myth based at all on actual history, or only on wishful thinking?” ---
**Author:** ![FlikTheBlue](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fliktheblue/32/10972_2.png) [@FlikTheBlue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FlikTheBlue)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2025, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-past-was-much-more-glorious-in-fiction-what-is-this-called/1017454/32 "2025-04-25T14:54:01Z")
> [@griffin1977](#): > > I don’t get this. The dark ages were 100% definitely not a myth. The dark ages refers to the period in western Europe, after the collapse of the western Roman empire, when **written accounts** became incredibly scarce. The dark bit refers to the lack of written records not the quality of life or the Europeans of that era. And that massive reduction in written records absolutely happened its a crazy thing to deny. Society went from a urban literate one (or relatively so) to a rural illiterate one. No one denies that. I don’t get this whole dark ages being a myth either. And you’re exactly right. The years 500 - 1000 CE in Europe don’t have anywhere close to the amount of literature that there was in the days of Ancient Greece and the Roman Republic and Empire, even taking into account that the latter period was longer. Where are all the equivalents in the dark ages to people like Plato, Aristotle, Euclid, Pythagoras, Cicero, Cato, Pliny, Ptolemy, Galen, Hippocrates, Aristophanes, Euripides, Sophocles, Virgil, Marcus Aurelius, Tacitus, Epicurus, Julius Caesar, Suetonius, Josephus, Sextus Julius Frontinus, Cassius Dio, Livy, and numerous others representing numerous fields including astronomy, mathematics, philosophy, medicine, poetry, history, engineering, and drama. The dark age doesn’t have anywhere close to the number of equivalent writers. ---
**Author:** ![Lucas\_Jackson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lucas_jackson/32/303_2.png) [@Lucas\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lucas_Jackson)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2025, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-past-was-much-more-glorious-in-fiction-what-is-this-called/1017454/33 "2025-04-25T15:29:45Z")
> [@FlikTheBlue](#): > > Right. I don’t get the whole “we shouldn’t call them the Dark Ages” thing. It seems clear to me that things did in fact regress during that time period in comparison to the days of the Hellenistic period, the Roman Republic, and the Roman Empire. That should be obvious just by looking at the literature available from those time periods > [@FlikTheBlue](#): > > I don’t get this whole dark ages being a myth either Not disagreeing with you, but a lot of people do. [Example.](https://www.getty.edu/news/no-such-thing-as-the-dark-ages/) > [@Roderick\_Femm](#): > > (I was responding to Elmer J. Fudd). Rabbit season!!! ---
**Author:** ![griffin1977](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@griffin1977](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/griffin1977)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2025, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-past-was-much-more-glorious-in-fiction-what-is-this-called/1017454/34 "2025-04-25T16:26:38Z")
> [@Roderick\_Femm](#): > > I was questioning the validity of the myth, not its background causes I was pointing out the myth wasn’t just about the world being “good” in the past but “bad” now (there are countless times and places that has been true) but that **people** were “good” in the past but “bad” now, that’s much harder to claim that it has any basis in fact. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2025, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-past-was-much-more-glorious-in-fiction-what-is-this-called/1017454/35 "2025-04-25T17:04:30Z")
I think Tolkien thought it was true about the age _he_ was living in. He wrote at the start of the industrial revolution, a time when craftsmanship was being replaced with shoddy manufactured goods, factories were belching coal smoke into the air, and the social structure was breaking down as people moved into the cities. And yes, there was money to be made in the cities, but there was also a lot of filth and poverty and disease, and no social safety net outside your family, who were probably still in rural noplace, and couldn’t help you. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2025, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-past-was-much-more-glorious-in-fiction-what-is-this-called/1017454/36 "2025-04-25T17:22:15Z")
It probably began with agricultural people looking back to their idealized hunter-gatherer past, when you didn’t have to go bust your ass all day every day just to survive. ---
**Author:** ![Charlie\_Tan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/charlie_tan/32/12582_2.png) [@Charlie\_Tan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Charlie_Tan)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2025, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-past-was-much-more-glorious-in-fiction-what-is-this-called/1017454/37 "2025-04-25T19:43:36Z")
> [@griffin1977](#): > > I don’t get this. The dark ages were 100% definitely not a myth. The dark ages refers to the period in western Europe, after the collapse of the western Roman empire, when **written accounts** became incredibly scarce. The dark bit refers to the lack of written records not the quality of life or the Europeans of that era. And that massive reduction in written records absolutely happened its a crazy thing to deny. Society went from