Back to the populist future?: understanding nostalgia in contemporary ideological discourse

Abstract

Nostalgia is regularly depicted as an indication of a flawed political argument or allegiance, and framed as a virus more likely to take hold in places that are ‘left behind’. Its prevalence has been linked to the rise of populism in Western politics, the vote for Brexit and the election of Donald Trump. This paper seeks to challenge the normative depiction of nostalgia as an alien presence within ‘normal’ political discourse, and critically evaluates theoretical attempts to distinguish between positive and negative forms of it. Instead, it sets out to explore some of the different affective, sentimental and ideational roles that various kinds of nostalgia practice perform, and highlights the particular importance of forms of political argument that accuse opponents of nostalgia while simultaneously employing some of its prevalent modalities and motifs. The paper finishes by exploring these themes in relation to the career and ideas of the iconoclastic and populist British politician, Enoch Powell.

Notes

1. See for instance: J.-W. Müller, What is Populism? (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016); P. Taggart, Populism (Milton Keynes: Open University Press), 2000; and M. Freeden, ‘After the Brexit referendum: revisiting populism as an ideology’, Journal of Political Ideologies, 22, 1 (2017), pp. 1–11.

2. H-G. Betz and C. Johnson, ‘Against the current—stemming the tide: the nostalgic ideology of the contemporary radical populist right’, Journal of Political Ideologies, 9, 3 (2004), pp. 311–27.

3. See for instance C. Mudde, ‘Can we stop the politics of nostalgia that have dominated 2016?’, Newsweek, 15 December 2016, available at: https://europe.newsweek.com/1950s-1930s-racism-us-europe-nostalgia-cas-mudde-531546?rm=eu

4. For instance N. Ascherson, ‘England prepares to leave the world’, London Review of Books, 38(22) (2016), pp. 7–10; and O. Hatherley, The Ministry of Nostalgia (London: Verso, 2016).

5. See for example P. Mishraj, Age of Anger: a History of the Present (London: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2017); P. Kingsnorth, Real England: Battle against the Bland (London: Portobello, 2009); and R. Hewison, The Heritage Industry: Britain in a Climate of Decline (London: Methuen, 1987).

6. Hatherley, Ministry of Nostalgia., op. cit., Ref. 4.

7. R. Ford and M. Goodwin, Revolt on the Right (London: Routledge, 2014); J. Teaford, Cities of the Heartland: Rise and Fall of the Industrial Midwest (London: John Wiley & Sons, 1993); and Michael Skey, National Belonging and Everyday Life; the Significance of Nationhood in an Uncertain World (Basingstoke, Macmillan, 2011).

8. G. Stoker and W. Jennings, ‘The bifurcation of politics: two Englands’, Political Quarterly, 87, 3 (2016), pp. 372–82; and Bagehot, ‘A tale of two cities’, The Economist, 20 February 2016, available at: https://www.economist.com/news/britain/21693223-britains-great-european-divide-really-about-education-and-class-tale-two-cities

9. For a characterization of a populist ‘mentality’, as opposed to an ideology, see M. Tarchi, ‘Populism: ideology, political style, mentality?’, Czech Journal of Political Science, 23 (2016), pp. 95–109.

10. N. El-Elnany, ‘Brexit as nostalgia for empire’, Critical Legal Thinking, 19 June 2016, available at: https://criticallegalthinking.com/2016/06/19/brexit-nostalgia-empire/; E. Newbigin, ‘Brexit, nostalgia and the Great British fantasy’, Open Democracy, 15 February 2017, available at: https://www.opendemocracy.net/eleanor-newbigin/brexit-britain-and-nostalgia-for-fantasy-past; E. Green, ‘They did things differently there: how Brexiteers appealed to voters’ nostalgia’, LSE Brexit Blog, available at: https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/brexit/2016/07/13/they-did-things-differently-there-how-brexiteers-appealed-to-voters-nostalgia/

11. M. Kenny and N. Pearce, ‘An empire that speaks English’, New Statesman, 4 February 2015, available at: https://www.newstatesman.com/staggers/2015/02/new-statesman-cover-6-february-2015

12. D. Hannan, Inventing Freedom: How the English-Speaking Peoples Made the Modern World (London: Broadside, 2013); and R. Helmer, ‘Remember the commonwealth? You should’, UKIP, 22 October 2012; available at: https://www.ukipmeps.org/news_633_Remember-the-Commonwealth-You-should.html

13. M. Kenny and N. Pearce, ‘The empire strikes back’, New Statesman, 23 January 2017; available at: https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk/2017/01/empire-strikes-back

14. M. Freeden, ‘After the Brexit referendum’, op. cit., Ref. 1.

15. For an extensive and thoughtful discussion of this reflex, see A. Bonnett, Left in the Past: Radicalism and the Politics of Nostalgia (London: Bloomsbury, 2010).

