# Word for obsession with the past? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 22, 2015, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/word-for-obsession-with-the-past/725893 "2015-07-22T18:24:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![TheOverToe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/6bbea6/32.png) [@TheOverToe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheOverToe)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2015, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/word-for-obsession-with-the-past/725893/1 "2015-07-22T18:24:59Z")
Sorry if this is a little too trivial for these forums. I learned a new word and unlearned it a day later. Hopefully you can help me remember it. (i.e. you remember it and just tell me. -\_-) The word is used to describe someone who is obsessed with and romanticizes the past. They talk about how it was less violent, there was less crime and believe other various myths about how idyllic it was. The person I saw who was called this word talked about the 50s like it was a moral utopia. It isn’t “nostalgic”, it’s something a little more obscure and specific to my description. If anyone knows/would like a guess to jog my stupid word forgetting memory I’d appreciate it. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Kobayashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4af34b/32.png) [@Mr.Kobayashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Kobayashi)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2015, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/word-for-obsession-with-the-past/725893/2 "2015-07-22T18:46:32Z")
“Whig history” is the idea that history is a march of progress, social and scientific, its literal opposite would be Tory history…small ‘c’ conservatism maybe? Traditionalism? To Greeks it would be the [‘Golden Age’](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Age), or [arcadian](http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Arcadian) (that is, thinking of the past as an [Arcadia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arcadia_%28utopia%29)). ---
**Author:** ![TheOverToe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/6bbea6/32.png) [@TheOverToe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheOverToe)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2015, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/word-for-obsession-with-the-past/725893/3 "2015-07-22T19:16:47Z")
Weird, reading your reply made me remember it! It was “atavistic”. Looking it up it doesn’t mean exactly what I thought it did. I saw someone calling someone else “atavistic” in a negative sense. For some reason your post made the word just pop into my head. ---
**Author:** ![MrAtoz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@MrAtoz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrAtoz)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2015, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/word-for-obsession-with-the-past/725893/4 "2015-07-22T19:49:40Z")
As you say, “atavistic” doesn’t really mean what you initially described. The first thing that occurred to me on reading your OP was “antiquarian.” I’m not sure if it always had the connotation of romanticizing the past, but it does seem to carry the meaning of being rather geekily obsessed with past eras, particularly with historical relics and documents. Does that help at all? ---
**Author:** ![TheOverToe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/6bbea6/32.png) [@TheOverToe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheOverToe)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2015, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/word-for-obsession-with-the-past/725893/5 "2015-07-22T20:54:38Z")
I stupidly believed the definition that the person told me when they used “atavistic” to describe someone obsessed with the past (40s/50s in that case). Damn, it seemed like such a nice sounding word too and they were so confident in how they used it. At least I know to look up 100% of things I’m told from now on. Yeah, you’ve helped a lot. I have a few things to read now after looking up stuff in your posts. This is an interesting topic to me, I loved The Better Angels of Our Nature. It boggles my mind why people think the past was so much better than the present. (The reason I thought of this was because someone was saying that people in the 50s had an easier time financially than we do now in another conversation.) Was there anything about the past that was better than now? All I can think of is the music and a lot of fashion from the 40s and 60s. ---
**Author:** ![eburacum45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eburacum45/32/8690_2.png) [@eburacum45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eburacum45)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2015, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/word-for-obsession-with-the-past/725893/6 "2015-07-22T23:50:07Z")
Retrophile? [Retrophiliac](http://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/retrophiliac)? Historyphile? Historicophile? Anachrophile? Archaeophile? Some of these words appear to exist, others are just wild extrapolations. ---
**Author:** ![syncrolecyne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f08c70/32.png) [@syncrolecyne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/syncrolecyne)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2015, 7:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/word-for-obsession-with-the-past/725893/7 "2015-07-23T07:24:29Z")
Probably not the word you are looking for, but how about Rockwellian? I know Norman Rockwell was actually a more critical observer of his times than often supposed, but this term does appear in a couple of dictionaries an an adjective for idyllic portrayals of mid-century middle America. ---
**Author:** ![filmstar-en](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/50afbb/32.png) [@filmstar-en](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/filmstar-en)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2015, 9:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/word-for-obsession-with-the-past/725893/8 "2015-07-23T09:57:11Z")
Looking at the past through rose-tinted spectacles? That is nostalgia. ---
**Author:** ![madsircool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madsircool/32/3432_2.png) [@madsircool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madsircool)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2015, 10:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/word-for-obsession-with-the-past/725893/9 "2015-07-23T10:22:31Z")
> [@TheOverToe](#): > > Was there anything about the past that was better than now? All I can think of is the music and a lot of fashion from the 40s and 60s. Unless you were alive then you just couldnt know. There is just too much romanticization/demonization of the past. ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2015, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/word-for-obsession-with-the-past/725893/10 "2015-07-24T00:58:47Z")
“atavism” and similar derived words may not mean what OP thought, but it’s still a good word to know and remember. If you know some people you really dislike (jerkish ex-boyfriend, bureaucrats, politicians of your non-preferred political persuasion, etc.) it can come in very handy. To call someone “atavistic” is, colloquially at least, to call them a Neanderthal or a caveman. Give it a try! Let **MrAtoz** , of Post #4 above, run you through his [atavachron](http://en.memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Atavachron) and you can experience for yourself being atavistic! 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2015, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/word-for-obsession-with-the-past/725893/11 "2015-07-24T03:01:36Z")
> [@TheOverToe](#): > > Sorry if this is a little too trivial for these forums… This demands a comeback but I can’t think of one. ETA: Now _that’s_ trivial. ---
**Author:** ![Turek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/turek/32/18782_2.png) [@Turek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Turek)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2015, 11:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/word-for-obsession-with-the-past/725893/12 "2015-07-24T11:45:05Z")
I’ve heard it referred to as “good-ole-days syndrome”. ---
**Author:** ![rowrrbazzle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rowrrbazzle/32/414_2.png) [@rowrrbazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rowrrbazzle)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2015, 5:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/word-for-obsession-with-the-past/725893/13 "2015-07-26T05:29:16Z")
If an obsession is involved, the word probably ends in -mania. [Nostomania](http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/nostomania)? > [@](#): > > 1. intense homesickness; an irresistible compulsion to return home. > > Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2015. > > Contemporary definitions for nostomania > > an overwhelming homesickness; a passion for nostalgia