Tool Of Negativity: Klosterman & Crawford On Nostalgia

Tool of Negativity: Klosterman and Crawford on Nostalgia

Nostalgia is a desperate form of trying to preserve memories. People want to remember the happier times by clinging into to the past. In the article “Nostalgia on Repeat,” by Chuck Klosterman, and in the essay, “The Case for Working with Your Hands,” written by Matthew Crawford, the authors explore the different effects nostalgia has on society. Klosterman argues that nostalgia is falsely overused and delays social development, while Crawford argues that it is a waste of time in academic settings. Nostalgia is a tool to show how remembering the past can negatively affect the mindsets and decisions made by those individuals.

According to Klosterman, nostalgia is “problematic” because it changes reality uncontrollably, while Crawford feels nostalgia is “surreal” in the future. Nostalgia is not as simple as it seems because it is starting to evolve with modern times. People are more concerned with the feeling nostalgia brings, adding onto the ongoing problem of falseness. This idea is confusing people to associate nostalgia with false notions of happiness making it not real, thus fabricating nostalgia into a tool of negativity. Remembering things differently will not make it better, but rediscovering them can remind a person of why it was liked in the beginning.

Klosterman writes, “It doesn’t make any sense to assume any art we remember from the past is going to automatically improve when we experience it again” (Klosterman 3). He is stating it is unlikely to assume art or anything will get better if the same person experiences it again because if they did not like it the first time, then there are already negative feelings associated with that piece of art. Once that feeling have a negative association the art is hard to perceive in a positive view. But Crawford contradicts Klosterman’s idea by saying, “Now I was rediscovering the intensely absorbing nature of the work, and it got thinking about possible livelihoods” (Crawford 5). To rediscover something is to discover it again and Crawford is saying the feeling of being reintroduced to mechanics is absorbing. Being able to rediscover his passion for mechanics automatically improved the way Crawford views his passion after experiencing that feeling again. He is not trying to cling into the past feelings of mechanics, yet he is finding out why he loves mechanics for the first time over again as if he has never done it making it different from nostalgia.

The intensely absorbing nature of nostalgia causes a lazy mindset. Klosterman insists the problematic issue is “that nostalgia is lazy, lifeless and detrimental to creativity” (Klosterman 2). Being stuck on the past is unhealthy for future development. If everyone is reliving past decisions, there will be no one present to live in the future. And if no one is living in the present new things will not made making it a danger to creativity and society’s development. Crawford is an example of the issue when he writes, “A good job requires a field of action where you can put out your best capacities to work and see an effect in the world. Academic credentials do not guarantee this” (Crawford 11). He believes having a good job that can make a difference does not require a degree.

He is contradicting himself because he received his Ph. D. in political philosophy and uses his degree to write academic pieces like, “The Case for Working with Your Hands.” Crawford’s essay is being used for college students to write an essay on, maybe an academic credential is needed to make an effect on the world. In Klosterman’s perceptive, Crawford is part of the issue of being lifeless because he does not like the white-collar job, yet he still does it while complaining about how academics is useless in the working field. Academics is not waste of time because it helped Crawford make a living as a writer; being able to obtain an education already makes an effect on the world by providing the means to make a change. Today nostalgia has detrimental effects on society. People seem to be following what everyone else is doing. In the article, “Nostalgia on Repeat,” Klosterman supports this by saying, “Connectivity will replace repetition” (Klosterman 5).

Forming connections are becoming more important to people than individuality. He is warning society nostalgia is going to be replaced with social media since it is the norm people are becoming addicted to. Nostalgia is being used as a medium for people to form new connections, as it was previously done using continuous repetition of the same action or song. Crawford relates by saying, “A gifted young person who chooses to become a mechanic rather than accumulate academic credentials is viewed as eccentric, if not self-destructive” (Crawford 2). He is saying society is judgmental on teenagers’ decisions to not take the academic path. Being judgmental does not make it wrong but it does discourage them into following the normal view to be more connected to society. Someone who does something that is not common, cannot share their experiences. If a teenager already has talent in the trade and decides to enter the manual career without receiving a degree first, according to Crawford it is acceptable, but to society it is not.

Crawford and Klosterman would agree connecting to something familiar makes people believe anything is more possible and this connectivity can be negative if no knowledge is obtained for the job or if people are just remembering it because of everyone else. People are confusing connection with connectivity. To be connected to something is more intimately personal and requires a relationship to be built, but connectivity is more detached between numerous people and things. People want to feel connected to others, however they end up causing a huge chain of connectivity using nostalgia. Does nostalgia have a negative effect on daily routines? It can be possible it does if the action leaves you stuck reliving what ifs or reminiscing about happier times when new times can be made. Klosterman and Crawford may have different views on how to handle nostalgia, but they have similar points on how it negatively affects the lives of people around it.

Klosterman writes about how nostalgia is “accidental repetition” and how this mechanical experience holds no significance to the past. Listening to the same song repetitively can create a special meaning, but this not done on purpose yet by strange circumstance. On the other hand, Crawford connects to the mechanical emotions of his readers by sharing his anecdote. He shows how following “accidental repetition” leaves him miserable because he left high school to go to college and sit down at a desk for more years. The process of sitting in a classroom for 17 years is repetitive because it is repeating the same thing of learning in different ways. Nostalgia is a powerful tool used to shape the mindset of individuals to recreate enjoyable moments forgotten in the memory to fabricate happiness.