Latest / Stuff You Should Know / Nostalgia is not the most toxic impulse

Transcript

Nostalgia is not the most toxic impulse · Stuff You Should Know

0:00
Speaker 1: Chuck, let's go over the Stuff you Should Know concert calendar.
0:05
Speaker 1: My friend, we are hitting the road for the Spring
0:06
Speaker 1: Had Sprung Tour. We are going to be at the
0:08
Speaker 1: Neptune Theater and Lovely Seattle, Washington on April eighth, my friend.
0:12
Speaker 1: The next day, we're gonna head south to Portland, Oregon,
0:15
Speaker 1: Revolution Hall April night, We're going to Houston, Texas, my
0:18
Speaker 1: friend and Warehouse Live on Memorial Day weekend, and finally
0:24
Speaker 1: finishing up Denver, Colorado at the Gothic Theater on May
0:28
Speaker 1: twenty night. Two more dates coming. Yeah, keep your ears
0:31
Speaker 1: out and in the meantime, if you want to get tickets,
0:33
Speaker 1: you can go to s y s K live dot com,
0:35
Speaker 1: power by squarespace and we'll see you guys on the road.
0:40
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from House Stuff Works
0:43
Speaker 1: dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
0:53
Speaker 1: There's Child's w W Chuck Bryant, There's Jerry, and this
0:56
Speaker 1: is Stuff you Should Know. There's so many things I
0:58
Speaker 1: could do right now. I could my Buddy theme song,
1:02
Speaker 1: could sing the theme song the Thunder of the Barbarian. Okay.
1:06
Speaker 1: I could talk about tops baseball cards, yeah, and that
1:10
Speaker 1: that rock card stick dumb that came. Yeah, um, I
1:16
Speaker 1: don't think they have gum in baseball cards any more,
1:18
Speaker 1: do they? And maybe they just gave up the ghosts.
1:20
Speaker 1: They were like one wants that, nobody wants it. It
1:23
Speaker 1: took out some kid's eye and that was that. Uh yeah, nostalgia.
1:28
Speaker 1: So I think we should dedicate this show too, John Hodgeman.
1:34
Speaker 1: Let's I thought we kind of implicitly dedicated every show
1:38
Speaker 1: to Hodgeman, but we do why explicitly this time? Hodgeman
1:44
Speaker 1: is uh, he is on record time and time again
1:50
Speaker 1: with the following quote, Nostalgia is the most toxic impulse.
1:56
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that's he doesn't like a Christmas story? Does
1:59
Speaker 1: he now think he's seen a Christmas story? But he uh,
2:02
Speaker 1: he is very adamant and has been on record many
2:06
Speaker 1: many times on his own podcast, Judge John Hodgeman and
2:09
Speaker 1: to me in person when he wants to go on
2:12
Speaker 1: about how much he hates nostalgia, about how bad it
2:16
Speaker 1: is and in his deal and I'm gonna mention him
2:18
Speaker 1: quite a bit in here. So he's either gonna listen
2:21
Speaker 1: to this and be like, oh my god, it's about
2:22
Speaker 1: nostalgia and these are my friends, or he's gonna skip
2:25
Speaker 1: it all together. I could see him skipping it all
2:27
Speaker 1: together because he didn't want to hear about it. We
2:29
Speaker 1: maybe should clue him in and be like Hodgeman, you're
2:31
Speaker 1: in this. He'll listen to it a million times if
2:34
Speaker 1: you tell him that. So his notion is that, uh,
2:37
Speaker 1: it's a longing for a better time that does not exist,
2:42
Speaker 1: that we look back with rose colored glasses and it
2:44
Speaker 1: was not in fact better, and that it's toxic to
2:47
Speaker 1: do so, right, And that's absolutely a correct definition of nostalgia.
2:53
Speaker 1: But no idea falls apart at the end when he
2:56
Speaker 1: says that it's toxic, because quite the contrary, nostalgia has
2:59
Speaker 1: been proven again and again to be quite helpful. Um,
3:02
Speaker 1: I don't even agree that that's the definition of nostalgia.
3:04
Speaker 1: I don't. I don't think it has to be longing
3:07
Speaker 1: for a time in your past, because for me, nostalgia
3:11
Speaker 1: is not longing for that. It is just very warm
3:14
Speaker 1: remembrances and wrapping myself up in that. God, man, I
3:19
Speaker 1: wish I could be fourteen again. You don't wish you
3:22
Speaker 1: could be fourteen, No, not at all. I wish I
3:26
Speaker 1: could be twenty six again. Nostalgia. It's a pretty dope
3:30
Speaker 1: time in one's life, nostalgia. But I don't I don't
3:34
Speaker 1: look back and say man, And I also take issue
3:37
Speaker 1: with you know, sometimes things were better back then. Yeah.
3:40
Speaker 1: But Hodgeman makes a pretty good point, and so do
3:43
Speaker 1: the social scientists that so support his point. Um, when basically,
3:49
Speaker 1: by definition, when you are experiencing the emotion, this very complex, weird,
3:55
Speaker 1: understudied emotion of nostalgia, you're thinking about something in a
4:01
Speaker 1: way that it really kind of didn't actually happen. Like
4:06
Speaker 1: the negative stuff gets cut out. Um, you know, like
4:09
Speaker 1: stepping on a rusty nail right after that great memory
4:14
Speaker 1: from camp or whatever. Uh, that part gets cut out,
4:18
Speaker 1: And I disagree with that, just the good stuff. So
4:21
Speaker 1: I'm talking about like the studies that support it. Yeah,
4:24
Speaker 1: but they they don't think these studies are right because
4:27
Speaker 1: the subjective it's very personal. Like I can remember that
4:30
Speaker 1: social science for you. I can remember the smell of
4:33
Speaker 1: my grandparents house, their first house, and how much I
4:35
Speaker 1: loved it in that one summer I went on my
4:37
Speaker 1: first plane trip. And I also remember biting my tongue
4:40
Speaker 1: off playing soccer and how awful that was. Like I
4:43
Speaker 1: don't edit that out and be like, no, everything about
4:45
Speaker 1: it was great, Like no, I bet my tongue off
4:47
Speaker 1: and it was terrible. Um. So okay, I think then
4:52
Speaker 1: what you're talking about is the difference between reminiscing, which
4:56
Speaker 1: is more of an episodic memory, and nostalgia, which is
5:00
Speaker 1: almost purely just an emotional memory. No, that's an emotional memory.
