site banner
MelodicBerries  virtus junxit mors non separabit  1yr ago (freddiedeboer.substack.com)   3348 thread views

It's So Sad When Old People Romanticize Their Heydays, Also the 90s Were Objectively the Best Time to Be Alive

freddiedeboer.substack.com
18
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

I kept waiting for the interesting twist, where he interogates his nostalgia or comes up woth an actual theory of why the 90s were great, but the entire post is just a series of country music cliches about how life was so much simpler back in the day, drinking your dad's stolen booze and losing your virginity in your friend's old Dodge. Like, yeah Freddie, I also had a lot of fun in high school and think modern youths are a sad, weak, degenerate imitation of my own generation's greatness. Such is the opinion of literally every person over the age of 30 since Cicero complained about all the long hair and jewelry Clodius and his friends were wearing.

He's just arrogantly saying "no, but dude. Seriously. The 90s really were that great," and then making the same exact list of "lost" teenage experiences his parents probably complained about. Even his recognition and rejection of the idea that he's just feeling the same generational nostalgia everyone feels once they hit a certain age is cliché.

I usually find Freddy DeBoar insightful, even when I disagree, but this is peak millenial hipster navelgazing and he should be embarrassed.

Am I missing something here? Is there an insight hiding sonwwhere after I started skimming that rises above the lyrics of a Brad Paisely song?

I think the whole theme is an examination of how, even knowing that he looks at Boomers who say the same shit about the 50s/60s/70s as morons, and at Retvrners who say the same shit about the 15th/17th/18th as schizophrenics, he still can't help feeling that way about the 90s. The denouement fantasy 90s, of going to all the cool places and doing all the cool things with all the cool people, is the capper; that's how we always idealize a time period. People rarely feel nostalgia through a Rawlsian Veil of Ignorance; maybe Gibbon. We rarely think "On average, people in time period X had it best." Or "I would be most likely to wind up ok in time period x."

We either think, "it would have been cool to live in the 60s and go to Woodstock and hang out in the Haight and do drugs and have love ins with pretty girls." Or we think "If I as an individual, with my unique skills and tastes, were transported back to the 50s intact, I would crush it."

We never think "What if I go back to the 60s, but I'm an ugly guy born in a trailer park working a dead end job in a cardboard box factory, I never get a good education or hear much about the world because my religious parents keep me from most media, I only vaguely hear about Woodstock and the Haight after the fact."

When we time travel, we always imagine ourselves in the thick of the action. Which most people weren't. Freddy's "Friends" piece that's being argued about further down is kinda asking the question: should media present an aspirational normative view of cool people as cool people should be? Or should it present the average person who has only a vague interest in politics and events?

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats