Is it okay to be nostalgic?

Why so many people long for the past and what to do about it

GDR football shirts on sale. Img: Mangan2002, CC BY 2.5

I’ve been thinking about nostalgia a lot lately. Firstly, I have now reached an age where I catch myself occasionally reminiscing with friends or family about things that happened in the 1990s or early 2000s. A song, a taste, a scent or the sight of a bucket hat will trigger a memory from that time, and off everyone goes down memory lane.

I have to say that this is never entirely rose-tinted for me, and perhaps that’s a particularly East German experience. I had a happy childhood and youth with great friends, long summers and a huge amount of freedom compared to how many children grow up today.

But there was also a lot of social, political and economic upheaval, which created uncertainty and a degree of bleak pessimism as a backdrop to my islands of carefreeness. I feel much more rooted and self-assured now than I did 20 or 30 years ago. So personal nostalgia doesn’t quite work for me, but I can see the appeal in Western European and American contexts.

Many statistics bear this out, too. A 30-country Global Advisor survey published last year found that, across the board, far more people said they’d rather be born in 1975 than 2025. The majority believed that the quality of the environment was better then, that streets were safer and that people were happier – interestingly, while also acknowledging that things like living standards and healthcare were worse fifty years ago.

I also get asked questions about nostalgia as a historian, especially when it comes to the phenomenon of “Ostalgie”, as nostalgia for East Germany has been dubbed. But there is Westalgie, too. In a recent survey, the majority of Germans responding said that West Germany in the 1980s was better than present-day Germany. This feeling was greatest among supporters of the AfD.

Nostalgia always has a political dimension, no matter which direction it comes from, and for that reason alone, it is worth taking seriously. The German newspaper DIE ZEIT clearly agrees. They invited me to discuss the question: “Was everything better in the past?” and released the conversation yesterday. You can watch or read the interview here. I thought it was worth sharing a few aspects of this chat with you, ZEITGEISTERS, so I have compiled and translated them here.

As ever, I’d be very interested to hear your views, not least because you come from many different countries, where nostalgia may well play out differently. In the aforementioned international survey, for instance, countries like South Korea, Singapore and Poland all buck the trend, with a majority there believing that life is better today than it was in the past. It’s easy to see why in all those cases. The most nostalgic country was France.

So here are selected highlights from my interview with DIE ZEIT.

DIE ZEIT: Katja Hoyer, was everything better in the past?

Katja Hoyer: If we don’t want our conversation to last too long: no.

ZEIT: And what would a slightly longer answer look like?

Hoyer: That always depends on your perspective. People like to look to the past for guidance and examples of how things could be done differently today. In doing so, they often selectively choose aspects of their own biography or a country's history that fit their particular argument.

ZEIT: “Everything was better in the old days” – how long has this phrase actually been around? As a historian, do you know if people already had nostalgic feelings in the Stone Age?

Hoyer: I think so. I’m not an expert on antiquity, but even there, you find complaints about the younger generation. I believe Aristotle despaired over his students. There’s inevitably a gap of 20 or 30 years between generations. This leads to differences in experiences, interests and perspectives. This repeatedly causes conflicts between younger and older people. Nostalgia often arises precisely from this comparison.

ZEIT: The Washington Post recently tried to determine when “America” was actually “Great.” The result: People long for the world they experienced around the age of eleven. The supposedly “good old days” would therefore be less a historical era than a biographical moment.

Hoyer: It’s not quite that simple. People don’t just idealise the past; they can also devalue it. Both often reveal more about the present than about the past. Nevertheless, it seems plausible to me that many people remember their early youth particularly positively. During this phase of life, many things are new and full of possibilities.

ZEIT: In your work, you repeatedly describe societies in periods of upheaval. Does a romanticised view of the preceding era almost inevitably arise in retrospect – even if it was marked by crises and conflicts? Or were there also periods in which the present was clearly perceived as progress compared to the past?