5:05
Speaker 1: All right. Well then you you'll just have to say
5:07
Speaker 1: I believe you, Chuck, I Burns, I believe you Chuck.
5:15
Speaker 1: All right, So let's go back in time a little bit. Um.
5:18
Speaker 1: There's a Swiss doctor named uh Johannes Hofer, and he
5:25
Speaker 1: was studying some Swiss soldiers that were stationed abroad, and
5:29
Speaker 1: he said, you know what, there's something going on here.
5:31
Speaker 1: They are depressed, they're anxious, they can't sleep, they're tired,
5:36
Speaker 1: they're even having heart palpitations and fever. Um. They're angry,
5:41
Speaker 1: really easily um, and they just can't stop thinking about
5:45
Speaker 1: their home. It is almost as if they are home sick. Right,
5:50
Speaker 1: And he coined the term. He coined the term um
5:53
Speaker 1: the nostalgia from Greek nostos, which means to return home
5:58
Speaker 1: and I'll go or al jos pain so the pain
6:03
Speaker 1: of yearning to return home. Yeah, it is what he described.
6:06
Speaker 1: He literally said, it's a cerebral disease of essentially demonic
6:09
Speaker 1: cause ideas of the fatherland, making them sick and longing
6:13
Speaker 1: for home. It's a no brainer. It's like these guys
6:16
Speaker 1: are fighting a war and they'd rather be back home. Yeah.
6:19
Speaker 1: It sounds like he was describing PTSD though as well,
6:22
Speaker 1: maybe because when these attendant symptoms that he talked about,
6:25
Speaker 1: like not being able to sleep or eat and having
6:28
Speaker 1: fever and heart palpitations, that's not nostalgia. But Johannes Hoffer
6:33
Speaker 1: did um set the tone for nostalgia for centuries, so
6:37
Speaker 1: either it was viewed as a physical malady or disorder
6:41
Speaker 1: or disease or a psychological one up until basically the
6:45
Speaker 1: nineteen eighties. To tell you the truth, UM. And at first,
6:49
Speaker 1: because the Hawfer's study of the Swiss soldiers UM, they
6:52
Speaker 1: actually thought that possibly it was just the Swiss who
6:56
Speaker 1: were afflicted by nostalgia. And one of the other alternative
7:00
Speaker 1: explanations for it was that the constant clanging of cow
7:04
Speaker 1: bells had done something to the nerves connecting the ear
7:08
Speaker 1: drum to the brain and was basically driving these people crazy,
7:13
Speaker 1: wanting them to making them want to go home, or
7:16
Speaker 1: at least steal the cow bell, right, get it off
7:19
Speaker 1: the neck. You want to hear something weird. So Hawfer
7:23
Speaker 1: also said that, um, the ideas of the fatherland that
7:27
Speaker 1: were vibrating in the soldier's brains. Um, he said that
7:32
Speaker 1: that was brought on by animal spirits. And I read
7:36
Speaker 1: this yesterday. The same night I was reading an article
7:41
Speaker 1: by Dr Jack Cavorkian about human experimentation among the condemned
7:46
Speaker 1: and executed, because that's what I do, right, He mentions
7:50
Speaker 1: animal spirits in the exact same way. So apparently there
7:54
Speaker 1: was a time when they thought that the they called
7:56
Speaker 1: but what we would now call the electricity and the
7:59
Speaker 1: central nervousist them animal spirits, right, one of those old terms. Right.
8:03
Speaker 1: And I ran across it twice in one day, which
8:06
Speaker 1: is basically the bottom line haff phenomenon. I just thought
8:10
Speaker 1: that was so weird. I mean, like, yeah, and that's
8:12
Speaker 1: pretty obscure, you know, very It's not like, oh I
8:15
Speaker 1: saw eleven eleven on the clock again today, you know, right,
8:19
Speaker 1: those people animal spirits? Alright, So uh, fast forward a
8:25
Speaker 1: little bit. Uh, and we like you said, for many,
8:27
Speaker 1: many years it was looked at as a mental illness
8:30
Speaker 1: called melancholia or immigrant psychosis. Yeah, that was another thing.
8:35
Speaker 1: They thought that just immigrants, semen, soldiers and kids who
8:39
Speaker 1: went off to school were the ones who suffered from it. Yeah. Basically,
8:42
Speaker 1: you get shipped off somewhere and you yearn for the
8:44
Speaker 1: place that you liked better, which is called just homesickness. Homesickness, right,
8:50
Speaker 1: but then different things. But but not until the the
8:53
Speaker 1: eighties even, um, did it begin to get separated. Yeah,
8:57
Speaker 1: and this article points out very astutely, I thought this
9:00
Speaker 1: was pretty good. Um, that homes Julia Layton joint. Yeah,
9:04
Speaker 1: she's been around house stiff works for a while. She's
9:06
Speaker 1: a vet. Uh, not a veterinarian or a veteran soldier. Um,
9:13
Speaker 1: although I don't know, Julie, she might be both. Yes,
9:16
Speaker 1: you could have you never know, served the mp dogs
9:21
Speaker 1: as a vet in the army. In the army. Um, homesickness,
9:25
Speaker 1: Julie points out, is distressing, which makes a lot of sense.
