Nostalgic tales of community decline have recurred for two centuries

Evidence

Debates about the waxing and waning of “community” have been endemic for at least two centuries. “Declensionist narratives”—postmodernist jargon for tales of decline and fall—have a long pedigree in our letters. We seem perennially tempted to contrast our tawdry todays with past golden ages. — Robert D. Putnam, Bowling Alone The Collapse and Revival…, 57

Categorization

• XREF: This directly anticipates the recurring ‘Decline of community’ debate and the No-Golden-Age critique of Putnam; frames the reader’s own skepticism of declensionist narratives. — connects to: Nostalgia for imagined pasts provides community glue for detached suburbanites — Nina Eliasoph, Avoiding politics: how Americans…, 906; Old moral panics about community loss breed reactionary nostalgia rather than constructive reform — Robert D. Putnam, Bowling Alone The Collapse and Revival…, 1445; Nostalgia retroactively reconstructs past communities as more unified than they were. (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• Nostalgia retroactively reconstructs past communities as more unified than they were. #expands (0.85)
• Nostalgia for imagined pasts provides community glue for detached suburbanites #expands (0.82) — Nina Eliasoph, Avoiding politics, 906
• Nostalgia for an imagined golden age drives resistance and fear #expands (0.80) — Andrew L. Whitehead, American Idolatry, 199
• Positive invocations of the past are not always mere nostalgia #qualifies (0.80) — Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular, 1070
• Old moral panics about community loss breed reactionary nostalgia rather than constructive reform #corroborates (0.78) — Robert D. Putnam, Bowling Alone The Collapse and Revival…, 1445