La trampa de la nostalgia

May 11, 2015 Ana Palacio

MADRID – El orden mundial –y en particular su aparente ausencia– es hoy tema candente. El cuestionamiento obsesivo del futuro de las estructuras políticas y los sistemas globales nos asaetea en noticias, conferencias, desde la red y los programas televisivos de mayor audiencia.

Cunde la ansiedad. Se percibe una mutación: nuevos actores emergen en el escenario global, las otrora sacrosantas normas de conducta internacional son abiertamente violadas o cuestionadas, y una nueva ola de progreso tecnológico afecta a industrias y sectores enteros de la economía. Esta búsqueda de ordenación y certeza es un impulso natural en tiempos de cambios acelerados. Vagamos desazonados buscando pistas sobre hacia dónde evoluciona el mundo y qué papel vamos a desempeñar en él.

Identificar el camino mejor o más práctico resulta vital en estas circunstancias. Y el análisis del coste-beneficio y el pensamiento estratégico han de basarse en elementos fiables. El problema surge, así, cuando nuestro anhelo por la certidumbre sobrepasa lo racional conduciendo ideas y actos por sendas improductivas, o incluso peligrosas.

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0 Comments on this paragraph, 12 in all 12 Comments on this article

Tulio Rafael Montes Madrid May 30, 2015

Un deslumbrante destello de coherencia ideológica, una firmeza conceptual rara en nuestro tiempo, otra estrella en el firmamento para navegar.
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Gemma Camacu May 29, 2015

Well, it's quite interesting to see how Anna connects this nostalgia with the 21 century which, all of them, reflect authoritarian politics. Especially when the author herself, quite famous in Spain, has accused some political parties of sharing some similitudes with ISIS. So, is it really posible to engage one another in a constructive conversation to propose new ideas when the business people, as Ana, constantly attack new parties which propose new and social ideas that confront the 19th & 20th century nostalgia? It's a new era which requires new ways of thinking.
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Per Kurowski May 18, 2015

Ana Palacios writes: “The problem arises when our yearning for certainty overwhelms rational thinking, taking our ideas and actions in an unproductive – or even dangerous – direction.”

Absolutely. When bank regulators, yearning for safe banks, adopted credit-risk-weighted equity requirements for banks, they completely distorted the allocation of bank credit to the real economy… causing even more instability.

But now the regulators don’t want to swallow their pride and admit they did wrong, and so we are being further dug into the hole.

http://subprimeregulations.blogspot.com/2015/04/the-amazing-achilles-heels-of-basel.html
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Bruno Berewono May 15, 2015

Well, well, well Putin and ISIS placed side by side in one article and i must say it's the perfect migraine for western leaders heads. Of course we can't run from the past but i think we need writers on PS to start offering pragmatic solutions to problems identified rather than sympathise with our nostalgia for our past.
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Ana Palacio May 14, 2015

Thank you for your comments. Many of you have raised the point that current difficulties are not the result of nostalgia, but rather fundamental challenges arising in our societies and world. This is precisely the point. The nostalgia described in the article is a side-effect of the deeper uncertainties arising from our changing world. In the absence of new ideas it has become all too easy to fall back on old models driven by a hope that we can return to the past (and often to a past that never existed at all). This kind of sticking our heads in the sand is folly and distracts from coming up with real solutions to real problems.
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Petey Bee May 13, 2015

"Flimsy ideas thrive in the absence of a viable alternative."

So basically this article is saying all the currently existing alternatives for a world order are either flimsy not viable?

The alternatives presented here were:
1. Putin style regional nationalism
2. ISIS style throwback theocracy
3. US style "poke-it-with-a-stick-and-act-surprised-if-something-bad-happens"-ism

Are there other alternatives we forgot to mention? Which is flimsy and which is not viable? And what does that even mean? flimsy or viable by what standard? that of effective rhetoric? that of a cold-blooded policy goal, which is effective? effective in the sense of reaching a desired immediate outcome? or reaching a desired end-state without regard to long term effects? or effective in terms of making a lasting structure to secure your goals in the long term? and all that, but with or without the kinds of behavioral constraints that the history of the 20th century has taught us?
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jagjeet sinha May 12, 2015

