Finding Superiority in Bad News

On Christmas night in 2019, a British Facebook nostalgia community called Memory Lane UK published two posts asking whether people remembered the “proper binmen” of the past. Accompanied by old photographs, the posts showed workers in plain work clothes carrying heavy metal dustbins on their shoulders.

The seemingly ordinary question struck a chord. Many commenters remembered the binmen of earlier decades as hardworking, friendly and responsible: always smiling and ready to greet local residents. Some complained that today’s refuse collectors could scarcely be bothered to return a “good morning”. Others suggested that men in the past had been real men, while those of the present were too soft.

In November 2022, The Guardian published an article examining this strain of nostalgia on British social media.

There is something interesting about these comments. On the surface, people are complaining that society is no longer as good as it used to be. Look a little closer, however, and the complaints may offer another kind of psychological satisfaction.

When someone says people used to work harder, show better manners and take greater responsibility, they are also, implicitly, pointing out that they lived through those times, witnessed those qualities and still uphold those standards.

An unwelcome social change can therefore become an opportunity to affirm one’s own worth.

What is particularly striking is that this feeling does not require the person to have enjoyed a privileged life. They may have been entirely ordinary, and their lives may even have been quite difficult. Yet if they believe they belong to an era that was more civilised and worthy of respect, that sense of belonging can provide a measure of superiority.

Gradually losing touch with contemporary society can be dispiriting. But if a person is convinced that society itself is in decline, the same sense of disconnection takes on a different meaning. They no longer feel that they have failed to keep up with the times. Instead, they feel the times have abandoned something worth preserving.

Psychology has a related concept: collective nostalgia. Research suggests that recalling a group’s valued past together can strengthen group identification and collective self-esteem. Shared experiences from the past can also help people sustain a sense of who they are.

This helps explain why exchanging bad news can sometimes be a surprisingly enjoyable social activity.

One person remarks that people today have lost their manners; another immediately adds that they have also lost their sense of responsibility. As the two take turns citing examples of social decline, they appear to be exchanging negative observations. But they may also be reassuring each other that they share the same standards and belong to an era both consider worth remembering.

Of course, not every complaint expresses superiority. Societies can genuinely deteriorate in certain respects, and people may have good reasons to be dissatisfied. These comments alone cannot tell us what any individual commenter was really feeling or intending.

Still, the pattern points towards an intriguing psychological possibility: people can sometimes arrive at a positive assessment of themselves through a negative assessment of the present.

When someone repeatedly insists that things were better in the past, they may be doing more than remembering earlier days. They may also be using that past to reaffirm their own place and value in the present.

Perhaps that is why some people seem to experience a subtle satisfaction while discussing one bad development after another.

Sources:
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2022/nov/15/who-remembers-proper-binmen-facebook-nostalgia-memes-help-explain-britain-today
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25243415/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36603320/