Professor of Critical Psychology Valerie Walkerdine from the University of Cardiff, discusses the relevance of retrotopia in today’s highly complex world.
Professor Walkerdine says that Bauman came up with the idea that we like to refer to the past in a nostalgic way, to avoid facing things that we are fearful about in the present. But nevertheless she herself states that she is quite critical of the idea that this is a form of nostalgia, because ‘nostalgia’ makes it sound as though this is a kind of wishful thinking, a fantasy about a time when things were different. Walkerdine cites the example of her own research in the old coal-mining towns in the valleys of Wales; towns which have suffered greatly from British industrial decline, and describes what has happened there is that people are referring to the past, as a kind of shock therapy in the face of loss. “Not nostalgia, but grieving for something that communities had tried really hard to make work, and did make work.” Looking back to the past as a kind of cure, which Zygmunt Bauman is suggesting, is actually “pathologizing retrotopia, making it a weakness,” Professor Walkerdine says. “…it is all too easy now to think about people who are expressing a certain kind of political sentiment [to do with the past] as lacking something, or weak.”
The discussion then moves on to talking about politicians ‘securitizing’ the past, using it as a weapon to make people feel that they are missing something now, and that only by following the policies of a certain party will people regain their happiness. Professor Walkerdine comments that “in relation to Brexit and the American election, the slogans which were used such as ‘Make America Great Again,’ and the sense of taking back control, were used deliberately…” Professor Walkerdine’s point is that if pressing issues are actually being faced and handled properly, then there is then more of a space for people to face the present and the future. “It is very hard to face the future with hope if you are feeling huge amounts of grief and insecurity.”
A discussion ensues about the comparative willingness (or lack of willingness) of Russia and British people, to face the present issues. Host John Harrison suggests that life in Russia is so intense that there is simply not very much time for thinking about the past, and that Russians are generally speaking more interested in the present. This is something that financial advisers, for example, say is their number one problem when working in Russia because they find it difficult to convince Russians to worry about the future. The whole question of whether different cultures relate to the past is then discussed.
The last theme discussed relates to the speeding up of change within societies as a result of the application of new technologies, which could lead to our being unable to keep up, and thus being unable to cope. Professor Walkerdine, however says: “Everything new can also be exciting …the present cannot be made to be exciting if you don’t feel safe in the present.”
In other words, we shouldn’t be using the past to shy away from working out ways to cope with the present.
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