You have probably seen much too much of it, and perhaps even know it is sometimes called ‘shitstalgia’. It is the (often AI-generated) photos from annodazumal with text to accompany that juxtaposes the then and the now, and always, always making us believe that the then was vastly better. Now there is a book, as reviewed here: Nostalgia: A History of a Dangerous Emotion by Agnes Arnold-Forster review – the past isn’t a foreign place that asks us to cool it a bit and not just be dismissal.
All nostalgia is not created equal. I cannot help but remember the beautiful Brazilian word ‘saudade’: a longing for a past that never was. I could even be tempted to point out that Ernst Bloch’s Heimat where we have not been but want to go is shaped from the same material. Or a Lorrain painting such as this:
Bucolic, indeed.
As old Karl Marx said about religion: it is the opium of the people. Right? Almost, because he did not stop here. He actually said: “Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.”
Our longing for a better past is already a cry for a better future. Alas: the future looks grim, indeed: in this late capitalist stage we are in, all hope of radical change has been lost. Not so weird that we look to the past, look behind us — like Benjamin’s angel, driven into the future by a strong wind, but looking back at the ruins left behind.
That said: our only future is in the future. While we can sweetly regard nostalgia as innocent and a legitimate and silent protest, it can also all too often be yet another chain to keep us back.
© Henning Bertram 2025