9:28
Speaker 1: And that's different from nostalgia because nostalgia generally is even
9:32
Speaker 1: though it is complex. Uh, and we'll get to all that,
9:36
Speaker 1: it is generally looked at as a feeling of like
9:39
Speaker 1: pleasant feelings watch over you when you think of the
9:42
Speaker 1: good old days, in direct contraditioniction to Hodgeman's ideas. Um,
9:51
Speaker 1: all right, so let's talk about it, okay, So um,
9:55
Speaker 1: Since it was up until again the late nineteen eighties
9:59
Speaker 1: viewed as basically an attendant symptom or somehow tied into
10:04
Speaker 1: depression or some other psychological malady. UM, it wasn't until
10:10
Speaker 1: very recently that the social science has started to say,
10:12
Speaker 1: I don't know if that's necessarily true, let's look into it.
10:15
Speaker 1: So the actual study of nostalgia itself is extremely new,
10:20
Speaker 1: and um it's still very much understudy, which is to
10:24
Speaker 1: say that the social sciences has not yielded any kind
10:27
Speaker 1: of definitive answers to what nostalgia is, where it comes from.
10:32
Speaker 1: The There seems to be a general consensus that it
10:34
Speaker 1: is an emotion, but the complex secondary emotion, meaning it's
10:38
Speaker 1: not anger, it's not fear, it's not joy. But it
10:41
Speaker 1: seems to be secondary and it seems to spring from
10:44
Speaker 1: um society in the same way that a secondary emotion
10:47
Speaker 1: like embarrassment or self consciousness UM has arisen from our
10:52
Speaker 1: experience in society. The nostalgist seems to have come in
10:56
Speaker 1: the same way. Yeah, and they've noticed some trends, which
10:59
Speaker 1: is about as good as you can do when you're
11:01
Speaker 1: studying something like nostalgia. And when we talk about some
11:03
Speaker 1: of these real studies, it's they're frustrating for me to read,
11:08
Speaker 1: but we'll we'll get to those. But some of the trends.
11:11
Speaker 1: If you are a worry wart, you might be a
11:14
Speaker 1: little more prone to nostalgize because you know, you're you're
11:18
Speaker 1: trying to escape your worries and think about like a
11:21
Speaker 1: happier time when you're on the beach, toes in the
11:23
Speaker 1: sand maybe, uh. And they experts think that if you
11:27
Speaker 1: are in transitional periods of your life, you're going to
11:31
Speaker 1: be more prone, Like if you're a kid growing into
11:34
Speaker 1: an adult, or if you are in your forties and
11:36
Speaker 1: fifties and you're transitioning into uh, let's say fifties or sixties.
11:40
Speaker 1: Well from in my forties, from middle age in two
11:43
Speaker 1: senior adulthood. Yeah, these transitional, big transitions in your life,
11:47
Speaker 1: you might might be a little more prone to sort
11:49
Speaker 1: of look at your life and think, because what have
11:52
Speaker 1: I done with my life? Is also tied to nostalgia.
11:55
Speaker 1: And that makes sense utterly and completely because what they
11:58
Speaker 1: found with nostalgia is that it's a it's like you said,
12:01
Speaker 1: it's a means of escapism. And during these times where
12:04
Speaker 1: you're going from adolescence into young adulthood UM or middle
12:09
Speaker 1: aged into old adulthood, that's a that's a place of fear.
12:14
Speaker 1: You know what's coming next, and you start thinking about
12:17
Speaker 1: the good times that you've had. UM. Almost involuntarily, it
12:21
Speaker 1: seems like nostalgia happens. You think, yeah, let me, uh,
12:26
Speaker 1: I'm a little nervous right now, let me nostalgize. It's
12:30
Speaker 1: almost like an involuntary mental trigger that takes place. Although
12:34
Speaker 1: that is a thing. Uh. Julia points out that, UM,
12:38
Speaker 1: people can use it almost like a bag of tricks
12:41
Speaker 1: if they are prone to depression to call upon these things.
12:45
Speaker 1: And it's like nostalgia can be a tool. I mean,
12:49
Speaker 1: you'd have to kind of conjure it up. Sure, no, no,
12:52
Speaker 1: I know you can, you know, but you don't necessarily,
12:55
Speaker 1: that's not necessarily how it happens. And and they found
12:58
Speaker 1: that there are plenty of things that trigger like music, UM,
13:02
Speaker 1: like smells, uh, different things that you that basically serve
13:07
Speaker 1: as mnemonic devices in the formation of emotional memories. Um.
13:11
Speaker 1: And the thing that's come up from the study that
13:15
Speaker 1: has been done on nostalgia is that it seems to
13:17
Speaker 1: be universal. That's it's not culturally bound, and the triggers
13:22
Speaker 1: that trigger nostalgia are also universal. So it'll be like
13:26
Speaker 1: a social memory of a social experience with friends and family,
13:31
Speaker 1: you know, and like that might be culturally bound, like
13:33
Speaker 1: Thanksgiving in America or Canada where they have fake Thanksgiving
13:37
Speaker 1: a month early, um, but then it might be Carnival
13:42
Speaker 1: down in Buenos Aireas or something like that, so that
13:45
Speaker 1: the actual experience might be culturally bound, but the trigger itself,
13:48
Speaker 1: having a good time at like a holiday is universal. Yeah.
13:53
Speaker 1: So let's take a break. Uh, we'll come back and
13:55
Speaker 1: talk about triggers more after this, and we'll let Hodgeman
13:59
Speaker 1: take a deep then maybe run around the block because
14:02
Speaker 1: I since he's getting angry. So we're back, Yeah, we are.
14:23
Speaker 1: We had to establish that because I got confused. You
14:25
Speaker 1: mentioned music being a trigger that is very powerful. Um.
14:31
Speaker 1: And again it's it's variant among people's individual experience, but music,
14:35
Speaker 1: for me still I thinking about this is huge nostalgia trigger.
