"Another requirement for nostalgia is that objects, buildings, and images from the past should be available. A society which simply junked all of its outworn and outmoded technology, which ruthlessly threw away all ephemera and which confidently built over the developments of previous generations would lack the material objects from which nostalgia is constructed. Western societies do quite the opposite and the objects of nostalgia are often carefully preserved. From the time-worn but durable products of architecture to the humble tools of a now dead trade, from the industrial landscape itself to the ephemeral newspaper or admission ticket, almost all objects are at least capable of being appropriated nostalgically. They become talismans that link us concretely with the past; but the aura they carry is ambiguous and even ironic. First, our dialogue with them is one-sided: the deep sense of connection with the past one might feel can be simply a unilateral projection of our present anxieties and fantasies. Secondly, many evocative items are quite simply trivial and unimportant, and their modern counterparts are disregarded and thrown away when their function is fulfilled. The tools of the carpenter's trade, for example, are avidly collected and attract high prices; but modern tools which fulfill the same function are discarded if they become damaged or worn out. The latter are useless (because they are judged in terms of function and fitness) but the former carry on their very surface an auratic patina.
We start telling stories about old things in part because we need to explain their unfitting presence in our houses, our towns, our lives. Whether or not these things actually connect to such stories of passage through time and transfer from hands to other hands, they still seem to require contextualization of some sort. If these objects lack a generally accepted (through talk, criticism or cash) aesthetic value, then it becomes even more imperative for us to locate in them some kind of generational meaning which makes them indispensible to our own recountings of our histories and ancesteries.
But phrases like "require contextualization" and "imperative to locate meaning" are all wrong here. Isn't it instead a longing of ours to prove to ourselves and to others that we can identify a coherent past that belongs to us and somehow makes apparent the importance and significance of our memories? We can talk about ourselves through such objects, even when we seem to be talking about linear, generational, pseudo-aristocratic (this chest came over from Europe with my ancestors!), nostalgic time.