Nostalgia Can Be an Engine of Progress

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 obstacles 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 major 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 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. It’s true that resistance to new ideas and nostalgia frequently go hand in hand. And 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, which in turn can trigger nostalgia.

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