Nostalgia & Political Power
What are the political purposes of nostalgia? Why does the GOP idealize the American past? And what can this backward-looking perspective give or take away from our collective future?
On Now & Then, Heather and Joanne discuss the role of nostalgia in American political history, from Puritan Jeremiads, to the 1913 Gettysburg and Fort Wagner reunions, to the emergence in the 1970s of a cultural obsession with the 1950s.
Listen On:
Maybe the big money went to the Gettysburg area to further the goals of local shopkeepers and politicians. Or, maybe the south was loathe to buy goods produced in the north and this was a way to salve the wounds caused by our Gen. Sherman. And, the speakers seem to say that the southern soldiers were not entitled to take pride in what they did. Do the speakers extend this attitude to the soldiers who died in Vietnam? I dunno.
Mark Clague, Musicology professor at UMich, studies the Star Spangled Banner, and writes about/presents on it all the way from "Anacreon In Heaven" to Jimi Hendrix's version…and probably beyond. So if any of you who read this want to know more about the SSB, there's a place to start.