16. The accusation of nostalgia is also familiar in the intellectual world, and is regularly used to undermine the legitimacy of others’ arguments. Examples are legion. One well-known, recent instance is Jṻrgen Habermas’s attempt to do just this in response to Wolfgang Streeck’s critique of the European project, and argument for a restructuring of capitalism along national lines. On which, see A. Tooze, ‘A general logic of crisis’, London Review of Books, 39, 1 (2017), available at: https://www.lrb.co.uk/v39/n01/adam-tooze/a-general-logic-of-crisis

17. ‘Decontestation’ features in Michael Freeden’s important account of the nature and interpretation of political ideologies: Ideologies and Political Theory: A Conceptual Approach (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996), p. 76.

18. A useful overview of these is provided in B. Turner, ‘A note on Nostalgia’, Theory, Culture and Society, 4 (1987), pp. 147–56.

19. Ibid.

20. See for instance R. Jobson and M. Wickham-Jones, ‘Gripped by the past: Nostalgia and the 2010 labour party leadership contest’, British Politics, 5, 2010, pp. 525–48.

21. See especially C. Barnett, The Audit of War: the Illusion and Reality of Britain as a Great Nation (London: Pan, 1986); and M. Wiener, English Culture and the Decline of the Industrial Spirit (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981). See also the discussion of this historical literature in A. Gamble, Britain in Decline (Basingstoke, Macmillan, 1981); and R. English and M. Kenny (Eds.) Rethinking British Decline (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1999).

22. P. Lynch, The Politics of Nationhood: Sovereignty, Britishness and Conservative Politics (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1999).

23. A. Finlayson, ‘Third way theory’, Political Quarterly, 70(3), 2002, pp. 271–279.

24. See T. Blair, New Britain: my vision of a young country (London, Fourth Estate, 1996); and Let us Face the Future: the 1945 Anniversary Lecture (London: Fabian Society, 1995).

25. T. Blair, ‘Doctrine of the international community’, speech delivered in Chicago, available at: https://www.britishpoliticalspeech.org/speech-archive.htm?speech=279

26. E. Robinson, ‘Radical nostalgia, progressive patriotism and Labours’ English problem’, Political Studies Review, 14(3) (2016), pp. 378–387.

27. For an extended discussion of this tradition, see Bonnett, Left in the Past, op. cit., Ref. 15. For a more celebratory expression of it, see P. Glazer, Radical Nostalgia: Spanish Civil War Commemoration in America (London: Boydell & Drew, 2010).

28. Robinson, ‘Radical Nostalgia’, op. cit., Ref. 26, p. 385.

29. These themes are discussed in V. Geoghegan, Ernst Bloch (London: Routledge, 1995).

30. E.P. Thompson, William Morris: Romantic to Revolutionary (London: Merlin Press, 2011).

31. S. Boym, Future of Nostalgia (London: Basic, 2002).

32. For a useful critical discussion of this model see Bonnett, Left in the Past, op. cit., Ref. 15, pp. 42, 45.

33. These issues are keenly contested in the debates about the national heritage revival which broke out among historians during the 1980s. For starkly counter-opposed contributions to these, see R. Hewison, The Heritage Industry: Britain in a Climate of Decline (London: Methuen, 1987) and R. Samuel, Theatres of Memory: Past and Present in Contemporary Culture (London: Verso, 1996).

34. R. Scruton, England: An Elegy (London: Continuum, 1999).

35. D. Lowenthal, The Past is a Foreign Country (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985).

36. On the role of arcadianism and the folk revival in contemporary English consciousness, see M .Kenny, The Politics of English Nationhood (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014).