14:41
Speaker 1: But I think I realized that almost add percent of
14:45
Speaker 1: the time, it's a song that I haven't heard for
14:47
Speaker 1: a long long time. So if I hear Jay Giles
14:53
Speaker 1: Fands Centerfold, great song reminds me of elementary school in
14:57
Speaker 1: a very powerful way and even specific things. But I've
15:02
Speaker 1: heard that song a gazillion times. I hear it once
15:04
Speaker 1: a week on classic rock radio, So it doesn't flood
15:08
Speaker 1: you with nostalgia. No, no no more. You've heard it too much.
15:10
Speaker 1: It's over you. But if I hear a song from
15:14
Speaker 1: like all of my CDs are packed up in the attic,
15:16
Speaker 1: and most of those are from like a certain period
15:19
Speaker 1: of my life where I bought CDs, So if you
15:20
Speaker 1: hear true Blue, you just start weeping. With true Blue
15:23
Speaker 1: more recent than that. But if I hear a song
15:25
Speaker 1: from like one of my CDs from the mid nineties
15:28
Speaker 1: that I just may not have heard in a long time,
15:31
Speaker 1: that is like super super powerful. Well, like what song
15:34
Speaker 1: I don't know, just like a song from my l
15:36
Speaker 1: a days maybe um or or just something I don't
15:40
Speaker 1: listen like, uh, something from college that I don't listen
15:42
Speaker 1: to anymore, and it's like never played on the radio.
15:45
Speaker 1: Like I'll hear Urban Dance squad deeper Shade of Soul, uh,
15:52
Speaker 1: deep shade of Soul. Right, remember now it sounds like
15:58
Speaker 1: a pretty nineties song though it was very nineties, and like,
16:01
Speaker 1: you never hear that song anymore. So if I hear
16:03
Speaker 1: that song like just now, I just sang a little
16:06
Speaker 1: bit of it. How how are you feeling, I'm feeling great,
16:09
Speaker 1: I'm not. I'm not feeling toxic. Hodgman is mad at
16:12
Speaker 1: you right now. I know it feels wonderful. Stop stop
16:15
Speaker 1: so And I don't want to go back in time
16:18
Speaker 1: too then either, I'm just remembering, like, man, what a
16:20
Speaker 1: great song that takes me back to college. Yeah, And
16:23
Speaker 1: and the reason why songs tend to be so powerful
16:26
Speaker 1: and potent um, especially from a certain age, typically adolescents, right,
16:32
Speaker 1: supposedly has to do with the way that the brain
16:35
Speaker 1: is working right then. You know everyone says teenagers have
16:38
Speaker 1: like raging hormones going on. Well, there is a lot
16:41
Speaker 1: more brain chemistry floating around than happens throughout the rest
16:46
Speaker 1: of your life, so it's easier to form very powerful
16:49
Speaker 1: emotional memories. Um, and when when you're listening to music
16:55
Speaker 1: at that age, So that when you go back and
16:56
Speaker 1: listen to it, it's basically going back and you're a
17:00
Speaker 1: card catalog of a brain and unlocking that emotional memory
17:04
Speaker 1: so you get to experience it a little bit again.
17:06
Speaker 1: And then that's nostalgia brought on from by music. Yeah,
17:09
Speaker 1: that makes sense for me. The one that gets me
17:12
Speaker 1: the most is sent Yes, Senten tastes for me are
17:15
Speaker 1: really powerful too, so like um, the smell of um
17:20
Speaker 1: Pillsberry cinnamon rolls and orange rolls. It's like Christmas age eight,
17:26
Speaker 1: like every time. Now do you ever eat that stuff? Now?
17:29
Speaker 1: I just did yesterday as a little trip down memory lane. Yes,
17:33
Speaker 1: well not as it you know, but it inevitably brought
17:38
Speaker 1: it on. Okay, so you didn't say, like I'm doing
17:40
Speaker 1: a nostalgia podcast, I'm gonna go get some of those
17:42
Speaker 1: sweet rolls. No, it was totally coincidental. Actually, like the
17:45
Speaker 1: animal spirits. Yeah, what I've been doing lately is seeking
17:48
Speaker 1: out things that I haven't had and forever, just to
17:51
Speaker 1: see what happens. Oh yeah, So so basically you're the
17:55
Speaker 1: other day, you're like strange Days. Remember that movie with Refines. Yeah, boy,
18:01
Speaker 1: that takes me back, but with but with nostalgia. How
18:05
Speaker 1: what what flavor s? I did the same, always did
18:07
Speaker 1: a mixed cherry and coke. And I haven't had a
18:10
Speaker 1: slurpie since probably like high school. And it was it.
18:14
Speaker 1: You know, that taste was so familiar and exactly how
18:18
Speaker 1: I remember. But it wasn't like, oh, this takes me
18:21
Speaker 1: back to those days. I'm just like, oh, this is interesting.
18:23
Speaker 1: I ate a circus peanut the other days. Now they're awful,
18:26
Speaker 1: but I haven't had one since I was probably ten.
18:29
Speaker 1: I've avoided those of my whole life. Yeah, and um
18:32
Speaker 1: those you know those uh, the other one that gets
18:35
Speaker 1: me of those, remember when you were a kid trick
18:37
Speaker 1: or treating and you would get those kind a chewy
18:39
Speaker 1: peanut butter treats and the wax the waxy rappers. Yeah,
18:42
Speaker 1: I don't remember what they're called that, there were no name,
18:45
Speaker 1: like but email that really Yeah, it's got to be
18:50
Speaker 1: that orange or like those man instant of nostalgia. Nice
18:56
Speaker 1: not toxic. Yeah, it's wonderful. Um, peanut butter twicks can
19:00
Speaker 1: do that for me. It was one of my first
19:02
Speaker 1: favorite candy bars. I'll thought you about say like it
19:04
Speaker 1: takes me back to two eight, No, they had peanut
19:08
Speaker 1: butter twicks in the eighties, they tried it for a
19:10
Speaker 1: little while they were all stopped. Yeah, they don't have
19:12
Speaker 1: those anymore, do they. Okay, is that one in your pocket?
