By Maria Millers
When the newly minted Liberal leader, Angus Taylor fronted his first press conference last Friday he immediately announced that his priorities were to restore our standard of living and protect our way of life and put what he called Australian values at the centre of policy, especially on immigration.
He was tapping into the increasing discontent among many Australians who face the everyday challenges dominating daily life: mortgages, rent, food and other costs of modern living. Add to this the deep social divides that surfaced post the Voice referendum: on climate, immigration, Indigenous rights.
What Taylor is doing is tapping into a rampant, powerful but rarely examined force behind today’s discontent, what can best be described as misguided nostalgia. A belief that there was once a stable, prosperous, socially cohesive ‘golden age’ (often imagined as the 1950s) that we have somehow lost.
Many psychologists and philosophers argue that nostalgia is an intrinsic part of human nature. In uncertain times nostalgia often intensifies and helps us cope with change. And that is nothing new. English Romantic 19th century poet Wordsworth in Ode: Intimations of Immortality (1807) mourns that fading wonder of childhood:
There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream,
The earth, and every common sight,
To me did seem
Apparelled in celestial light…
Humans are deeply sensitive to change and uncertainty. When the present feels unstable, we often romanticise the past because it feels familiar, certain and emotionally safe.
This doesn’t mean the past was always better – just that it feels coherent and known. For some as in war torn areas or in abusive situations or neglect memories will not be as positive. However, our brains tend to remember positive aspects more vividly than negative ones.
This cognitive bias makes the past seem better than it likely was.
In Australia, this myth shapes debates about housing, crime, immigration, gender roles, education, and national identity. It feeds frustration not just because things feel harder now – but because they’re measured against a version of the past that never fully existed.
Back in the fifties Australians were fed a constant diet of programs from the USA such as Leave it to Beaver, Father Knows Best, The Waltons which celebrated what appeared on the surface to be a simpler, safer life.
Undoubtedly the post war period was a time of reconstruction and is remembered for affordable homes, secure jobs, strong communities and clear values. In Australia this view shapes debates about housing, immigration, gender roles, education, and national identity.
True the 50s was the golden age of capitalism and reconstruction and catching up after the war And economic growth was buoyed by unique post-war conditions unlikely to be repeated.
However it was paradise only for some and not for all.
Alcoholism was rife with the 6 o’clock closing evidenced by the often vomit strewn pavements outside hotels and high incidence of domestic violence. Many women were excluded from economic independence and if pregnant faced the horrors of backyard abortions, social ostracism and a life of penury if they were brave enough to keep their babies. Women’s health problems were ignored with many addicted to over the counter products such Bex often resulting in kidney disease.
Migration policies were racially restrictive and the White Australia Policy was in full force. Indigenous Australians faced systemic discrimination (pre-1967 referendum rights).
And for anyone with cultural aspirations Australia was a cultural backwater and the only the way forward was to go overseas.
So the 1950s weren’t paradise. But believing they were may be shaping today’s politics more than we admit as longing for a simplified past prevents us from designing a realistic future.
And when today’s Australians compare their lives to that simplified memory, modern realities feel like decline – even if they’re seen through unrealistic rose coloured lenses.
Younger Australians facing high rents and insecure work feel they are denied the stability previous generations enjoyed. Older Australians may feel accused of hoarding advantages and indeed there’s a case that older Australians have been prioritised over the needs of youth.
The 1950s myth becomes a wedge between generations rather than a shared story.
But it’s the political simplification of today’s problems that is dangerous and deepens generational tensions. The myth encourages the idea that restoring old attitudes could restore all the negatives we face today. And politicians shamelessly exploit this misguided view.
And nostalgia makes complex problems look like moral decline rather than the result of structural change.
Housing affordability is one example. In the 1950s, one wage bought a house and the post war government invested in social housing and opening up land in outer suburbs. Today two wages are needed.
But what has to be taken into account is urbanisation, population growth, financial deregulation and global capital flows. Of course those looking back would zero in on population intake and ignore the many areas where our society would fall apart without input of migrant workers.
Today’s globalised, finance-driven housing market bears little resemblance to that past era. Yet politicians routinely invoke the past without acknowledging how structurally different the economy now is.
When governments promise to ‘restore the dream’ they are often selling emotional memory, not replicable conditions.
