Nostalgia Goggles - is It a Poor Argument?

[Wolf Sage]

I am very much against the nostalgia goggles argument and I think people who use it need to reassess how they communicate. I have never seen this argument used effectively or with a modicum of intelligence. It may be justified in some instances, but I'm not aware of any. How can you possibly know why someone prefers something? It's presumptuous, unfair, and generally baseless.

Hardly presumptuous if the person proposing the argument actually took the time to analyze the opposing argument. If the opposing argument contains hints of nostalgia-laden bias then it is entirely possible to know why someone prefers something due to their nostalgia. Anyone who's ever been in a debate should know better than to just assume (it makes an a** out of you and me). That being said, one can easily assess hints of nostalgia bias by analyzing the argument in question. Furthermore, I like to think that it's unfair to all parties involved if the opposing party is so caught up on the past (nostalgia) for incorrigible reasons that he fails to address the other side (the present or future). Also, if anything, it tends to be the person wearing the nostalgia googles who's using a baseless argument.

Just a few days ago, a Pokémon fan mentioned having a distaste for the current generation's designs. That in itself is okay; not everyone is going to fall in love with every design that Game Freak hurdles at us. However, the fan in question went on to use the argument that the first gen Pokémon had better designs overall, because its Pokémon were more animal-like, and the current gen sucks because there's a Pokémon based on a sword and a tree—as if the first gen didn't have its fair share of Rummage Sale Rejects. (magnets, piles of goo, humans, disembodied whack-a-mole heads, etc.) Said fan even went so far as to say that Game Freak has run out of ideas, based on the aforementioned "sword" and ""tree" Pokémon.

What's worse is only a small portion of the current gen's Pokémon has even been announced. How is it possible that two off-putting designs makes the entire gen suck—before the entire gen has yet to be revealed? This is the part where the person wearing the goggles forgot to even take into consideration. He failed to consider that upon the unveiling of more Pokémon, the ratio of favorable designs might increase, and there may not be as many bad designs as he initially thought; he failed to acknowledge the fact that there have been bad designs in the past that should receive the same judgment as the "sword" and "tree" Pokemon under the logic he used (not to mention there have been a number of flower-based Pokémon in every gen to date [so why not a tree?]. Most of all, he forgot to entertain the concept that perhaps it is not the Pokémon games that have gotten old and played out but perhaps it is he who has simply "grown up" and the series just doesn't interest him anymore.

The Nostalgia Goggles argument is suitable here.

---

HOWEVER, the greatest, most irrefutable, real-world example of Nostalgia Goggles can be seen in older generations who claim that crime rate has skyrocketed, youth has gotten dumber, and every possible thing "back in their day" was better (etc.)... ignoring any possible negative event that ever happened back then as if they NEVER EXISTED.

 

[JuicieJ]

HOWEVER, the greatest, most irrefutable, real-world example of Nostalgia Goggles can be seen in older generations who claim that crime rate has skyrocketed, youth has gotten dumber, and every possible thing "back in their day" was better (etc.)... ignoring any possible negative event that ever happened back then as if they NEVER EXISTED.

Like how some people say they miss Bill Clinton in office. Stupid...

 

[Musicfan]

Like how some people say they miss Bill Clinton in office. Stupid...

Like how people say they want bush and office.<this is stupid. Every generation says the next is the ruination of the world.

 

[Ventus]

Most of all, he forgot to entertain the concept that perhaps it is not the Pokémon games that have gotten old and played out but perhaps it is he who has simply "grown up" and the series just doesn't interest him anymore.

You can't tell someone that what they're thinking is XYZ when they say it's ABC. Even if it's truly XYZ from your perspective, from their perspective it is ABC. Even so, I admitted that PKMN was stale and that I was disinterested in the series as a whole, got shot in the foot for even mentioning such things, then moved on with my life. It isn't at all nostalgia. Using the PKMN argument you listed - that someone finds Gen I designs more based around animals and what not than Gen IV onwards - could it possibly be that the person in question [me] has a(n) (over)zealous love for Gen I? Or maybe it was that, when they said "based off of [sic] animals", they really meant to say "based on things you can and will frequently be in contact with"? The idea here is that you shouldn't chalk things up to nostalgia goggles, at least not in the video game sphere of things. There are multiple reasons bar "oh this game made me feel good as a kid so it's amazing!!", even if they aren't brought forward in the best articulated manner.

(btw feel free to rip this apart)

 

[Beauts]

So I guess the term 'nostalgia goggles' is the same as 'rose tinted glasses'. Anyway, I think it's rubbish. Good is good whether the thing comes from today or 60 years ago. People can be blinkered by nostalgia when they reject all new things as bad, but having a fondness for something because you've liked it/been aware of it for a long time is not a bad thing. Then the argument goes out the window in my opinion. Who cares why someone likes something?