19:18
Speaker 1: It's been tucked into my cheek right now. So a taste,
19:21
Speaker 1: they think, and induces nostalgia pretty heavily because the pathways
19:27
Speaker 1: carrying information from taste buds are in the limbic system
19:31
Speaker 1: and where scent is as well. Yeah, and your old
19:33
Speaker 1: factory bulb is super duper in the limbic system, and
19:36
Speaker 1: it's actually got a direct connection to the amygdala, which
19:39
Speaker 1: helps experience emotions. And um, what's the other component of
19:45
Speaker 1: the olympics system, the hippocampus. Yeah, the hippocampus which sorts
19:49
Speaker 1: in stores memories. So your old factory bulb itself is
19:54
Speaker 1: almost literally plugged in to the two components of your
19:59
Speaker 1: brain that form emotional memories, which is one reason why
20:02
Speaker 1: I scent can trigger nostalgist so powerfully too. Yeah. Does
20:06
Speaker 1: that I wondered if that means that if it's more immediate,
20:10
Speaker 1: then it's stronger, like if it's just a quicker link,
20:13
Speaker 1: maybe like literally the pathway is shorter. It could be
20:17
Speaker 1: interesting that I mean that's that's what Layton um supposed. Yeah,
20:22
Speaker 1: I don't think she'd uh pull that out of her head.
20:26
Speaker 1: I think that's the common belief, right for something that
20:29
Speaker 1: they don't understand that much. Yeah, And I that I
20:31
Speaker 1: think that's probably got to be coming through to dear listeners, right,
20:35
Speaker 1: that this is like this is there's a lot of
20:39
Speaker 1: grasping at threads going on, in part because it is
20:42
Speaker 1: just very um, it's very early on in the study
20:46
Speaker 1: of nostalgia. There's not a lot of people studying it,
20:49
Speaker 1: and so the number of theories is kind of narrow,
20:53
Speaker 1: but a lot of it does make sense. Yeah, And
20:56
Speaker 1: when you look at these studies, which we'll talk about
20:58
Speaker 1: so many of them hinge on. All right, you're feeling nostalgic,
21:02
Speaker 1: All right, let's do something to you, right, Or you're
21:03
Speaker 1: not feeling nostalgic, Let's do the same thing to you,
21:07
Speaker 1: which I mean, this is a very tough study to
21:09
Speaker 1: pull off. It totally is. And that's a big problem
21:12
Speaker 1: that the social sciences run up against, Like they are
21:15
Speaker 1: studying subjective reports. Well, the average person can't tell you
21:20
Speaker 1: how they're feeling, even when they sit there and think
21:22
Speaker 1: about how they're feeling. So there are standardized, standardized questionnaires
21:26
Speaker 1: that have become accepted in the field that that say
21:29
Speaker 1: this scores of persons like UM like feeling of nostalgia.
21:34
Speaker 1: There's actually a questionnaire that that is designed to rate
21:38
Speaker 1: how nostalgic you are at the time you take it.
21:41
Speaker 1: Um and and there's there are ways to study. It's
21:45
Speaker 1: not just totally willy nilly, but when you compare it
21:47
Speaker 1: to something say like um biology or something like that,
21:51
Speaker 1: it's it's a little it's it's slightly whispier. Agreed, Um,
21:56
Speaker 1: Should we take a whispy break and talk about some
21:59
Speaker 1: of these studies to this? Yes, all right, buddy, we
22:18
Speaker 1: teased on some studies. Uh and I don't want to
22:23
Speaker 1: say I made fun of them, but they're they're just
22:25
Speaker 1: I think you pointed out some of their inherent flaw.
22:28
Speaker 1: So let's talk about them. Um. Here is one where
22:32
Speaker 1: they had subjects read about different things. One was a
22:37
Speaker 1: tsunami disaster, one was like one bad thing, two good things.
22:42
Speaker 1: One was a disaster, one was the successful landing of
22:45
Speaker 1: a space pro another one was the birth of a
22:47
Speaker 1: polar bear in a zoo, which I mean depending on
22:50
Speaker 1: like that right there, you might hate polar bears, you
22:52
Speaker 1: might hate zoos. You know, it's a good point. Uh yeah,
22:56
Speaker 1: it's a real good point. They probably shouldn't use that.
22:59
Speaker 1: And it's a problem with any kind of standardized questionnaire,
23:02
Speaker 1: whether it's the S A T or the Standardized Questionnaire
23:06
Speaker 1: for nostalgia totally. Uh So, after reading these they answered
23:10
Speaker 1: questions assessing their current levels of nostalgia. What they found
23:14
Speaker 1: was the people who read about the tsunami, we're the
23:17
Speaker 1: most nostalgic, which led them to believe that people call
23:22
Speaker 1: upon nostalgia when they're not feeling good about something right,
23:26
Speaker 1: and that use it. That is the prevailing predominant theory
23:29
Speaker 1: of nostalgia these days, that it is a um It
23:34
Speaker 1: is you can do it voluntarily, but it's basically an
23:37
Speaker 1: involuntary defense mechanism when we experience what's called discontinuity, and
23:43
Speaker 1: discontinuity comes in many forms, but all of it amounts
23:46
Speaker 1: to a reminder that we are going to eventually die
23:50
Speaker 1: one day, and that thought can come in all sorts
23:54
Speaker 1: of different forms. It can come when we have a
23:57
Speaker 1: relationship that's breaking down, when we're far away from our
24:01
Speaker 1: social network. We there are any number of ways that
24:05
Speaker 1: were reminded of our own mortality, right, and one of
24:08
Speaker 1: our big defense mechanisms is growing nostalgic. And uh, it's
24:12
Speaker 1: basically built in suicide prevention because it makes you wonder, like,
24:17
Speaker 1: if we didn't have a way to get back on track,
24:20
Speaker 1: like through nostalgia, and you just like entered a period
24:26
Speaker 1: of discontinuity and never got back to you know, life's
24:31
Speaker 1: good again, where would we be as a species? Who knows?
