Midnight in Paris (2011) is a funny flick by Woody Allen. If you like the humor of Allen and actor Owen Wilson, you’ll likely find it amusing. But the story is intellectually interesting as well. It examines what I call the fallacy of the Golden Age. This is the mistaken reasoning that supposedly great periods of the past are better than the present because, well, they are in the romanticized past. Thus, as the error goes, any change from these past periods to the present is bad. On this view, yesterday’s good old times are always preferable to today. Let’s call this Version 1 of the Golden Age fallacy.
Two Versions of the Golden Age Fallacy
Two Versions of the Golden Age Fallacy
Two Versions of the Golden Age Fallacy
Midnight in Paris (2011) is a funny flick by Woody Allen. If you like the humor of Allen and actor Owen Wilson, you’ll likely find it amusing. But the story is intellectually interesting as well. It examines what I call the fallacy of the Golden Age. This is the mistaken reasoning that supposedly great periods of the past are better than the present because, well, they are in the romanticized past. Thus, as the error goes, any change from these past periods to the present is bad. On this view, yesterday’s good old times are always preferable to today. Let’s call this Version 1 of the Golden Age fallacy.