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The past was not that cute

(juliawise.net)
430 points mhb | 4 comments | 06 Dec 25 21:53 UTC | HN request time: 0.001s | source
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api ◴[06 Dec 25 23:32 UTC] No.46177612[source]▶
Romanticizing the past is hot again right now, and kind of comes in two political flavors: trads and neo-monarchists on the right, and greens and anarcho-primitivists on the left (whom I consider to be left-trads).

It’s always important to repeat the PSA that this is always survivorship bias and mythologizing. The past was very often much harder and worse than the present. When it wasn’t worse, it was just different. People back then faced existential angst, fear about the future, depression, and alienation just like we do. There were wars, crazy or idiotic politicians, popular delusions, plagues, depressions, atrocities, and all the rest.

That’s not to say that all things always get better, or that they get better in a straight line or in an orderly fashion. History is a mess. I’m talking about romanticizing the past to the point of imagining a lost golden age. That is bullshit.

replies(2): >>46177910 #>>46178151 #
1. gerdesj ◴[07 Dec 25 00:44 UTC] No.46178151[source]▶
"trads and neo-monarchists on the right, and greens and anarcho-primitivists on the left"

Where would I find formal definitions of that scatterfest of terminologies?

I'd like to engage but I'm not up to speed on the lingo. I think PSA means Public Service Announcement - am I on track there at least?

replies(1): >>46180327 #
2. scott_w ◴[07 Dec 25 09:16 UTC] No.46180327[source]▶
Trads: reference to “tradwife.” Follow an idealised 1950s lifestyle that they saw on Mad Men where the wife submits to the man. But they don’t want a conservative woman, they want to force liberal women into it instead.

Neo-monarchist: wants a dictator to replace democratic rule, where that dictator is a tech CEO like Elon Musk or Sam Altman (used to be Zuckerberg).

Greens: environmentalists.

Anarcho-primitivist: wants to end all technological advance and return to hunter gatherer society while miraculously somehow maintaining all the benefits of technology (medicine, relatively comfortable lifestyle).

replies(1): >>46184607 #
3. api ◴[07 Dec 25 20:00 UTC] No.46184607[source]▶
Pretty good. Trads also sometimes means people who want to go back to feudal or ancient ways, old school Catholics, and various other things. It can mean different things depending on the context but it generally tends toward social conservatism and old school patriarchy.
replies(1): >>46185119 #
4. scott_w ◴[07 Dec 25 21:00 UTC] No.46185119{3}[source]▶
> Trads also sometimes means people who want to go back to feudal or ancient ways, old school Catholics, and various other things.

This is simply incorrect. Any historian versed in this area will point to the fact that the version of "trad-lifestyle" being pushed by its supporters simply did not exist in feudal Europe. In fact, I don't think the form they push really existed for any length of time in the USA, either. Maybe there was a form of it somewhere in the world but I strongly doubt the people pushing this lifestyle would even know.