24:34
Speaker 1: So nostalgia seems to be some sort of evolutionary trick
24:37
Speaker 1: where um, when we look into the void and think,
24:40
Speaker 1: oh God, I'm gonna die or my life is meaningless
24:42
Speaker 1: or whatever, we experienced nostalgia and it has this incredible
24:46
Speaker 1: flood of beneficial um effects on the person who's feeling nostalgic.
24:53
Speaker 1: I thought this one article was pretty great. When they
24:55
Speaker 1: were talking about discontinuity, they referenced Sweet Jude de Blue
25:00
Speaker 1: Eyes by Crosby Stills Nash and I think young right, Like,
25:05
Speaker 1: I know, you know the song very popular? Can you
25:08
Speaker 1: sing it like an urban dance squad song? Come on,
25:11
Speaker 1: you know, sweet? I don't If you have heard any
25:15
Speaker 1: Crosby Steals in Nash song, you've heard this one. It's
25:18
Speaker 1: very very famous. I'm thinking Bob Seeger right now? Is it?
25:24
Speaker 1: Is it? The Bob Seger song is what you mean?
25:27
Speaker 1: But here's a line by Steven Stills, don't let the
25:30
Speaker 1: past remind us of what we are not now right.
25:34
Speaker 1: That's again Hodgman's criticis Hodgman is not alone in his
25:37
Speaker 1: criticism that that it seems like, uh, nostalgia could lead
25:43
Speaker 1: you down this road where you're You're just like, oh,
25:46
Speaker 1: the past is so much better than the present. But
25:49
Speaker 1: apparently from study of nostalgia, it does the exact opposite.
25:52
Speaker 1: It affirms the meaning of your life. It reminds you
25:55
Speaker 1: that you are loved um, now here and now, and
25:59
Speaker 1: it get you back on track after um an experience
26:02
Speaker 1: of discontinuity, which is bizarre. I'm gonna sing a little
26:06
Speaker 1: bit of it, Okay, you know, Uh I am yours,
26:11
Speaker 1: you are mine, We are what we are? What have
26:15
Speaker 1: we got to lose? That's that song I got you?
26:19
Speaker 1: That's so yeah. See, it's a great song. That's better
26:21
Speaker 1: than the Bob Seekers song. I think there is no
26:24
Speaker 1: good Bob Seeker song that's not true. Name one uh
26:29
Speaker 1: all time rock and roll, no terrible, worst song ever
26:32
Speaker 1: turned the page awful like a rock awful catman, Do
26:35
Speaker 1: kill Me. There's one though, that's not bad. I think
26:38
Speaker 1: we've had this conversation before. I think I've been on
26:41
Speaker 1: record as being a big Bob Seeker hater. I'm not
26:44
Speaker 1: big on him either, but there's there's at least one
26:46
Speaker 1: or two. Oh you'd love him. You want to get
26:48
Speaker 1: you want to get married to him? All right, it's
26:51
Speaker 1: enough about me and Bob Seger. Yeah, see he got uncomfortable. Um,
26:57
Speaker 1: so I'm having a moment of dis kind nuity. Yeah.
27:01
Speaker 1: We were talking about the studies, right, Well. I think
27:04
Speaker 1: what we were saying was that if you look at
27:06
Speaker 1: nostalgia from the way that Hodgeman looks at it, which
27:10
Speaker 1: makes sense, um, you would think, well, nostalgia is a
27:13
Speaker 1: bad thing, when in fact, studies have shown that nostalgia
27:17
Speaker 1: actually gets you back on track when you're feeling like,
27:19
Speaker 1: oh God, I'm gonna die one day, or oh I'm
27:21
Speaker 1: not loved or whatever. Rather than getting stuck in reminiscing
27:25
Speaker 1: about how great the past was compared to the present,
27:28
Speaker 1: it reaffirms that the present is pretty great. Yeah, they said, uh,
27:32
Speaker 1: and we always say they like it's sort of an
27:35
Speaker 1: ambiguous body of sometimes we get called up by people
27:38
Speaker 1: who are paying attention. The researchers of nostalgia say they
27:44
Speaker 1: that UM positive mental states include UM higher self esteem,
27:48
Speaker 1: more socially connected, more generous, more altruistic or optimistic, worry
27:54
Speaker 1: less about the future and death and good and that
27:57
Speaker 1: makes it a part of terror management theory, which we
28:00
Speaker 1: actually did a really cool episode one. It was one
28:03
Speaker 1: of those sleepers you know that probably not a lot
28:05
Speaker 1: of people listened to, but it was awesome. Yeah. And
28:08
Speaker 1: they did some other studies and this to me is
28:11
Speaker 1: really interesting. UM in China, uh was one study and
28:16
Speaker 1: elsewhere they have determined that nostalgic feelings might literally make
28:23
Speaker 1: you warmer, right, like physically warmer. And when I said,
28:29
Speaker 1: the warm thing watches over you. They think it might
28:31
Speaker 1: have played a role in evolution, like when you're colder
28:35
Speaker 1: and you think of these thoughts, you get warmer. Yeah.
