In Defence Of Nostalgia
Why nostalgia is good for the soul of society
In the western world -particularly amongst the intelligentsia and the cultural elites – nostalgia has a bad press. As one study of how the use of this label is seen or used stated; ‘To have one’s ideas, programme, policies or style labelled ‘nostalgic’ is to be on the end of one of the most enduring and non-negotiable insults in modern political discourse.’[i] The accusation of nostalgia serves to delegitimate individuals and movements by associating it with outdated and irrelevant sentiments.
Nostalgia is continually affixed to ideological attacks on populism and conservatism. Typically, the coupling of nostalgia with conservatism and populism serves to signify the fear of facing up to the present and an irrational escape into a mythical past. Time and again the accusation of nostalgia is coupled with a denunciation of everything that its practitioners value about the past. Critics of nostalgia contend that the ‘good old days’ never existed. They insist that those who idealise the world of intact families, stable communities and solid intergenerational bonds are living a lie. These critics assert that people who possess an affinity to the past do so because in the old days racial minorities knew their place, women were confined to the kitchen and the LGBTQ+ community had no visibility or voice. Writing in this vein one critic stated that ‘Conservatism is Just Weaponized Nostalgia’[ii]
Hostility to conservatism by critics of nostalgia pales into insignificance compared to the vitriol they direct at populism. One of the first post 1960s polemic directed against populism – Populism: Nostalgic Or Progressive (1964)[iii] described populism as ‘an irrational emotional reaction to a loss of status, at the heart of which’ was ‘a deep nostalgia for an imagined simple past’.
The anti-populist cultural script decries the nostalgia and traditionalist inclinations of its foes. One criticism that anti-populists hurl at their opponents is that ‘populist ideology relies heavily on nostalgia’. According to the anti-populist imagination, people drawn towards populism are so uncritical of the past that they naively perceive it as a golden age of community harmony. This cultural script claims that ‘misguided faith in ideas that defined people’s attachment to history and tradition’ leads populists to possess a distorted sense of contemporary reality[iv] The premise of the anti-populist critique of nostalgia is that rather than providing a positive guide to life, the customs and traditions of the past represent negative and unacceptable conventions and practices.
The metaphor of the ‘bad old days’ is often deployed as a useful corrective to the supposed nostalgia of populism. Anti-populist commentators often ridicule the targets of their polemic as simple and gullible people who, unlike them, actually believe that the past possesses some redeeming features. ‘Populists will pine for an imaginary, whitewashed past until politicians offer a credible future,’ asserts Cas Mudde, who is probably the most influential anti-populist commentator.[v] The critique of nostalgia does not merely caution people about the problem of living in the past: it also seeks to de-legitimate the values and customs that prevailed yesteryear. The aim of the anti-populist critique of nostalgia is to morally distance society from its history.
This point was exemplified in an article titled ‘Europe’s Dangerous Nostalgia’ by Javier Solana, the former secretary general of NATO. Solana writes:
‘The European Union has a dangerous case of nostalgia. Not only is a yearning for the ‘good old days’ – before the EU supposedly impinged on national sovereignty – fuelling the rise of nationalist political parties; European leaders continue to try to apply yesterday’s solutions to today’s problems’.[vi]
It appears that nostalgia is ‘dangerous’ because it draws people towards gaining meaning from the values of the past – such as national sovereignty. From this standpoint, the very search for meaning in tradition is likely to encourage opposition to the value system of the anti-populist defenders of the cultural status quo.
Instead of responding to the critics of nostalgia by dismissing the charge of being drawn towards it, it is preferable to embrace it. Nostalgia refers to a yearning for home. It expresses an understandable and genuine sense of cultural loss underwritten by the belief that values which had once provided the unity of social relations and personal experience have become marginalised. Those who possess a positive orientation towards the past should not be seen as emotionally illiterate naïve simpletons. Through their nostalgic orientation they attempt to retrieve and develop sources of identity, agency or community. The sociologist Fred Davis put matters well when he noted that nostalgia is ‘the search for continuity amid threats of discontinuity’[vii].