a urban literate one (or relatively so) to a rural illiterate one. No one denies that. I did say that there are fewer written records from that era. And do we define “Western Europe” as _Christian_ Western Europe? Because the Iberian peninsula is certainly in the west, in fact it’s hard to be more to the west and still be in Europe. And [Al-Andalus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Andalus) certainly wasn’t dark. I’d argue that after throwing out the rulers (and the Iberians converting from Islam and Judaism to Christianity), as far as culture goes, Iberia went into a decline. So that takes care of parts of Western Europe. Decamerone was written in the 14th century, so a bit later. Dante lived in the 13th. The [University of Bologna](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Bologna) (being the first uni) was founded in 1088, so that’s 88 years after the bracketing 500-1000, but it didn’t pop into existence in a dark age vacuum. From Wiki: > Paul Grendler writes that “it is not likely that enough instruction and organization existed to merit the term _university_ before the 1150s, and it might not have happened before the 1180s.” And let’s continue: > [@Lucas\_Jackson](#): > > Not disagreeing with you, but a lot of people do. [Example.](https://www.getty.edu/news/no-such-thing-as-the-dark-ages/) From that link: > The 14th-century Italian poet Petrarch is the best-known medieval source for the idea that the period in Europe from around 500–1500 was “dark.” But that phrase was a specific gripe. Petrarch was complaining about the general quality of literature in his own specific time and place: Italy in the 1300s [Wiki again, specifically about The Dark Ages](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Ages_(historiography)#Modern_scholarly_use): > The term “Dark Ages” was increasingly questioned from the mid-twentieth century as archaeological, historical and literary studies led to greater understanding of the period, In 1977, the historian Denys Hay spoke ironically of “the lively centuries which we call dark”. More forcefully, a book about the history of German literature published in 2007 describes “the dark ages” as “a popular if uninformed manner of speaking” There was a push back: > Robert Sallares, commenting on the lack of sources to establish whether the plague pandemic of 541 to 750 reached Northern Europe, opines that “the epithet Dark Ages is surely still an appropriate description of this period” but > it is questionable whether it is ever possible to use the term in a neutral way: scholars may intend it, but ordinary readers may not understand it so. Secondly, 20th-century scholarship had increased understanding of the history and culture of the period, to such an extent that it is no longer really ‘dark’ to modern viewers. [And finally, on the origin, as used by historians, of the term Dark Ages](https://historyforatheists.com/2024/09/the-great-myths-15-what-about-the-dark-ages/): > Between 1588 and 1607 Cardinal Caesar Baronius published his multi-volume Church history, the _Annales Ecclesiastici_ ; which was in part a response to the Protestant version of history found in the _Magdeburg Centuries_ (1559-74) produced by a group of Lutheran scholars. > > Baronius found that the period between the end of the Carolingian dynasty in 888 and the church reforms of Pope Gregory VII [late 11th century] was difficult to research because of a lack of source material So, the lack of clerical source material for a portion of the time. * * * I'm hesitant to argue with an esteemed mod, but: > [@puzzlegal](#): > > I think Tolkien thought it was true about the age _he_ was living in. He wrote at the start of the industrial revolution Tolkien started writing around the end of WWI. I don’t think that the industrial revolution started at that point. In fact, I think you’re about 150 years off the mark. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2025, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-past-was-much-more-glorious-in-fiction-what-is-this-called/1017454/38 "2025-04-25T21:17:53Z")
I beg your pardon, i guess i should refer to the [second industrial revolution](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Industrial_Revolution), which was going on right up until WWI. Tolkien was not alone in disliking the industrialization of England at that time; I’ve read a lot of other authors bemoaning it. And they generally draw a connection between industrialization and the horrors of the war: trench warfare, poison gas, etc. I really do think that Tolkien looked at the past as better than the present. ---
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2025, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-past-was-much-more-glorious-in-fiction-what-is-this-called/1017454/39 "2025-04-25T21:48:44Z")
Wordsworth was no fan of the first Industrial Revolution, nor was William “satanic mills”Blake. Did they have any idea what life was for laborers in the country? ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2025, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-past-was-much-more-glorious-in-fiction-what-is-this-called/1017454/40 "2025-04-25T22:07:32Z")
I doubt it was worse than it was in those “satanic mills”. Being crippled or killed is the same whether you’re in a factory or the countryside. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-past-was-much-more-glorious-in-fiction-what-is-this-called/1017454.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-past-was-much-more-glorious-in-fiction-what-is-this-called/1017454.md?page=3)