Rosy Retrospection & the Death of Consequences

How Nostalgia, Cognitive Bias, and a Consequence-Free Culture Made Everything Feel Like a Bad TikTok Trend

Hey there, dear readers.
Got a question for you—especially for my readers of a certain age (and yes, I include anyone who’s ever uttered the phrase "kids these days" without irony). Have you ever caught yourself mid-conversation—or deep in the quiet corners of your own personal brain box—murmuring:

"Are things worse today than they were back when I was..."

You all know what I mean. It's that classic mental stroll down memory lane, skipping through the so-called "good old days" like they were curated by Norman Rockwell, scored by Motown, and free from lactose intolerance.

This warm and fuzzy fog can settle over pretty much everything—music, food, road trips, childhood summers, your first heartbreak, and yes, even high school cafeteria pizza that, let’s be real, was a war crime in triangle form (unless it was the rectangle kind…I’ll fight anyone on this one that was amazing pizza).

Luckily, there’s a name for this phenomenon. Cue academic voice and monocle twirl…

rosy retrospection
noun
rosy ret·ro·spec·tion | \ ˈrō-zē-ˌre-trə-ˈspek-shən \

Definition:
A cognitive bias that causes individuals to recall past events as being more positive or idyllic than they actually were, often conveniently forgetting the stress, chaos, or bad decisions involved. Like Instagram filters for your memory.

Example:
“Through the lens of rosy retrospection, Todd fondly remembered his middle school years—conveniently forgetting the bowl cut, Axe body spray overdose, and the time he cried during a dodgeball game because someone called him "Clippy."”

Related Concepts:
Nostalgia, hindsight bias, selective memory, and denial with extra sparkle.

The Wonder Years Were A Lie (Mostly)

Let’s get to the Practical Politics Unplugged take on this: There’s a ton of cognitive bias at play when people look back at the past. It’s usually filtered through something I call the "Wonder Years effect"—where we recall things with sweeping emotional piano music in the background, conveniently editing out the trauma, the acne, and the fact that we dressed like a backup dancer in a Paula Abdul video.

We’re not reliable narrators, folks. Most of us have mentally Photoshopped our pasts to make ourselves either the unsung hero or the tragic victim of a world that "just didn’t get us." And that’s cute. It really is. But here’s where it gets concerning:

We’re living in a world where consequences have gone out of style like frosted tips and Blockbuster memberships.

Kids These Days... or Just People With Wi-Fi and No Limits?

Let’s start with the low-hanging fruit of education. Every adult, regardless of race, class, or astrological sign, seems to think kids today are somehow objectively worse. Lazy. Entitled. Illiterate. Mean. Violent. Glued to their phones. Likely to start a cult over a viral dance trend.

But let’s get real. Kids have always been kinda awful. That’s their job.

We were ditching class, zoning out, failing to find the milk in the fridge while it stared us in the face. We copied homework, said weird things, and smelled like hormone-flavored disaster. If you cracked open a history scroll from ancient Greece, I bet it would contain a quote that basically says, "The youth today are disrespectful and know nothing of lyres or civic duty."

So no, Becky, your childhood wasn’t a utopia. It just felt better because you didn’t have to pay rent or file taxes.

And about those phones? Yeah, texting under the desk is just passing notes 2.0. TikTok trends are the evolution of reading "Tiger Beat" hidden in your trig book. The medium changed. The nonsense remained.

But here’s where it gets dicey: the lack of consequences.

Once upon a time, if you got caught with the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition in Biology class (for purely anatomical interest, of course), there were repercussions: detention, confiscation, maybe even a dreaded call home—which was scarier than anything Blumhouse could conjure up.

Today? Teachers are dealing with a gauntlet: parents who lawyer up at the first sign of criticism, administrators who prioritize optics over order, and students who know the worst punishment they’ll face is maybe—maybe—losing Wi-Fi for an hour.

Monkey See, Monkey Go Full Florida Man

Here’s the deeper problem: we’re modeling this behavior. Adults are out here crash-landing emotionally over the smallest inconveniences. Just search “public freakout” on YouTube and lose your faith in humanity in under 90 seconds.

Why? Because in this “rules for thee, but not for me” culture, the consequences that used to tether behavior to reality have been severed. What’s the deterrent to acting like a sociopath in Target if you know the worst outcome is being mildly inconvenienced while your Karen-flavored tantrum goes viral?

We now live in a society where a twice-impeached, 34-times-convicted felon can run for President and where lawmakers dodge their business loans like a Mission: Impossible stunt sequence. So when your neighbor swipes an Amazon package off your porch because “Amazon will just send another one,” don’t be surprised. The behavior is trickle-down lawlessness.

The Consequence-Free Circus

What happens when you raise a society without guardrails?

• Trust erodes: People don’t follow rules because why bother? The worst offenders are often the least punished.

• Empathy vanishes: When no one gets held accountable, selfishness becomes a lifestyle brand.

• Conflict gets violent: Ever seen someone throw hands over a Popeyes sandwich? Exactly.

We all know That Person. The one who was never told “no” as a kid. The one whose tantrums were rewarded with toys, ice cream, or silence. Fast forward 25 years, and now they’re the guy in the parking lot taking up three spaces with his lifted Z-28 and license plate that says "ITSURFALT."

What Now? Balance, Baby.

Now, don’t misread me—I’m not advocating for a punitive surveillance state where your every mistake is met with a taser and a tweet. Life requires nuance. We need grace. We need understanding. But we also need to bring back the concept of natural consequences. Otherwise, we’re just one traffic jam away from Mad Max: IKEA Edition.

So yeah, rosy retrospection is comforting. It’s the mental version of wrapping yourself in a Snuggie and pretending your high school band really could have made it big if Derek hadn’t quit to “focus on academics.”

But don’t let nostalgia distract you from reality. And don’t let a consequence-free culture write the future for us.

Consequences aren’t the enemy. They’re the backup singers to the melody of a functional society. And sometimes, they’re the only thing standing between us and a Starbucks brawl over almond milk.

Final Thought:

Stay hydrated, stay sharp, and for the love of all that’s good—don’t be the person who throws a latte at someone’s head. Triple digits are coming, and trust me: those consequences are non-negotiable.