Comments on: The politics of nostalgia

By: lauravanderkam

lauravanderkam — Sun, 17 Jul 2016 17:24:55 +0000

In reply to Morana.

@Morana – thanks so much for your comment. I am always hopeful for the next few years, and hoping things that could come to pass won’t. But we shall see…

By: Morana

Morana — Fri, 15 Jul 2016 12:52:47 +0000

I know this comment comes very late, but I recently came back to the blog and was just reading the post. I was not surprised by Brexit. I’m from the Balkans and remember a certain 1990 vote and what followed. And despite good reasons for dissolution of Yugoslavia, so much of the motives were in the past and nostalgia. So many of political missteps since then have been driven by large percentage of old voters (because population ages in the times of war, it is the young that go to battle or flee), and their nostalgia. I was visiting Europe last summer and the general mood was reminding me of things I’d rather forget. I’m honestly scared of what the next five years will bring us.
On the other hand, I just finished reading Sapiens (I wasn’t online because I was on a reading binge) and I feel it should be required reading in history classes, it provides an amazing perspective on humanity and how we tend to paint history in the color of our own experience.

By: Kemi

Kemi — Tue, 28 Jun 2016 13:04:35 +0000

In reply to lauravanderkam. I so agree about your point on being female or a person of colour. For someone like me, who is female, and a child of African immigrants who came to the UK in the seventies, the past was not golden, It was racist and inflexible. Today, I have more options and face less overt racism than my parents did. I don't want to go back, I want to go forward for my sake and my descendants sake.

By: lauravanderkam

lauravanderkam — Mon, 27 Jun 2016 12:39:06 +0000

In reply to Nadia.

@Nadia – “interesting” is one way to put it. I have been doing my best to tune out the US election right now, just because of how depressing it is. Obviously, many of us misjudged the deep wells of certain sentiments. The problem with let’s-stick-it-to-the-elite identity politics is that it doesn’t respond well to arguments, because people then interpret it as “see, they’re attacking us, let’s double down!”

By: lauravanderkam

lauravanderkam — Mon, 27 Jun 2016 12:35:30 +0000

In reply to KatherineB.

@KatherineB – I know, it is depressing, and what was more depressing was some of the language from older voters choosing Brexit that was basically along the lines of “we don’t care what happens to the young people of this country or that they think of themselves as European.” Ugh. I hope whatever changes happen won’t keep your daughter from pursuing her dreams. We need more people interested in building international bridges.

By: lauravanderkam

lauravanderkam — Mon, 27 Jun 2016 12:33:40 +0000

In reply to Mary Vanderkam. @Mom - thanks!

By: lauravanderkam

lauravanderkam — Mon, 27 Jun 2016 12:32:29 +0000

In reply to Jessica.

@Jessica- I will check out that book – often possible to find used books that are out of print. That was the interesting idea in Sapiens, that the natural tendency of people is to be nostalgic for a golden past. It is only in the past few centuries that people have decided that we have the power to shape the present to create a better future by admitting our ignorance and trying to figure out answers through systematic experimentation.

And yes, the Gone with the Wind mindset is something to behold.

By: Jessica

Jessica — Sat, 25 Jun 2016 22:08:27 +0000

It’s funny you should be thinking about this — I was too, in the wake of the Brexit vote. Because I’m very rarely nostalgic, in fact anti-nostalgic, and thus have a hard time understanding how nostalgia can be appealing in the face of uncertainty. Part of this is personal — I tend to remember my screwups better than anything else about my past — but part, I think, is growing up in the US South, where nostalgia has usually been both very political and very, very racialized (i.e. the “Lost Cause”). So I have blinders on, when it comes to understanding why someone who grew up in postwar Britain might find the EU threatening and Leave appealing.

You might like Peter Marris’s Loss and Change, by the way, if you stumble upon it (it’s out of print, I think). It’s a series of studies about the way people react to sudden change and uncertainty.

By: Mary Vanderkam

Mary Vanderkam — Sat, 25 Jun 2016 14:06:12 +0000

Laura, I always enjoy reading your blog and I always appreciate reading the comments. It’s great to get UK perspectives from some of your readers–even if it is very troubling. As old as I am, I am not nostalgic for the past!

By: KatherineB

KatherineB — Sat, 25 Jun 2016 13:12:49 +0000

I also live in the UK, unfortunately in the part of the country where the Leave vote had its biggest majority. I can genuinely say I have never been more depressed about the future of my country than I am currently. And re your point about the nostalgia effect I think it is telling that 73% of 18-24 year olds voted Remain. My 16 year old daughter (who did not have a vote) is devastated as she wants to study foreign languages at university and then work in Europe. For all the wrong reasons I think this is going to feel like a very long summer.