Collective Nostalgia For What Has Been

We all feel nostalgic sometimes. You wish you could have returned to a certain time, a certain situation, something that has already happened. We are suffering over something that is now gone, something that we had and that we have lost. Maybe it’s about a person, a group (collective nostalgia), an object or an event.

There are also two different types of nostalgia, and the difference is very important. The first type is a positive feeling, a fine memory of an object that you no longer have or that has disappeared in time. The second type is a negative feeling. It’s a pain for something that you can not get back, but you still hope it will come back.

The first thing you think of when it comes to nostalgia is probably that you miss someone. Breakup, distance or death are some things that give us that longing feeling. But nostalgia is no less important when it comes to a place instead of a person.

There is a word in Spanish that refers to this type of nostalgia, the type that mixes melancholy with a desire to be reunited with one’s homeland: “morriña”. The word comes from the Galician language. It is said that “morriña” is a longing for the country you come from.

There is another kind of nostalgia for situations or things from the past. It’s called collective nostalgia. This means a shared longing for what society used to be.

We have all heard someone say at some point in our lives, “When I was young, everything was different.” But it is never fair to compare two different time periods. The memory is distorted over time so you may end up longing for a past that never existed. Your selective memory will only remember events that make you feel even more nostalgic.

In some parts of the world, a large part of the population longs for dictatorship. They talk about how amazing it was. They sigh that there is no firm hand these days, and want a strong, charismatic leader who will improve the nation again.

But such a longing omits important parts of the past and also the present. They do not think about all the freedom they got when the authoritarian regime was over. They never mentioned the crimes that people may have committed in the past that they now so desperately want to return.

There are people who live in their own little world, a total distortion of reality. And by fantasizing in this way, they glorify the past and its people. Just think of the people who adored horrific historical figures like Hitler or Mussolini. Even if they have made their societies develop somewhat, the crimes they committed should not make you feel nostalgic.

Collective nostalgia is a group feeling that can have a strong impact on a group’s behavior. When you long for a certain type of world together with most of your group, it is much easier to shop. And if a large group wants to get back what has been, they can use force if other methods do not work.

Collective nostalgia can sometimes predict the collective action. The more intense a group feeling is, the more likely it is to show up on the streets. It will be more likely that they will scream for what they long for, their amazing past. But the relationship is actually not that bad simple, and it will be completely dominated by the emotions. But these feelings will mostly be negative.

The group may be governed by anger and contempt if the people involved direct this at other people. When a group feels nostalgic about how society used to be and decides that another group bears the responsibility and that this group also prevents them from regaining their past, the risk of negative feelings and related actions will be greater. These acts include everything from norms and laws to illegal acts such as vandalism or violence.

But collective nostalgia does not have to be something negative. If this longing is about people’s old ideas about their country, then they need to think about what it was really like to live during this time.

If nostalgia is about values ​​such as openness and tolerance, then the actions taken will have more liberal goals. The methods they use to achieve these goals must be open and tolerant.

If you have the ability to shape your nostalgia, then try to be motivated to create a better world. Lack of freedom and not restrictions, lack of versatility and not exclusion.