28:38
Speaker 1: From the study in China, UM they found that the
28:42
Speaker 1: study participants were when they were cold and they were nostalgizing,
28:49
Speaker 1: they were imagining themselves or they were remembering an experience
28:53
Speaker 1: in a warm place, and apparently it had the effect
28:57
Speaker 1: of making them feel physically warmer and less susceptible to
29:01
Speaker 1: the pain of extreme cold. And another study to head
29:04
Speaker 1: nostalgic and non nostalgic subjects hold their hands in thirty
29:08
Speaker 1: nine degree fahrenheit water until they couldn't take it anymore,
29:11
Speaker 1: and if you were feeling nostalgic, you could hold your
29:14
Speaker 1: hand in there longer. So that proves that it warms
29:18
Speaker 1: you up right right, not really, but it's interesting, it
29:21
Speaker 1: is interesting. All of this is pretty interesting, and there
29:24
Speaker 1: is there is supposedly a point where nostalgia can become
29:28
Speaker 1: harmful too. It's called pathological nostalgia, um where you basically
29:32
Speaker 1: do get locked into the idea that everything used to
29:34
Speaker 1: be better back in the day or whenever at some
29:37
Speaker 1: other point. But it's um rare compared to regular what's
29:43
Speaker 1: called personal nostalgia, which is all the nostalgia we've been
29:47
Speaker 1: talking about. And then there's the social nostalgia too, right
29:51
Speaker 1: like when you didn't even live through it. Yeah, where um,
29:55
Speaker 1: you know, like seventeen year old today wearing like a
29:58
Speaker 1: Nirvana T shirt or a Fits T shirt or something
30:01
Speaker 1: like that, or being into that music or thinking like
30:03
Speaker 1: how great the nineties were, and it's like dude, we
30:07
Speaker 1: lived through the nineties. They were not great. But it's
30:09
Speaker 1: the same thing, like I love eighties stuff. I lived
30:11
Speaker 1: through the eighties, but um, I remember thinking the eighties sucked,
30:15
Speaker 1: and then you know, as an older person, when the
30:17
Speaker 1: eighties came back, I'm like, yeah, the eighties were pretty fun. Yeah.
30:20
Speaker 1: I think that's kind of a company sometimes too, by
30:22
Speaker 1: this feeling of like I was born in the wrong time, Like, man,
30:26
Speaker 1: I would have been a great hippie in the sixties,
30:28
Speaker 1: and I just don't fit in here in the nineties. Sure, Like, personally,
30:31
Speaker 1: I think the seventies were probably the greatest decade of
30:34
Speaker 1: all time. But that's ignoring the fact that like Richard
30:38
Speaker 1: Nixon was president, there was an oil embargo, There's all
30:40
Speaker 1: this bad stuff, whereas I'm just thinking like days and
30:44
Speaker 1: confused type seventies where everything was just great and happy
30:47
Speaker 1: and you know, and laid back, and that's nostalgia. It
30:51
Speaker 1: washes out the negative for everyone. But you Yeah, I
30:55
Speaker 1: would say Richard Lincoln Better is one of the more
30:58
Speaker 1: nostalgic filmmakers out there. He plays on that. Yeah, supposedly,
31:01
Speaker 1: his new movie that's coming out is be Awesome. Everybody
31:05
Speaker 1: wants some is that what it is? So it's like
31:07
Speaker 1: Days and Confused, like four or five years later, right, Yeah,
31:10
Speaker 1: he said, it's sort of like a spiritual sequel, like
31:13
Speaker 1: not the same characters, but um, just sort of nineteen
31:17
Speaker 1: eighty that advent of when things were transferring to disco
31:20
Speaker 1: from Yeah, it's gonna be awesome. He's the best. That
31:23
Speaker 1: was a great movie. Dased and Confused agreed. Um. So
31:27
Speaker 1: the other thing that they found is that they did
31:32
Speaker 1: a study. Clay Routledge of North Dakota State did a
31:35
Speaker 1: study there there. Specifically they with a name. Yeah, a
31:38
Speaker 1: real guy, so complained to him. Uh. He did a
31:41
Speaker 1: series of experiments with English, Dutch, and American adults, so
31:44
Speaker 1: he kind of had some different nationalities going on. It's
31:47
Speaker 1: not exclusively American, of course. He let them listen to
31:50
Speaker 1: hit songs from their youth and read lyrics, and afterwards
31:54
Speaker 1: people said, uh, they were more than likely to feel
31:58
Speaker 1: loved and that life was worth living. Some more affirmation
32:02
Speaker 1: when they remember these good old days. Question do you
32:06
Speaker 1: feel life is worth living? Check yes or no? Uh?
32:10
Speaker 1: And finally I got one more thing. Um, they say, well,
32:13
Speaker 1: they do recommend that you not fall into that trap
32:16
Speaker 1: of pathological and yeah, of comparing the present to the
32:19
Speaker 1: past so much. Uh. And they also found that certain
32:23
Speaker 1: kinds of people aren't as great with nostalgia, So maybe
32:26
Speaker 1: you should not indulge in nostalgia if your leery of
32:29
Speaker 1: intimate relationships, they found, or you're an avoidant person, says
32:34
Speaker 1: they have reap smaller benefits from nostalgia compared with people
32:38
Speaker 1: who crave closeness. So I don't know what that says
32:42
Speaker 1: about hand, but let's throw that out there. So, uh,
32:46
Speaker 1: what's your number one nostalgia thing? What gets it for
32:48
Speaker 1: you more than anything else? Probably music? I got two
32:53
Speaker 1: things are tied for first. The smell of a used
32:57
Speaker 1: bookstore or comic book shop. That's mel of like that,
33:01
Speaker 1: I guess rotting paper. It reminds me of Mad magazines
33:06
Speaker 1: from back in the day. And they love them. The
33:09
Speaker 1: fat Christmas lights. Oh yeah, the big I could just
33:13
Speaker 1: faint from the nostalgia. Yeah, they're like they were the
33:16
Speaker 1: big Tachi ones that are coming back now. That's all
33:18
Speaker 1: my family ever used was the big fat ones. It
33:21
Speaker 1: was like more Christmas light. You know, you call those
33:23
Speaker 1: tree burners. Yeah, yeah, we never caught a tree on fire,
33:27
Speaker 1: but yeah, they get pretty hot. You know what my
33:29
Speaker 1: dad did for a few years as we were opening
33:32
Speaker 1: our gifts. Towards the end, he would start dismantling the
33:37
Speaker 1: tree and pruning the limbs and putting him in the fireplace.
