Myth Watch

The myth of the Golden Age is one of the most pervasive, influential, and destructive fallacies ever constructed. It goes something like this:

"Remember when things were simple? Remember when we had values and the world was safe? We knew who we were and who our enemies were. Now the world is dangerous and complicated. New-fangled arts and sciences have made us question our basic values. We have to fight to return to the way things used to be, back when the world was perfect."

This is the essence of the Garden of Eden and thousands of other nostalgic myths that recall "the simpler time". The problem is, there was never a simpler, safer, better time. There are very few points in history where people could honestly say that things were better in the past.

I use this myth as a teaching tool because there are so many instances of it being used in history to motivate people to do terrible things and believe ridiculous things. It's dangerous because it's so effective. I was shocked then, to hear Tony Perkins, President of the Family Research Council, use this myth while talking to Lou Dobbs on CNN last night. Dobbs asked Perkins why he thought religion was so central to the Republican platform in this election:

PERKINS: I think in part a number of the topics you've had on your show tonight, the problems we're facing as society, there was a very common world view 50 years ago. There was a very set way we viewed the issues around us. There's been a battle raging with the elite secularists that have tried to keep religion out of the public square. So there's a push back. That's why you see a strong confrontation. There are those trying to reinsert it and those trying to push it out.

(full transcript)

That's actually pretty amazing. Is he idealizing the 1950s despite the youth crime, rural poverty, racism, and repression? Or is he idealizing the 1950s because of those things? Who is this "we" in his statement that "There was a very set way we viewed the issues around us"? Perkins takes the myth to the next logical step, which is to blame a group for our collective fall from grace. His choice: "elite secularists". What does that even mean? Well, nothing actually. He's invoking an enemy which is left intentionally ill-defined.

So why is this myth so effective? Because it references our childhood. It transfers the feelings and memories we have of being safe and protected. As children, we didn't have to understand the complexities of the world. On some level, we all wish we could go back to that, but we can't. We can't mix up our personal history and development with world or national history. The world wasn't any simpler in the past, we just remember it that way because we were children.