EXCERPTS from Book’s ‘CONCLUSION’: “A few years ago, I attended a presentation by a professor who studies scientific, medical, and technological innovation. The presentation was specifically focused on different barriers to innovation, mostly political and other policy barriers that make it difficult for scientists, engineers, and entrepreneurs to create and bring to the market new products and services; that have the potential to improve lives and help solve societal and global challenges. He also discussed cultural and psychological barriers to progress — specifically, NOSTALGIA. According to this expert, nostalgia is distinctly at odds with a progress mindset.
The presenter saw nostalgia as antithetical to progress because he imagined that it causes people to privilege the familiarity of the past *OVER* the possibilities of the future. His position is not at all unique. I regularly encounter advocates for progress who suggest that nostalgia is a formidable barrier to our efforts to improve the world. In their minds, you’re either focused on the past or planning for the future, and people who are focused on the past are ‘standing in the way‘ of progress.
These critics have a point. Indeed, resistance to new ideas and nostalgia frequently go hand in hand. That being said, these pundits don’t fully understand the relationship between nostalgia and innovation because it is often the case that people who are highly resistant to new ways of doing things are also nostalgic. These people have personalities that make change particularly challenging and anxiety-provoking for them, and therefore they have a strong attachment to order and stability. And because negative psychological states such as anxiety trigger nostalgia, it makes sense that these people would be highly nostalgic, particularly in a fast-changing world. They are living in a world that changes regardless of their preference for stability. This makes them anxious, so they turn to nostalgia for ‘comfort‘.
But that doesn’t mean that nostalgia is the cause of their resistance to change. Their resistance comes from their personalities and resulting anxiety about change. By providing them ‘comfort‘ in what feels like a chaotic world, nostalgia may actually help them deal with change as best as they can. These people are probably never going to be champions of bold new ideas, but nostalgia has a soothing effect that can make the change they can’t control a little easier to navigate.
It goes without saying that most people aren’t this extreme. Sure, some people never want to change, but others are on the polar side of the continuum — they prefer novelty, turnover, and bold risk-taking. But most of us are somewhere in between these extremes. For us, nostalgia does MORE than provide psychological comfort in a changing world — it helps us become AGENTS OF CHANGE. ‘Nostalgia‘ isn’t a barrier to Progress; it’s a RESOURCE for *advancing* Progress.
NOSTALIA DRIVES PROGRESS
In addition to my work in the psychology of nostalgia, I’ve been developing a new area of research on the psychology of Progress. I’m specifically interested in how our current mental states influence our motivation and ability to build a BETTER FUTURE.
When people discuss progress, the talk usually focuses on the scientific, technological, political, and legal variables that influence progress. People rarely talk about the impact of PSYCHOLOGY, even when it’s clear that psychology plays a central role. Progress begins with ideas that are subsequently explored, tested, shared, and debated. Each of these steps relies on psychological processes.
Ideas don’t magically transmute themselves into tangible Progress all by themselves. People must ADVOCATE for them. Influential others must be persuaded. And people must be motivated to advance Progress, even when it’s difficult or unpleasant. Social Progress starts with a Progress MINDSET. People with a progressive mindset are Agentic, Resilient, Inspired, Optimistic, and Creative. And as I’ve shown throughout this book, Nostalgia supports all these positive psychological states.
Since progress requires experimentation, it inherently involves failure. Imagine if every time a new idea failed, our collective response was to ‘give up’!?! If this were how our minds worked, we’d all still be hunter-gatherers, and not very skilled ones at that, because we’d be resistant to any new attempts to make our hunting and gathering more efficient and successful. Perhaps to some people, this doesn’t seem all that bad!? As someone who enjoys spending time in nature, I certainly see the benefits of reconnecting with simple, straightforward, and older ways of living. That being said, I also appreciate the scientific, technological, and medical advances that make my life easier, safer, and more comfortable. I think most of us are like this. We’re sometimes apprehensive about new changes, but in general, we appreciate progress and want it to continue.
We don’t want failed attempts at innovation or the damage that’s sometimes caused by new ways of doing things to prevent us from pursuing Progress as a whole. This means we need to be both agentic and resilient. We need to believe that despite barriers to progress and our failures at trying to solve problems, it’s within our power to eventually succeed, and this feeling of agency is what will drive us forward. That agency needs to be coupled with resilience. Failure is difficult. It also happens a lot when we’re testing new ideas and exploring fresh possibilities. But we can’t let setbacks keep us from trying again. We must persist.
