Nostalgia, Morality, & Mass Entertainment
Adam Kaiser finds a fine case of mass existential longing.
Traditional fairy tales, comic books almost always tried to introduce basic moral notions and religious themes to children. For example, in a 1999 interview, George Lucas claimed he created Star Wars to help kids develop a sense of God and spirituality (as throughout the entire series the heroes are defined by their spirituality as well as their belief in good and evil, while the villains practice occult manipulations and Nietzschean power politics).
Star Wars? Take away the special effects and what's left? For some, nothing less than an intellectual wasteland. A ridiculous "Bible school" world of Good and Evil that bears almost no resemblance whatsoever to the world we actually live in. And most of the "superhero", "Summer blockbuster" films are much the same.
Even Star Trek was basically straight out of the Hollywood "us vs. them" repertoire. From my frame of mind, this pop culture/social media deluge is nearly as threatening to what's left of American culture as MAGA or Q-Anon.
It is no coincidence that in the West the staunchest recent defenders of the value of fiction, fantasy, and fairy tales have come from the ranks of devout Christian apologists: J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, and G.K. Chesterton.
And, perhaps, J.K. Rowling?
On the other hand, today there are volumes and volumes of fiction, fantasy and fairytales that have nothing at all to do with Christianity. And it's the Christians [in America] who are waging a war against those publicans they insist must be banned from schools...their children protected from it. Something in a book offends one or another Christian parent and books get tossed. Sometimes jobs are lost.
Their sentiment is wonderfully illustrated by Chesterton’s quote, “If you happen to read fairy tales, you will observe that one idea runs from one end of them to the other – the idea that peace and happiness can only exist on some condition. This idea, which is the core of ethics, is the core of the nursery-tales” (All Things Considered, 1908).
So, it's not for nothing that as the population ages here in America, there is increasing nostalgia for two decades in particular: the fifties and the sixties. Two decades far, far removed in many respects, but both basically embracing one or another [God or No God] "my way or the highway" moral and political dogma.
On the other hand, there is a more or less liberal rendition of this and a more or less conservative rendition. And [of course] the extremists at both ends.
Today, however, deep state and all, it still goes back and forth in America. Though, let's be honest, democracy itself is wobbling more and more.
America has now sustained for decades a fierce split right down the middle between liberal, generally No God folks in the Northeast and West Coast, and conservative, generally Christian folks most everywhere else. Elections decided by a handful of votes. Over and again.
Though, "peace and happiness" are still part of "democracy and the rule of law" for most folks.
For now.
One implication is that these works are only able to convey their intended value when viewed within the ethical paradigm from which they stem. So how does this nostalgia for orthodox stories and their moral lessons arise when we have mostly rejected the assumptions embedded within them? There has been no widespread religious revival.
On the other hand, here in America, with the growth over the decades of the Evangelicals and their merger with both MAGA and with the fiercely religious far-right Republicans, you can't rule out anything these days.
