Romanticizing The Past?
"Are we" my friend asked, "in danger of romanticizing the past?"
As usual when we talk of events happening around us today we look back on quieter, less hectic and perhaps gentler days. But, are we not looking at the past through rose-coloured tinted spectacles? Was our past not one of unremitting hardship, starvation and privation. Were there not triad members waiting to bully and extort from us at every turn, did not disease killed many and did we not face insufficiency during most meal?
Certainly the past as a glorious, simple age is a myth. Life was hard, food was not of the best, living conditions were cramped and you make do with very little.
BUT it is equally a myth that life is so much better today.
Apologists and myth makers of various persuasions like to describe the present as a departure from the past. Improvements that have taken place are defined by their difference from the past that is then conceived of as limited, shabby and poverty ridden. This itself is a myth. It is also a rhetorical abuse of argument meant to convince us that whatever is wrong with the present is tolerable because of their appreciable difference from what had been the past.
Why such a myth is necessary is not for us to discuss now. Rather my next few postings will talk of the Singapore of the fifties and sixties and what life meant then.
No comments:
Post a Comment