A Point of View

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A Point of View: No-Stalgia

Macbeth and the Insomnia Epidemic

No-Stalgia

BBC Radio 4 - A Point of View, No-Stalgia

Will Self on why we are in thrall to nostalgia.

From advertising to politics, Will Self explores our relationship with nostalgia - and coins a new term, 'no-stalgia', along the way.

'It's time to acknowledge', writes Will Self, 'that we don't really feel nostalgia at all - only something far more worrying and debilitating: a condition I've named no-stalgia'.

Will argues that the West is particularly in thrall to rose-tinted nostalgia and looks to Japan - and its concept of 'mono no aware' - as an alternative and healthier way of thinking about the past. 

Producer: Adele Armstrong
Sound: Peter Bosher
Production Coordinator: Iona Hammond
Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith

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