 

[Musicfan]

So I guess the term 'nostalgia goggles' is the same as 'rose tinted glasses'. Anyway, I think it's rubbish. Good is good whether the thing comes from today or 60 years ago. People can be blinkered by nostalgia when they reject all new things as bad, but having a fondness for something because you've liked it/been aware of it for a long time is not a bad thing. Then the argument goes out the window in my opinion. Who cares why someone likes something?

I believe that it is more about the debate part of it and a debate is not supposed to be emotionally loaded it is supposed to be factual. I admit that Im a poor debater on that part.

 

[Egregious]

Opinions and tastes regarding things such as video games, books, the aforementioned Hershey's white chocolate, and pretty much anything else are personal and subjective. It really does not get more subjective than personal opinion. Nostalgia develops because of an individual's life experiences. When you make a claim such as the following:

"Egregious only likes _________ because he's wearing nostalgia goggles!"

What you're saying is, the person holding the opinion [in that very vague example, myself] has an opinion because of their personal life experiences. Okay then. While that is technically true, it is essentially the most basic statement you could possibly make. At this point I'm venturing into my personal worldview - but I don't believe that objects/games/products have any inherit "goodness". How appealing they are is entirely cultural and based upon our experiences and what we know of the world - upbringing, politics, advertising, etc.

The fact of the matter, though, is that differences in taste can never be resolved as long as more than one person is still alive. I am not advocating for the wholesale slaughter of the world's population to create unanimous taste agreement - instead, I hope for more tolerance for the fact that opinions differ due to unresolvable differences in life experiences.

What I'm saying in this awful, convoluted, and excessively detailed way... is that the "nostalgia goggles" argument is vague and not useful - the person making the claim is not being specific enough, and the person on the receiving end feels judged for liking something due to their personal experience. If you want to debate taste (a subject that should be treated with caution due to the potential for mutual butthurtedness), use specific characteristics of the subject under scrutiny. If you believe that something is overrated, give specific examples of why it isn't that great instead of questioning the life experiences of its fans.

Apologies for the lofty tone. I would go back and make less obnoxious, but ain't nobody got time for that...

 

[hylianordonlink]

I've never actually heard of this term, but I have met some people who take nostalgia WAY too far...They try to use nostalgia to justify that a certain game is the best game ever.....not as their opinion, but as a fact...

 

[Wolf Sage]

Hmm... what was it about my post that you "Liked," Ven?

You can't tell someone that what they're thinking is XYZ when they say it's ABC. Even if it's truly XYZ from your perspective, from their perspective it is ABC. Even so, I admitted that PKMN was stale and that I was disinterested in the series as a whole, got shot in the foot for even mentioning such things, then moved on with my life. It isn't at all nostalgia.
(btw feel free to rip this apart)

In debates like this, Wolf don't run with "possibly." Wolf knows based on the fact that the opposing argument blatantly presented the exact reason as to why what they're doing falls under the classification of nostalgia blindness. Guess I didn't do a good job at laying this out for you in my previous post. It is one thing to assume (make an "a**" out of "u" and "me") that the opposition wearing Nostalgia Goggles, but when their reasoning vociferously screams nostalgia bias, the classification is quite fitting. Equate it to detecting a straw man in an argument. One needn't assume that there's a straw man when one knows for a fact that there's a straw man simply by infering to its definition, and seeing that the argument fits that definition...

At any rate, as I previously stated, Nostalgia Goggles isn't something to go throwing around liberally.

Using the PKMN argument you listed - that someone finds Gen I designs more based around animals and what not than Gen IV onwards - could it possibly be that the person in question [me] has a(n) (over)zealous love for Gen I? Or maybe it was that, when they said "based off of [sic] animals", they really meant to say "based on things you can and will frequently be in contact with"? The idea here is that you shouldn't chalk things up to nostalgia goggles, at least not in the video game sphere of things. There are multiple reasons bar "oh this game made me feel good as a kid so it's amazing!!", even if they aren't brought forward in the best articulated manner.

What we have here is a case of miscommunication between the parties involved. Would I be considered a doosh if I advised the person in question to learn to articulate himself better? If what he really meant was something else, then it is not the opposition's fault if a.) the person in question didn't do a better job at making it known that he was having a hard time articulating himself or b.) this person didn't take a few minutes to actually think before he posted. The issue herein is miscommunication. In this particular case, the Nostalgia Goggles trope would not have been used to begin with if the parties involved had established a better line of communication.

Regardless, [ilquote=Ventus] "based on things you can and will frequently be in contact with"[/ilquote] is still a silly premise, considering the large assortment of animated globs, living magnets, a half a dozen sentient eggs, a creepily humanoid opera singer thingy, and a clown who thinks he's a mime in gen 1 (despite the fact that all that was just a half-joking example on your behalf). If all you wanted were "collectible animals," get a pet. (Also, Gen VI had lots more "animals" than Gen I...) ;j

 

[Blue Canary]

It is something I don't get. While yes, you can like it because you remember fond memories and it's enjoyable to do what you enjoyed a long time ago, liking something just because you remember it makes absolutely no sense. Of course, I have never actually heard someone use the term "Nostalgia Goggles", but here is my opinion anyway.