From the standpoint of the managerial-technical overlords and the cultural elites the search for continuity represents the antithesis of their world view. Instead of continuity they wish to break from the past by any means necessary. As I noted elsewhere, they possess the ideology of Year Zero, an outlook that represents the legacy of the past in a negative light[viii]. They are not just unnostalgic but positively hostile to what they condemn as the outdated prejudices of yesterday. Whereas millions of people continually to embark on a daily quest to cultivate their roots to understand who they are and where they come from, the critics of nostalgia are hell bent of putting the past under a quarantine.
As it happens the attempt to forge a sense of historical continuity is a pre-requisite for providing the present with the sturdy foundation needed to face the future Those who have become detached from the past inevitably become obsessed with inventing an identity to the point that they become detached from the project of facing the future. Call it what you will but the attempt to forge a consciousness of historical continuity makes an indispensable contribution to the creation of a bridge between the past and the present and the present and the future. It is an effective way of countering the scourge of dead-end presentism.
Nostalgia is not only good for society but also for the well-being of individuals. Numerous studies suggest that those who ‘reminisce are more likely to keep friends and expand social networks’[ix]. These studies claim that those susceptible to nostalgia have more close friends and can forge closer and more durable relations than those who are indifferent to their past. Even if these studies are speculative, common sense suggests that the individual attempt to forge and maintain a sense of continuity with the past assists the development of an individual’s identity. It also feeds the soul of society.
So don’t get defensive when you are told off for being nostalgic. Without falling into the trap of uncritically celebrating the ‘good old days’, it is vital to affirm the legacy of our past, in particular the sense of solidarity and community that we are at risk of losing.
[i] Kenny M. Back to the populist future?: understanding nostalgia in contemporary ideological discourse. J Polit Ideol. 2017;22(3):256–73., p.258.
[ii] https://medium.com/thing-a-day/conservatism-is-just-weaponized-nostalgia-430a78346ca9
[iii] Unger, I., 1964. Populism: nostalgic or progressive? Rand MacNally : New York, p.2.
[iv] See for exampleBen-Ami,S.(2016)‘Populism,PastandPresent’,ProjectSyndicate,10August, 2016, www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/populism-economic-grievances-by-shlomo- ben-ami-2016-08?barrier=accessreg.
1. [v] Mudde, C. (2016) ‘Can We Stop the Politics of Nostalgia That Have Dominated 2016’,
15 December 2016, http://europe.newsweek.com/1950s-1930s-racism-us-europe-nostalgia-
cas-mudde-531546?rm=eu
18. [vi] Solana, J. (2016) ‘Europe’s Dangerous Nostalgia’, Project Syndicate, 27 April 2016, www.
socialeurope.eu/2016/04/europes-dangerous-nostalgia/.
[vii] Davis, F (1979) Yearning for Yesterday: A Sociology of Nostalgia. New York: Free Press, p.35.
[viii] Furedi, F. (2024) The War Against The Past: Why The West Must Fight For Its History, Polity : Cambridge.
[ix][ix] https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/03/13/nostalgia-is-good-for-your-health-study-finds/
Great post, Frank. I’ve always found it interesting that the condemnation of nostalgia that we are used to in the West isn’t mirrored elsewhere. In Japan nostalgia is luxuriated in and has only positive connotations. The reasons for this don’t appear to be all that complicated: if you like your own culture and your own past, why wouldn’t you idealise it?
A very eloquent, persuasive and enjoyable essay highlighting one aspect of 'fighting for our history' in resisting 'The War against the Past.' We need these reminders and morale encouragement so thank you.
Even so, mass immigration and the doctrine of multiculturalism - ignore the host culture and bring your own culture and history to celebrate here - is creating a hotel where formerly there was a home. At best, it is a society of mutual indifference but increasingly of an antagonistic, balkanised society. That is certainly the case where I live in London.
The task of reasserting our history and culture looks forlorn as Labour seeks to overturn the progress in education made in the last decade with Philipson's education review, but we must resist a feeling of fatalism, hard at times though that is. There are shifts in the wind coming from Europe and across the atlantic. Sources of hope to tap into.