A specter is haunting global politics: the specter of nostalgia. Nostalgia for the nuclear, single-earner family; nostalgia for the ethnically defined and uniform nation state; nostalgia for simpler, pre-Internet times; nostalgia for a time when men were men and women were women, full stop.

Nostalgia in politics has the reputation of being inextricably connected with reactionary projects. For instance, philosopher Jason Stanley starts his 2018 book, How Fascism Works, with a discussion of how nostalgia, a yearning gaze at “a pure mythic past tragically destroyed,” is the fundamental affect harnessed by fascism. Indeed, the OG fascists were quite explicit about appealing to a mythic past. In a 1922 speech at the Fascist Congress in Naples, Benito Mussolini declared, “We have created our myth. . . .  Our myth is the nation; our myth is the greatness of the nation!”

Today it can seem that nostalgia has come back to life and is ruining the world. But nostalgia is not inherently fascist-leaning. It can be directed at periods of hope, solidarity, and revolution. Nostalgia has an unparalleled capacity to coordinate large groups of people around shared rituals, memories, and desires. And by recollecting the best from the past and creatively reinterpreting it in light of today’s needs, nostalgia can help us come up with new visions.