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They did have it better. Which is why that want to go back. Edit: or should I rather put it this way: They have lived in the GDR, and have years of firsthand

They did have it better. Which is why that want to go back. Edit: or should I rather put it this way: They have lived in the GDR, and have years of firsthand life experience of what it was like. And they also live in the reunited Germany. And they also have years of firsthand life experience of what that is like. Why would they prefer the worse option? (hint, they won't) And why would they think the worse option was better, if they have personally experienced both in detail? Who are you to say that what they think is wrong?

SmellyGeekBoy 9y ago
Because "the good old days" maybe? Seems to be a common sentiment among older generations everywhere.
- executesorder66 9y ago
  The term "Ostalgie" was coined in 1992. German reunification was in 1990. It took 2 years to coin a term that described a feeling people had already felt. Not 2 decades. So I don't agree with your theory at all.
rospaya 9y ago
That's very common in Eastern Europe, and it's mostly tied to nostalgia, not any rational argument. People liked it better because they were younger, you didn't have immigrants, pesky young people and their facebooks. It's a similar sentiment to brexiteers, who have a vision of some old England that wasn't actually good.
- yorwba 9y ago
  It sounds to me like people who don't like immigrants, pesky young people and their facebooks did have it better (in their eyes). Whether something is good or not is not objectively measurable, everyone has their own opinion. It doesn't seem outlandish to me that people who were negatively affected by some change would prefer the way things were before, and I don't think you can say that they are wrong to want things to change back. EDIT: To clarify, I'm not endorsing these viewpoints, I just want to point out that the people who hold them aren't stupid or mistaken about the "good old times", they just have a different definition of "good". So from their perspective, revisionism is perfectly justified.
FabHK 9y ago
It's a very complicated and multifaceted question, obviously. One data point that sticks in my mind is that after reunification, the birth rate in the east dropped by half.
cookiecaper 9y ago
Upvoted because smug dismissiveness of the other side's POV is not only extremely annoying, but counterproductive. There is no doubt that substantial political and social upheavals, even those which we acknowledge as highly positive in the aggregate, will have some negative effects for some people. Society develops meticulous legal and social processes for political change to ensure that these balances have been well-considered, despite being forced to acknowledge that we don't have a magic wand that will make the world a place of unanimous equity and unlimited cotton candy. We dismiss the concerns and sentiments of others at our own peril. Concern and sentiment generally arise from legitimate issues. We can't solve every problem or fix every complaint, but smugly discounting the counter-discourse as the ramblings of idiots and yokels generates a massive liability which always come back to bite. "Those morons are too dumb to not vote against their own best interests" is no different than "those morons are just too dumb to learn the right way to use my program." If some people believe that their personal balance of plusses and minuses was better under the old order, who are we to tell them that they're just too stupid or naive to understand their own generalized quality of life?

SmellyGeekBoy 9y ago

Because "the good old days" maybe? Seems to be a common sentiment among older generations everywhere.

executesorder66 9y ago
The term "Ostalgie" was coined in 1992. German reunification was in 1990. It took 2 years to coin a term that described a feeling people had already felt. Not 2 decades. So I don't agree with your theory at all.

rospaya 9y ago

That's very common in Eastern Europe, and it's mostly tied to nostalgia, not any rational argument. People liked it better because they were younger, you didn't have immigrants, pesky young people and their facebooks. It's a similar sentiment to brexiteers, who have a vision of some old England that wasn't actually good.

yorwba 9y ago
It sounds to me like people who don't like immigrants, pesky young people and their facebooks did have it better (in their eyes). Whether something is good or not is not objectively measurable, everyone has their own opinion. It doesn't seem outlandish to me that people who were negatively affected by some change would prefer the way things were before, and I don't think you can say that they are wrong to want things to change back. EDIT: To clarify, I'm not endorsing these viewpoints, I just want to point out that the people who hold them aren't stupid or mistaken about the "good old times", they just have a different definition of "good". So from their perspective, revisionism is perfectly justified.

FabHK 9y ago

It's a very complicated and multifaceted question, obviously. One data point that sticks in my mind is that after reunification, the birth rate in the east dropped by half.

cookiecaper 9y ago

Upvoted because smug dismissiveness of the other side's POV is not only extremely annoying, but counterproductive. There is no doubt that substantial political and social upheavals, even those which we acknowledge as highly positive in the aggregate, will have some negative effects for some people. Society develops meticulous legal and social processes for political change to ensure that these balances have been well-considered, despite being forced to acknowledge that we don't have a magic wand that will make the world a place of unanimous equity and unlimited cotton candy. We dismiss the concerns and sentiments of others at our own peril. Concern and sentiment generally arise from legitimate issues. We can't solve every problem or fix every complaint, but smugly discounting the counter-discourse as the ramblings of idiots and yokels generates a massive liability which always come back to bite. "Those morons are too dumb to not vote against their own best interests" is no different than "those morons are just too dumb to learn the right way to use my program." If some people believe that their personal balance of plusses and minuses was better under the old order, who are we to tell them that they're just too stupid or naive to understand their own generalized quality of life?