The myth encourages the idea that restoring old attitudes could restore old outcomes. Nostalgia adds to discontent by creating unrealistic benchmarks, social media adds to this by amplifying issues
And as algorithms reward anger, many become addicted to outrage without looking at the reasons behind their discontent.
There are many issues facing us today that we should have national conversations about. But regrettably we are losing the forums for this to take place.
Such as: Should billionaires have the political power they are exerting, pushing us into a modern version of feudalism? Are liberal democracies up to solving global problems? Is patriotism in a globalised world still relevant or possible? And are we really more divided or just appear to be so online?
When the future feels unclear, the past feels safe – even if it’s selectively remembered. Australia isn’t declining it’s transforming. But if we keep comparing ourselves to a past that never fully existed, we will mistake change for decay. Hopefully the new leader will bear that in mind.
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If Angus is going to do his new job properly, he needs to get himself down to a face-mask manufacturer, get a realistic replica made of his current face, and wear it on the back of his head.
No time to waste, matey, if looking forward, looking backward is going to be the working ethos for your new role. Besides, it’ll confuse the f*ck out of everyone, as well as being an accurate depiction of Janus, the god of beginnings, transitions, and endings.
Squizzy better enjoy the faint sunshine of his first few days in the highest position? he’s ever going to attain.The renewed attention on his known mediocrity is going to kill his temporary self satisfaction, and Vac Hume is probably worse.
Ground hog day,again and again.Albo’s mob can just go on holiday…no, they’ve been there for a while now.
Same shit, different day.
Angus Taylor has no vision for the future – he only has a selective memory of a mythical past. In fact the past has only brought him to the present and without practical aspirations he cannot proceed beyond where he is now. People want change – they don’t want rinse and repeat.
The intention of American billionaires is to re-establish feudalism where they do no work and take all the profits. This is the real aspiration of capitalism. The fascist road to neo-feudalism has been well described by many Sci-Fi writers especially during the 50s & 60s, and especially by American authors. We have been warned.
Now we see the Mainstream Media Manipulation Monopoly and the LIARBRAL$ propaganda office ABC harping on about the suitability of Anus Faylure and Just Humus. A cow-pat with a sprig of parsley on top is still a cow-pat.
The myth of 50s nostalgia being sold by the COALition conveniently overlooks the reality of many post war families dealing with now described war induced PTSD, self-medication with restricted alcohol, the acceptance of domestic violence with the ”What happens in the family stays in the family” attitudes, ignoring women who broke the desired mould and departed violent relationships without government assistance payments to work for 40% of the male basic wage, experiencing few opportunities for progression in companies and often sexual harassment from bosses &/or co-workers. Then there was the high child mortality rate accompanying many diseases, especially polio.
All this promoted by media and government advertising ”calming down” society be expounding the wonderful Mum, Dad & two kids preferred model that rarely existed ….. while the trade unions battled greedy, often incompetent and corrupt bosses and politicians.
The world we have today has no foundation in the history of the LIARBRAL$, a political party formed by Robert Gordon Menzies, the Royalist tragic lawyer who became PM after resigning his Australian Army commission on the first day of WWI.
If your only ‘vision’ is to repeat the past, then what’s the point?
Ah the mythical magic past. Looking back through rose-tinted glasses to a time when the bosses could rape ( the environment, the workers) with impunity. BUT we did have Housing Commissions which built homes, we did have a CES which found jobs for the unemployed, we did have public hospitals, public schools which were comparatively well-resourced, a relatively ethical public service, a progressive tax system which actually forced the wealthy to pay more, and even old folks homes (though how good they were is hard to tell but surely better than what’s offered under privatisation). Now all we need is for the Labor government to remember who it is supposed to serve and move boldly and there will never need to be a place for the Coalition.
And, RomeoCharlie, we need to remember which party with its neoliberal philosophy, privatised and destroyed those institutions you name, and more, so they could point to record surpluses and better economic management.
Cocky, be a little fair to Menzies, a divisive subject for assessment, for his two older brothers did serve overseas and a family “agreement” had decided that Robert, a Uni student from 1913, would remain in the Uni Rifles, a militia group, and be the promising star at law, eventually graduating with honours in 1916. He actually resigned his commission in 1921. He also voted for and supported overseas service and would have served immediately had Billy Hughes referendums got up. Later, however, we might recommence… I read one of his bowelchoking books for curiosity, “Afternoon Light.” Beyond boring and very flowery.