Hoyer: Yes, there were such phases. One example is the early post-war period: Around 1949, there was initially a sense of optimism in both West and East Germany. Many wanted to leave the war behind and start anew. However, this confidence quickly turned into disillusionment in East Germany, unlike in the West, where the economic miracle began. A similar situation occurred after 1918: After the First World War, the introduction of democratic structures and new forms of political participation—such as women’s suffrage—was initially perceived as progress. Nostalgia for the German Empire only arose when crises shook confidence in the present.

ZEIT: What are we actually talking about when we say “better”?

Hoyer: I’m always surprised by how rarely economic issues are the focus of political debates on German TV. Yet they are a key factor – not only for one’s own standard of living, but also for a society’s optimism about the future. The crucial question is: Will one’s own life be better than that of one’s parents and grandparents? For the post-war generations, the answer was usually a resounding yes.

ZEIT: Is that why people in this country long for supposedly better times? Because the German economy is objectively no longer growing as dynamically as it did ten or twenty years ago?

Hoyer: People see that jobs are being lost, that industry is being dismantled. The economic system that has made Germany successful and has so far defied all crises seems to be coming to an end. A system on which our prosperity is based is eroding. And there is no alternative in sight. Uncertainty is spreading, along with a feeling of powerlessness. You don’t have to be an expert to see that.

ZEIT: Suppose you were advising politicians: How do you get 80 million people to look to the future with more confidence and draw energy from that?

Hoyer: The prerequisite is that politicians have a vision of where they want to steer the country. People need to be able to understand what the goal is and what steps will lead there. Essentially, most citizens want similar things: economic stability, reliability and the feeling that progress is being made. What’s currently lacking in many places is less the willingness to go along with it than the certainty that a coherent path even exists.

ZEIT: Can you think of any historical examples of a comparable situation that could serve as a guide?

Hoyer: Let’s look at the USA during the Great Depression. Franklin D. Roosevelt was a politician who didn’t promise to solve all the problems immediately. But he conveyed the impression that there was a way out of the crisis. He formulated concrete plans for the first months of his term and repeatedly explained why certain measures were necessary. Crucially, it wasn’t just the policies themselves, but also the communication. In his so-called “Fireside Chats,” Roosevelt spoke directly to the citizens via radio. He explained his decisions, addressed their concerns, and created the feeling that the government had the situation under control. This fostered trust—even when the economic recovery wasn’t around the corner.

ZEIT: And what conclusions can be drawn from this for our present – Friedrich Merz, time to sit by the fireplace?

Hoyer: People don’t necessarily expect immediate solutions. They are often more patient than politicians assume. The situation becomes more difficult when it remains unclear where things are headed. Those who don’t see a plan can’t develop confidence in its success.

ZEIT: But isn’t the Roosevelt example completely outdated?

Hoyer: My comparison focuses less on the historical circumstances than on the communicative effect. Roosevelt spoke directly to people via radio – his voice was suddenly present in living rooms, no longer just heard from a distance at large events. Today, this effect is even more immediate. Smartphones accompany many people constantly, even into bed. There are podcasts and many other popular formats. A communication channel can hardly get closer to people’s everyday lives, yet centrist politicians use them too little and not very effectively.

ZEIT: Has nostalgia become a political tool? “Make America Great Again,” Brexit, and the longing for the Deutsche Mark all follow the same idea that “everything was better in the old days.” But can history even be turned back? Or does this attempt end in precisely the political and social dead end we currently find ourselves in?

Hoyer: These longings must be taken seriously. Such feelings can reach a critical mass. When people feel that decisions are being made “from above” against them, this perception must be acknowledged. This has often been neglected in recent years. Instead of addressing such sentiments, they were dismissed as nostalgic or backward-looking. But nostalgia cannot simply be dismissed as irrational – it points to real tensions that must be addressed politically.

ZEIT: Ms Hoyer, I have one more question: Was everything better in the past?

Hoyer: No.