Since nostalgia inspires an agentic and goal-oriented mindset, it can be a vital resource for finding the drive to move forward when things get difficult. When we face setbacks or failures and need to restore our confidence, nostalgia helps by offering a BROADER PERSPECTIVE as well as reminders of past triumphs. Just like nostalgia can help people who suffer from loneliness or social rejection use past experiences to restore social confidence and motivation, it can help people working on major challenges draw from past successes for inspiration.
To build a BETTER FUTURE, people need to ENVISION a Better One, and they need to feel motivated to make that vision a Reality. When society faces major challenges, it’s easy for people to feel hopeless and to see Progress as impossible. When people are pessimistic, it’s hard for them to find a reason to try to improve things. Instead of looking for ways to go out in the world and make a positive difference, pessimistic people turn inward and can become more self-centered. After all, personal sacrifices don’t make sene if the whole thing is pointless. Why not just ‘do your own thing‘ for as long as you can with the maximum amount of enjoyment? But as illustrated in some of the studies I’ve cited, nostalgia *encourages* people to become more optimistic.
Nostalgia also inspires Creativity, and Progress relies on ‘thinking outside the box‘. One of the reasons Progress is often so difficult is because it requires finding new ways of approaching a problem. Creativity leads to Innovation. STUDIES FIND THAT PEOPLE THINK *MORE* CREATIVELY AFTER ENGAGING IN NOSTALGIC REFLECTION. Looking to the PAST for Inspiration helps open new possibilities for the future.
I think *meaning* is at the core of a psychology of Progress. It’s when people believe their lives are meaningful that they are best positioned to adopt a Progressive mindset, to feel inspired to act with agency and resilience, to go out in the world with an optimistic attitude, and to use creative problem-solving to address the challenges of our time and build a *BETTER* Future.
Again, nostalgia plays a key role in all of this. In our nostalgic memories, we’re reminded that Life is full of experiences that make it meaningful and that make the world worth improving and humanity worth fighting for. This encourages a more agentic and optimistic mindset. And when we feel more agentic and optimistic, we’re more likely to persist, even when it feels near impossible. We are also more inspired to explore new ideas.
Historical and cultural nostalgia may be especially useful for promoting a progressive mindset. Individuals and groups working to advance specific causes that could help improve the world (or even just their ‘little corner’ of it) can nostalgically look to previous stories of progress. When you find yourself thinking that the world is getting worse, that Progress is a myth, or that the future is hopeless, it might be useful to look to the Past for contrary evidence. People in previous generations made discoveries and sacrifices, created new technologies and medicines, and fought for social and legal changes that people greatly benefit from today. Many of them faced what were widely believed to be ‘impossible’ or ‘hopeless’ conditions. We can look to their stories as the types of cultural memories that should be *preserved* and *passed down* to future generations.
NOSTALGIA AS A FUTURE-ORIENTED EXPERIENCE
I started this book by arguing that humans are Progress-oriented by nature. We can certainly be set in our ways and we need a certain amount of stability to thrive. We don’t do well in chaos. But we also *oppose stagnation*. We are curious, explorative, and creative. We like to build and tinker. As much as we’re Defense-oriented, we’re also Growth-oriented. We strive for self-improvement.
It seems intuitive to view nostalgia as in opposition to our progress-oriented nature because it involves mental time travel to the past. But it turns out the journey to the past that nostalgia takes us on is really about the Present AND the Future. If nostalgia were just a past-oriented experience, it wouldn’t make us feel better about our lives today and more optimistic about our futures. But it does! If nostalgia were merely about the past, it wouldn’t inspire us to feel agentic today and motivated to *pursue* the goals that will improve our lives tomorrow. But it does! If nostalgia were just about how great our lives were when we were younger, it wouldn’t inspire us to engage in the PROSOCIAL behaviors that will pay dividends in the future. But it DOES! Nostalgia exists not because we are a past-oriented species, but because we are a future-oriented one. When we look for GUIDANCE and INSPIRATION to build a better tomorrow, we NEED OUR CHERISHED MEMORIES. ‘Nostalgia‘ isn’t a weakness. It’s an undeniable STRENGTH.
(*Source: ‘Conclusion’ [Pgs. 189 – 194] of Book “PAST FORWARD” by Clay Routledge, PhD. – Published 2023 – ISBN #9781683648642 )