On Sun, 3 Oct 2004, Doug Henwood wrote:
> Miles Jackson wrote:
>
> >Oh great--now we'll receive a lecture from JKS about the inherent
> >superiority of Cole Porter--
>
> Well Cole Porter's pretty good, even if he isn't my iTunes' Top 25
> Most Played. But people are always comparing the best of the old
> days, e.g. Porter, with the median or worse of the present, e.g.
> N*Sync. Or Jane Austen with Danielle Steele. It's not fair to the
> present.
>
> Doug
This actually fits in with memory research: nondepressed people have much better recall for events and objects with positive connotations than those with negative connotations. (We tend to look at the past with rose-tinted glasses, as long as we're not depressed.) I think this goes a long way in explaining the type of nostalgia posted earlier in this thread.
Miles