Humans are paradoxical beings driven by nostalgia, fear and restlessness. We want to live in the past and future, we want change and for everything to stay the same. Why are we so indecisive? We all know, and sometimes say, the phrase that everything was better in the past. ‘Back in the days there were still real connections’ or ‘when I was little everything was so much easier’ are well-known sentiments that I also experience from time to time. On the other side of the spectrum is the sudden feeling that something has to change because we cannot go on like this any longer. Humans tend to handle the concept of time quite poorly, but why is our relationship with change also so dysfunctional?

Let’s starts with the past, often accompanied by nostalgia. How can we explain nostalgic driven politics? Romanticising the past plays a large role in its effectiveness. Seemingly, we tend to forget the flaws of history and focus on positive events. We don’t want to remember how we felt when our first relationship fell apart, rather, we want to remember the first time we fell in love. Additionally, nostalgia functions as a coping mechanism in times of social upheaval. When you feel existentially threatened, during times of social change, nostalgia gives you a familiar pillar you can hold on to[1]. Here, a link to conservatism is easy to make. Fearful of change, the stereotype conservatist feels threatened that their traditional values will soon cease to exist. However, nostalgia does not only belong to conservatists. I often find myself bound to the bitter-sweet emotion. A longing for my romanticised childhood seeps into me, while I do not care about traditional values or conservatism. Consequently, the emotion is deeply personal. This is of course a good emotion to use during political campaigns, because people are immediately invested; it makes politics personal.

Nevertheless, the feeling of nostalgia also illustrates that something in the present is lacking. The emotion is in itself paradoxical. Seemingly afraid of current change, nostalgic people want things to change, in order for them to be familiar again. People vote for parties that are not in power because they believe they represent those traditional values that they miss. However, change has to happen first to ‘get back’ to the past. Even though returning to the past is most probably impossible anyway as it has been romanticised too much; there is no such thing as ‘changing back’. Contrastingly, progressives might not be as driven by nostalgia, but also driven by their longing for change. This idea of change is much more focused on the future. They want to see change because the future should be better, brighter and fairer than it is now.

Does our difficult relationship with time, come from being discontent with the present? Maybe we pin our hopes on the past and the future, because of laziness. It is always easier to say that ‘it was’ or ‘it will’ be better, instead of trying to change things now. Perhaps we are afraid. What if we try to change things but it never does get better. Our perfect idea of how the world should exist does not translate to reality. Next to our complex relationship with change, we are not even sure if we are truly capable of it. If we want to believe the mathematic axiom of equality, then x=x, as famous ‘A Little Life’ author has stated. Applied to humans, that means that we are indeed incapable of change, as something in our core will always be x. That might explain why referring to the past and the future is so much easier, the notion that we might fail has been either answered already or remains unknown.

I think accepting change and accepting the notion of time is easier if we see time as a-linear. In modern and contemporary fiction the idea of time as a-linear is already present and tv series such as ‘Dark’ play with this concept as well. This means that the past, present and future all exist simultaneously. Deconstructing time in this way allows us to see the subjective notion of the concept. We measure time through beliefs that humans have invented, or as physicist Julian Barbour states: “Time is encoded in static configurations, which we see or experience subjectively, all of them fitting together to make time seem linear”[2]. Time then, is just an illusion. Concepts of past or future hold no relevance. However, that does not mean we are stuck in a limbo of change. Seen in both progressives and conservatists, in human emotions such as nostalgia and fear; change is the only constant. In our core (x), there is always ‘change’, which is in the end all that we humans can rely on.

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[1] Murphy, A. (2009). “Longing, Nostalgia, and Golden Age Politics: The American Jeremiad and the Power of the Past”, Perspectives on Politics, 7(1): 125-141.

[2] Retrieved from: https://www.space.com/29859-the-illusion-of-time.html

How are your eyes doing? Mine still need to recover from checking my phone every minute of the day, following the US election. A result of the election has arrived and as I can finally be freed from CNN’s Key Race Alerts by closing my laptop, I wonder why I care so much about this election. Why do we care so much more about what happens overseas, while we don’t follow any political action happening in the European Union? How is it possible that turnout for the elections of the European parliament is incredibly low, while the US elections have been trending on Twitter for the past 96 hours? Why is no one sharing treaties or election results coming from the European Union, while I have seen the faces of Biden and Harris about a hundred times today? Why am I, why are we, so incredibly America-obsessed?

            Firstly, I think it’s of importance to realise that the US holds a hegemonic position in the world. While the power of the nation is in decline, I don’t believe that its hegemonic position has vanished entirely yet. This means that their politics are relevant to us in Europe. We are dependent on the decisions they make, regarding their foreign policy, as well as their decisions on issues such as climate change. The US still holds a tremendous amount of influence over the world. However, I think that their cultural influence is also enormous. The literature we read, the films we see and in general the arts we enjoy often come from the US. Consequently, the US norms are imposed on us as well, which makes us a lot more involved with the nation itself. Let me give you an example. I have watched a lot of romantic films. It was only when talking to a friend’s parents recently, that I realised that in my country, the Netherlands, it is not the norm to propose with a ring. The image of getting on one knee with an enormous diamond ring is an image that Hollywood has ingrained in my brain, even though it’s by no means a part of my culture.

            The US thus holds influence over us Europeans, which justifies our interest in the nation. However, that does not explain our obsession with The States. The political landscape of the US and its two-party system offers an environment that is easy to document. Only one of two candidates can win and the report on the election can be similar to reporting a boxing match. It is entertaining and exciting to watch two candidates scream at each other. It is graspable to think of ‘winner’ and ‘loser’ instead of a coalition that has to be formed. On top of that, the politicians in the US try to sell themselves, which is intriguing, because often their stories are extremely compelling. Accordingly, news shows in the US are almost entertainment shows selling us stories, while constantly reporting polls and data that the viewer can watch and follow closely. Politics in the US, are easy to follow.

            Meanwhile ‘at home’, the European Parliament does not even speak the same language and debates are difficult to follow through a translator with a monotone voice. Moreover, the European Union consists of so many different committees and commissions, that it’s hard to keep track of what is happening. There is just too much bureaucracy. There is nothing exciting, glamorous or sexy about politics in Brussels. And on top of its dull politics, we simply lack European ‘patriotism’, as we are first and foremost part of our own countries; a ‘European culture’ hardly exists.

            Lastly, our interest in America derives from our historical view of America. Tocqueville, when returning to Europe, believed that the democracy and equality in the US offered a great example for countries in Europe. While the US has now slid back into a ‘flawed democracy’, the sentiment of taking US as an example also persisted after Tocqueville’s time. In the cold war for instance, The States represented a land of freedom and opportunities. The concept of the ‘American Dream’ might have existed mainly in the US itself, it also left traces in Europe. This is not to say that these views of America were justified or matched reality, but the nation portrayed (or perhaps portrays) an enticing image of freedom, and that image might still be stuck in our heads.

            All in all, it‘s perhaps just a part of our culture to, albeit subconsciously, perceive the US as an example. That the media portray politics in the US as entertainment that is easy to consume, like any television show we can binge-watch, certainly does not help to break away from our (outdated) views on the US. I think it would do us all, and especially me, some good to take a step back from American politics. Instead, we should shift our focus on politics that might actually be more relevant for us. Maybe in a few years I will be traumatised by Key Race Alerts coming from the elections for the European Parliament (one can hope, anyway.)