37. R. Williams, The Country and the City (London: Chatto and Windus, 1973).

38. This motif has become ubiquitous in media and political commentary. For a more thoughtful discussion of its implications see L. Nandy, ‘The England that lies beneath the surface’, The Huffington Post, 7 March 2017, available at: https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/lisa-nandy/lisa-nandy-ippr-speech_b_15216124.html

39. E. Kaufmann, ‘It’s not the Economy, Stupid: Brexit as a Story of Personal Values’, LSE British Politics and Policy, available at: https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/personal-values-brexit-vote/

40. For a thoughtful discussion of Powell’s stance on immigration, and its reception within the Conservative party, and beyond, see N. Hillman, ‘A ‘Chorus of Execration’? Enoch Powell's ‘Rivers of Blood’ Forty Years On’, Patterns of Prejudice, 42(1) (2008), pp. 83–104.

41. For a scathing account of Powell’s shifting stance on this question, which stresses his political opportunism and inconsistency, see P. Foot, Rise of Enoch Powell: Examination of Enoch Powell’s Attitude to Immigration and Race (London: Penguin, 1969). For more nuanced, and sympathetic, treatments, see S. Heffer, Like the Roman: The Life of Enoch Powell (London: Faber, 2008) and T.E. Utley, Enoch Powell: the Man and His Thinking (London: Harper Collins, 1968).

42. These themes in his thinking are discussed in A. Gamble, The Conservative Nation (London: Routledge, 2011), pp. 119–20, 164; and I. McLean, Rational Choice and British Politics: An Analysis of Rhetoric and Manipulation from Peel to Blair (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), pp. 136–44.

43. These ideas figure in a number of the speeches he made during the 1960s. These are archived at: https://enochpowell.info/Resources/Master%20Index.pdf. See also the collection of speeches on immigration, Europe and nationhood from the 1970s gathered in R. Ritchie (Ed.), J. Enoch Powell: A Nation or No Nation? (London: Batsford, 1978).

44. F. Lindop, ‘Racism and the Working class: strikes in support of enoch powell in 1968’, Labour History Review, 66(1) (2001), pp. 79–99.

45. His shifting attitudes to Empire are illuminated in C. Schofield, Enoch Powell and the Making of Postcolonial Britain (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015); and Gamble, The Conservative Nation, op. cit., Ref. 42.

46. For an overview of these contemporary debates, see Gamble, Britain in Decline, op. cit., Ref. 21.

47. His sharp rejection of the Commonwealth was first publicly apparent in the speech he delivered, as a backbencher, in response to the Government’s Royal Titles Bill, on 5 March 1953. This brought him much greater prominence in the party, and led to the subsequent offer of a government position: Heffer, Like the Roman, op. cit., Ref. 41, pp. 182–5.

48. These aspects of his thinking are discussed in R. Lewis, Enoch Powell: Principle in Politics (London: Cassell, 1979).

49. On the different components of his English nationalism, see McLean, Rational Choice, pp. 136–7.

50. This issue is explored in Heffer’s account of his early experiences in the Conservative Party, in Like the Roman, op. cit., Ref. 41.

51. R. Scruton, ‘The language of Enoch Powell’, in Lord Howard of Erskine (Ed.) Enoch at 100: A Re-evaluation of the Life, Philosophy and Politics of Enoch Powell (London: Biteback, 2014), pp. 114–122.

52. E. Powell, Speech to the Churchill Society, London, 23 April 1961, available at: https://www.churchill-society-london.org.uk/StGeorg*.html

53. This is a quotation from his notorious 1968 ‘Rivers of Blood’ Speech; available at: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/3643823/Enoch-Powells-Rivers-of-Blood-speech.html

54. See Schofield, Enoch Powell; and P. Gilroy, After Empire: Melancholia or Convivial Culture?: Multiculture or Postcolonial Melancholia (London: Routledge, 2004).

55. For a discussion of these themes see Müller, What is Populism?, op. cit., Ref. 1 and Taggart, Populism, op. cit., Ref. 1.

56. E. Powell, ‘Speech to an Open Meeting, Millom, Cumberland; 29 April 1972’, in Ritchie (Ed.) Enoch Powell, p. 42.

57. Heffer, Like the Roman, op. cit., Ref. 41., pp. 449–59.

58. A. Whipple , ‘Revisiting the “Rivers of Blood” Controversy: Letters to Enoch Powell’, Journal of British Studies, 48, 3 (2009), pp. 717–35.

59. See McLean, Rational Choice, op. cit., Ref. 42, pp. 145–52.

60. Whipple, ‘Revisiting’, op. cit., Ref. 58.

61. Ibid., p. 720.