Narratives of the past are often presented as an innocent act of remembrance. However, especially in times of political crisis, nostalgia ceases to be an individual emotion; it turns into an ideological device through which social consent is reproduced. The sentence “We were happier in the past” is not just a sigh, but a comfortable formula for avoiding understanding and transforming the present. This sentence is an expression of intolerance for the present rather than nostalgia for the past.
The years when one had to wait for hours to talk between Istanbul and Ankara by dictating to the switchboard, when news flowed through the state's filter in a single-channel world, when communication was slow and information was scarce, are described today as a “golden age”. However, this narrative does not reflect the material conditions of the past, but the political and social fatigue of today. It is not the past that is longed for; it is the unbearable weight of the present. In other words, nostalgia is not a historical longing, but a contemporary escape.
This escape is based on the constant speed, precariousness and uncertainty of modern life. Today, the individual is besieged not only economically but also mentally and emotionally. The past is placed against this siege as a safe and familiar space. However, this safe space is not the real but a representation selectively constructed by memory.
Nostalgia here is not a practice of memory, but a conscious or unconscious is a strategy of depoliticization. The past is sanitized through selective memory; poverty, oppression, inequality, sexist order, class traps are pushed out of the narrative. Only “warmth”, “sincerity” and “humanity” remain. Thus, history ceases to be a field of struggle; it is turned into an emotional decoration.
This is not a coincidence. Because nostalgia suspends political responsibility. Instead of discussing today's injustices, taking refuge in the fairy-tale images of the past; instead of questioning power relations, saying “oh where were those days” is a clear form of surrender. In this respect, nostalgia is a soft, emotional and voluntary form of obedience, not critical thinking.
The virtorization of technological deprivation is also an important part of this ideological framework. Slower pace of life, less exposure to information, less awareness; today it was not a conscious choice but a material necessity. However, this necessity is repackaged as “purity”, “cleanliness” and “humanity” when viewed from today. The structural inequalities of the past are thus legitimized with an emotional romanticism.
But technology is not the issue. It's about the effects of late capitalism. is a state of constant stimulation, constant exhaustion, and constant inability to cope. Today, the individual is exploited not only with his/her labor but also with his/her attention, emotions and time. Algorithms determine not only what we consume, but also what we feel sad about, what we rejoice about and how long we think. Blessing the past rather than confronting this reality is a less intellectually demanding way to avoid coming to terms with the system.
More importantly, nostalgia is one of the favorite raw materials of politics. The discourse of the “good old days” has always been a source of legitimacy for authoritarian projects. Because an idealized past cannot be questioned, and any narrative that cannot be questioned holds the future hostage. As the past is sanctified, today's inequalities are normalized and tomorrow's possibilities are narrowed. In this sense, nostalgia is an ideological mechanism that hinders not only the past but also the future.
This is where we need to pause and think.
Because this narrative is not just an innocent recollection. Nostalgia is a social and political phenomenon as much as it is an individual emotion. It is an effort to establish the past as a refuge against the speed, precariousness and uncertainty of today. What is actually longed for is not the lack of technology, but the slowness of life, the meaning of waiting, the value of patience.
Today everything is at our fingertips, but modern capitalism has consumed not only labor but also excitement and the sense of waiting. Whereas it used to be enough to wait for the timbre of a song on a cassette, to wait patiently at the radio for a movie, to dream with shadows in the dark, today unlimited access devalues the experience. We reach faster, but we feel less.
“The sentence ”We used to be happier" is sociologically controversial. There was poverty, there was inequality, there was oppression. But we were less exposed to it. Evil was not as visible as it is today; lying was not as cheap as it is today; politics did not infiltrate every cell of life.
Today, politics is not only in parliament; it is in our pockets, on our screens, in our algorithms.
This is why nostalgia has a dangerous ideological function. Romanticizing the past makes the structural problems of the present invisible. “It didn't used to be like this” is often another way of saying “I don't want to face today”. Politics feeds on this feeling. The narrative of the “good old days” becomes an ideological tool to make inequality seem natural and injustice seem like fate.
What we remember is not the past itself, but the filtered version of collective memory. Memory is selective; it eliminates pain and magnifies warmth. This is why nostalgia promises not the future but only an escape from the present.
The question is this: Were we happier or less aware? Maybe it's not about happiness, is a sense of meaning. Technology has made our lives easier, but it has weakened our common rhythms, our collective patience and our ability to dream together.
Remembering the past is not a crime. But presenting it as a sterile, depoliticized, innocent paradise makes it impossible to understand and change the present. The true intellectual attitude is not to long for the past, but to analyze it in cold blood and face the problems of today.
Maybe we were not happier before.
But we know this:
The future is not built through nostalgia, but through memory, reason and struggle.