Nostalgia: It’s a Wonderful Dangerous Thing!

I recently read an interview with an author of relatively the same age as I.  Inevitably discussion turned to his work habits.  He talked at length about his IBM Selectric typewriter, remarking that he couldn’t compose on a computer and he couldn’t really understand those who could.

At least I think it was the Selectric, it may have been a Remington, or maybe he was one who writes all of his manuscripts longhand, maybe with a quill pen.

This nostalgia for a previous platform is so common it seems part of our genetic makeup.  I certainly don’t begrudge any of these writers their preferred platform of creation; however, I am concerned with the unstated suggestion that somehow there is intrinsic merit in the use of an older form.  A level of comfort and familiarity (both personal goods) are broadened to a societal good.  You can hear the author’s smug silent comment, “I’m not saying that writing on a computer is bad, it’s just that I wouldn’t do it.”

No one today says to Mr. Selectric, “I don’t know how you can write with an electric typewriter.  The manual typewriter is such a purer experience.”  Probably, however, at some point someone did.  Whenever a new platform emerges, it can be disruptive to those comfortable with the old.

This is where nostalgia becomes delusional.  Remembering older platforms fondly (and using older platforms that work for an individual) is culturally beneficial, we should not lose our history.  However, it is wrong to tie ourselves and others to an older model based on the fact that it is traditional.  New technologies should not be blindly accepted as better because they are new, but older technologies should not be stubbornly maintained because they are old.

The old mocking the new is a pattern of human existence, the mirror of the new discounting the old.  I am happy for Mr. Selectric and hope he continues to produce great works with his beloved machine, but I would never suggest to a budding writer that he or she learn how to use an electric typewriter (if I could find one!).

Different is neither better nor worse, it’s only different