Global warming, global cooling, nuclear war, epidemics, mass shootings, overpopulation, extinction, depressions, recessions, artificial intelligence, Seth MacFarlane. “Today” is the precipice of our own destruction and “yesterday” always better, simpler.
The tendency to romanticize the “good ol’ days” is not unique and not necessarily a bad thing. It is what I like to call historical myopia (not sure where the phrase originated but I’m not taking credit for it). Myopia is the medical term for near-sightedness, meaning an inability to see clearly at a distance. We have a tendency to pick and choose events and eras from the past that today seem better but too often our memory is distorted or only partially informed.