33:40
Speaker 1: He would literally burn the Christmas tree on Christmas Morning's
33:44
Speaker 1: here he Uh wow, that's very efficient, was he Germans?
33:48
Speaker 1: Why do we look at it? Uh No? Uh, I
33:52
Speaker 1: should say is he? He is not? And I wish
33:55
Speaker 1: I would have given you a specific nostalgic thing, but um,
33:58
Speaker 1: you did urban dance. Uh No, just music in general taste,
34:02
Speaker 1: smell music got you nice. Put those three together and
34:06
Speaker 1: look out. Chuck's eyes roll back into his head and
34:11
Speaker 1: Hodgeman claps over him and says, get up. Uh. If
34:15
Speaker 1: you want to know more about nostalgy, you can type
34:17
Speaker 1: that word into search bar how stuff works dot com,
34:19
Speaker 1: And I said, search bars, it's time for listener mail.
34:24
Speaker 1: This is from Christina about the makeup episode. He points
34:27
Speaker 1: out some good things. I think, Hey, guys have to
34:30
Speaker 1: weigh in on how makeup works. I think you failed
34:33
Speaker 1: to adequately acknowledge something. Uh. We are not, in fact
34:36
Speaker 1: at a stage where makeup is truly optional for women
34:41
Speaker 1: and I think we said that basically, did we Yeah,
34:45
Speaker 1: at the end, well, I think we said, like it
34:49
Speaker 1: should be your option, but I think she doesn't feel
34:51
Speaker 1: like it truly is an option, right, No, we said that.
34:53
Speaker 1: We said, like the the very fact that there was, like,
34:56
Speaker 1: you know, taking a picture of yourself and posting on
35:00
Speaker 1: Twitter without makeup was rebellious. Says that it's still not
35:04
Speaker 1: really an option. We said that, all right, So forget it, Christina,
35:08
Speaker 1: We're not reading now, We're gonna read it. While many
35:11
Speaker 1: love wearing makeup, many women simply feel obliged to wear
35:13
Speaker 1: it and are in fact penalized if they choose not to,
35:17
Speaker 1: comes in the form of failing to be promoted maybe
35:19
Speaker 1: or taking seriously getting raises, even being hired. It is
35:22
Speaker 1: a hugely expensive habit too, especially if you like to
35:25
Speaker 1: buy the prestige makeup brands. Yeah, so she recommended to
35:30
Speaker 1: people read an article from The Atlantic, which is always
35:32
Speaker 1: a good recommendation, called the makeup Tax, and it kind
35:36
Speaker 1: of sums up the problem like this, women invest time
35:38
Speaker 1: and money into doing the makeup because it impacts their
35:40
Speaker 1: relationships and their paychecks. While both genders tend to buy
35:44
Speaker 1: haircut shaving cream and moisturizer. The price of makeup is
35:47
Speaker 1: something men never have to worry about. And then she
35:50
Speaker 1: goes on to point on point out just how expensive
35:54
Speaker 1: the gap is between like a man's haircut, no woman's
35:57
Speaker 1: hair cut even you know, yeah, oh it's huge. It
36:01
Speaker 1: depends on where you go. Yeah, but I mean if
36:03
Speaker 1: you're a woman that goes to a like a you know,
36:07
Speaker 1: not super cuts, right, it depends on where the man
36:10
Speaker 1: goes though too. If you go to a salon and
36:12
Speaker 1: you get like a cut in color as a woman,
36:14
Speaker 1: you're paying like several hundred dollars. But that's the color
36:16
Speaker 1: jack both. I don't mean to be contrary. That's yes,
36:21
Speaker 1: I agree that they pay a lot more money. Christina. Yeah,
36:24
Speaker 1: I go to Great Clips. Big shout out to Great Clips.
36:29
Speaker 1: There's a free cut in your future. So Christina says, yeah,
36:32
Speaker 1: after my tenth cut, if you have the card, no,
36:36
Speaker 1: not a card, but they give you your receipt every
36:38
Speaker 1: now and then it says off your fat collar cut,
36:43
Speaker 1: which amounts to eight dollars. It's actually one than it's
36:45
Speaker 1: like fourteen or fifteen. But remember in tipping it's fourteen.
36:48
Speaker 1: I give them twenty and you were like what Oh, yeah,
36:51
Speaker 1: that's right, that's right. Uh so Christine me all over again.
36:55
Speaker 1: She finishes up with I look forward to a day
36:57
Speaker 1: when wearing makeup is really truly a choice anyone of
37:00
Speaker 1: any gender in both individuals and institutions respect those choices.
37:04
Speaker 1: In the meantime, I choose to save my pennies and
37:07
Speaker 1: stick it to the man by not buying makeup and
37:10
Speaker 1: normalizing my own bear face. Good for you. Uh. And
37:14
Speaker 1: Christina is a California native listening in Dublin, Ireland. Ahoy,
37:19
Speaker 1: as they say in Ireland, is yeah, all right, we'll
37:24
Speaker 1: find out. I think, I hope. Uh, thanks a lot, Christina,
37:28
Speaker 1: all points agreed. Uh. If you want to get in
37:31
Speaker 1: touch with us like Christina did, whether you're in Dublin
37:34
Speaker 1: or Los Angeles or wherever, you can tweet to us
37:38
Speaker 1: at s y ESK podcast. You can join us on
37:41
Speaker 1: Facebook dot com, slash stuff you Should Know. You can
37:43
Speaker 1: send us an email to Stuff Podcast at how stuff
37:46
Speaker 1: Works dot com, and as always, join us at our
37:48
Speaker 1: home on the web, Stuff you Should Know dot com
37:56
Speaker 1: For more on this and thousands of other topics. Does
37:59
Speaker 1: it how stuff Works Com