First Chapter
The historical development of Nostalgia
Feelings of nostalgia are often triggered by sadness or loneliness, resulting in the distinguishing bittersweet expression of the condition, an experience of both pleasant and unpleasant elements. Evoking an individual’s memories from 10 to 70 years earlier, biased recollections of peace, turmoil, and often experiences of reconciliation after an unpleasant incident.
Etymologically nostalgia stems from the greek nostos meaning homecoming, and algos meaning pain or grief. Johannes Hofer, a physician, coined the term in 1688 with his doctoral thesis. Nostalgia, also known as Swiss Illness, was a physiological condition later diagnosed in many Swiss Mercenaries, whose military services were hired by various European armies during the Nine Years War. These professional soldiers exhibited various physical symptoms such as; loss of appetite, fatigue, fever, as well as a general melancholy and an overall expression of homesickness. Hofer suggested that the mercenaries suffered “a cerebral disease of essentially demonic cause”. The cause of which being “the quite continuous vibration of animal spirits through those fibres of the middle brain in which impressed traces of ideas of the Fatherland still cling”. Other influential physicians of the time disputed Hofer’s findings, suggesting that the illness was caused by the difference of atmospheric pressure the mercenaries experienced as they descended the Alps. One theory argued that the condition was a form of brain-damage caused by frequent exposure to the sound of clanging cowbells.
Hofer found that Nostalgia could only be treated by the patient returning to their homes or communities. A sufferer of nostalgia was considered to be vulnerable to death, or suicide, and many soldiers were allowed to leave their foreign services if they were diagnosed. Although the underlying sentiments of nostalgia were in keeping with the times, the condition carried the association of mental sickness.
By the early 19th century, the meaning of the term changed, and the condition was reconsidered as being purely psychological, and associated with melancholia and depression. Described as an ‘Immigrant Psychosis’ the condition was attributed to homesickness, the acute sense of displacement and feelings of grief, loss, incomplete mourning and depression.
It was only in the late 20th century that the conceptual status of Nostalgia was separated from its geographical connotations. Fred Davis, a sociologist, set the foundations for this new understanding of Nostalgia in 1979 and in his book ‘Yearning for Yesterday’, Davis defines the divergence of the concepts by pointing out the non-spacial terms like warm, childhood and yearning, that are associated with nostalgia. Based on his discontinuity hypothesis Davis suggested that nostalgia functions as a way of protecting personal identity against threats of discontinuity, arising as a defensive method to avoid anxiety associated with failing to maintain a sense of self-continuity. Davis found a correlation between the evocation of the past, and the context of present fears and uncertainties, and saw nostalgia as a response to an individual’s problems developing a stable sense of self in the face of a chaotic world.
Nostalgia is a universal human experience, a yearning for moments, people and places of our past, of happy personal associations, which can support us in moments of need. Nostalgia helps us to place ourselves in the world, give meaning to current events through the lens of our our past mistakes and victories. It allows us to build up a unique identity, based upon our past experiences we manoeuvre ourselves into the future. This is not to say that nostalgia is exclusively an exercise of reminiscing on positive past experiences, some expressions are extremely negative, memories of loss, separation or injury, and are often juxtaposed into a sequence of redemption. Wildschut gives the example of a family dinner starting off with a vicious argument but ending with the reconciliation of the family singing together at the end of the meal, the narrative concludes with family values overpowering the bitterness of the initial negative experience.
Wildschut argues the nostalgia serves four primary functions; the generation of a positive experience, enhances self-regard, strengthens social bonds, and gives meaning to our lives. The role of nostalgia as a positive experience, reenforces the individuals emotional health, in the span of a human life, various chaotic and traumatic events can cause instability in self-regard and happiness, nostalgia acts as a way to counter these diversions. Memories of a better time, or social construct can help balance a persons negative outlook, increase subjective well-being and fosters psychological resilience. Wildschut proposed that nostalgia serves as a store of positive affect as in his experiments it was shown to strengthen flexible, creative and efficient thought patterns.
Our connections with the past influence our present, and so put forward our future, in many ways these three aspects of time are interlocked. Out past experiences are unique to us as individuals, and it is on the foundations of our past that we move towards our futures. It is in our past that we begin to establish our priorities, our connotations and our expectations. The existential aspects of nostalgia are embedded in an understanding of mortality. According to terror management theory the anxiety of mortality is maintained by a two-part buffer that consists in a shared cultural worldview and a balance of self-esteem. Nostalgia acts as a mechanism which allows us to perceive the passing of time as meaningful, and the soothing of existential fears.