The past recollected: helpful or destructive to the present?
Learning from the past – or living in the past? Whilst remembering the past is important, it's equally important not to constantly hold up a distorted, rose-tinted version of the past as a yardstick to which the present inevitably fails to compare. Of course it is important to remember the past – ‘lest we forget’ – in order to grow and learn and prevent the recurrence of past atrocities. However, there is, I believe, a difference between the preservation of historical fact in memoriam and a selective memory in which reality has been dimmed by time and intervening experience.
How would you impersonate an elderly person? Would it begin with something along the line of, “Back in my day…” (with optional dialectal obscurity, if you’re from my neck of the words – “Ee, by gum!”)? While undoubtedly a clichéd stereotype, there remains a sad truth to the notion of a fondness – not just amongst the older generation, but amongst our nation as a whole – for recollecting the past through rose-tinted reaction-lenses. Particularly when present times are tough, it can be tempting to reflect back on bygone times when, of course, things were different. Weren’t they?
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