Old Stuff

Hey,


While I was musing I thought to myself,  "Why do we try to protect old buildings?". You know the type, old houses with beams, thatched cottages, Tudor town-houses. These houses tend to be draughty, small and dingy, why then do people insist on putting protection on these buildings when a much better, cheaper to run and more fashionable building could replace it?

At this point I must say I'm not recommending going around pulling down all the old protected buildings and putting up new ones. I am only questioning why we aren't. Why do we have such a nostalgic relationship with old buildings and the past generally. Even chocolate bars like Wispa are coming back from the past and old toys are getting popular again. Why?

Do we think life was better then? Are we looking for a simpler life without the stresses of the modern world, where you could afford to do nothing and you were free of banks? Do we all really want to go back in time and live in a world without electricity, without universal education and no health care?  Back to when life expectancy was not much more than 40 (19th century)?

Living conditions now are much better, we are able to communicate with people around the world we can even go  into space (no thanks to Barack) and we can live into our 90's.
Maybe it is because we are now living in hard times, taxes are high, lending low, inflation up. We just look at the past and see it as a better time to live, but really we're just dissatisfied with the now. Just as in the 50's and 60's they looked to the future for hope, we now look with longing to the past.

Well now I'm off to get a flying car,
Thanks for reading,

Dan  :)


P.S. Please could you answer the question on my new question page (look at the bar just below the title), I'll put different questions on there every so often and would appreciated if you could comment your answer or E-mail me so I can see your opinions and then discus them in my blog.
Thanks :)