The author has attempted the template that rightly identified the rear view mirror as the principal cause of governance disasters. The front windshield is uncharted territory - the challenge always is to understand the symptoms to get the diagnostics perfectly before the uncharted is mapped for navigation. The Apollo Project was uncharted but positive energy produced the perfect map for mankind's leap forward. The Anglosphere was another construct that created the World's Economic Engine amidst the migration millions that were looking for hope in a New World. In 1945 after the mayhem in Europe, it was impossible to envision the prosperity that was produced by burying Europe's nationalism. The challenges that the Concert of Democracies are confronted with now, needs a mindset that can map the way forward without yet another meltdown. There are numerous success templates - but in a globalised world, it is no longer possible to use Religion Race Region in the chemistry that creates the Perfect 'Tomtom'. Looking in the rear view mirror indeed is not the smartest way to navigate. The Solar System only works if none of the Nine Planets occupy the center - Zero is a Temple with the planets perpetually in circumambulation. The Temple's centre must remain a void. Russia China Amerca Germany France Italy Britain Japan India - in perpetual circumambulation, in perpetual obeisance to the All Powerful Sun.
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Matthew McCarthy May 12, 2015

Nostalgia is very evident in some of the examples: Putin's calls for the former Russian Empire and the Islamic states call for the former caliphate. And I believe there are elements of nostalgia in some of the other examples, but the description of nostalgia in some of these cases is a popular method of ignoring real, current problems. The "original intent" in US Constitutional law is a good example: some of the critics of original intent claim that its adherents want to go back to when slavery was legal, where the adherents of original intent actually like the example: the 14th amendment outlawing slavery and the document was changed, and when we changed it we said what we were changing and agreed to it. Instead we have our current morass where progressives have decided the Constitution is changed, don't feel they need to explain or even write down how it was changed, never mind get agreement, and are upset when everyone doesn't just follow their lead. That's not a question of nostalgia, it is a question of the rule of law.
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m r May 12, 2015

What the Spanish author describes repeatedly as nostalgia is NO nostalgia (may be in Spanish language!) at all but outright political tools used by different actors mentioned in this article, who would anyway use whatever to force forward with their own agenda. Bringing in thus here the notions of trampling upon progress/ rule of behaviour is rather egregious. If the author means well, she should tackle each issue on its own merit rather than an intellectual rubbish of eliciting a unified theory for all evils.
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Zsolt Hermann May 12, 2015

We simply don't know how to cope with the new, unprecedented globally interconnected and fully integrated world.

Since we have been brought up and educated as unique individuals with complete freedom to act as we like - even if this was never actually true - we naturally reject and want to escape from this new interdependence.

Moreover the only viable life-form, attitude that is mutually complementing collaboration, making calculations primarily for the collective above self-calculations is against everything we have been doing so far, politically, economically even psychologically. This rejection is the only thing everybody agrees on right now, thus everybody tries to escape back to isolationism, protectionism, nationalism.

But we actually do not have a free choice.
Our global, integral state is not man-made, it is an evolutionary necessity. nature is global and fully integrated, mutually complementing. Otherwise the balance and homeostasis necessary for sustaining life and positive development would not be possible.

Thus the conditions around us will not change, only we can change. We will have to adjust our inherent nature, start interconnecting and cooperating in a benevolent, altruistic way just like elements of the natural system.

And such a fundamental, drastic change, adaptation is only possible through a new education program that provides the necessary information and through mutual, interactive circles provides the immediate positive, emotional feedback, confidence. Only this way can we guarantee the positive motivation that is crucial for any sustainable change.
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Shane Beck May 12, 2015

I don't think is that it is merely a case of nostalgia, as more the fact that the current system is clearly not working. Democracy / Capitalism is failing to meet the current challenges (AGW, mass human migration, income inequality, great power relations etc. etc.). Until a new memeplex arises to successfully cope with these challenges, such as Christianity rose to cope with the collapse of the Western Roman Empire, Democracy rose to cope with the rising middle class and the Reformation and Communism rose to cope with the mass disruption caused by the Industrial Revolution. We don't know what the next memeplex will be. Islamic fundamentalism and Russian nationalism are attempts to use outdated memeplexes to cope with the current disruptions caused by globalization......
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James Edwards May 11, 2015

Ms Palacio,

I agree with your assessment that nostalgia does hold people back in the face of rapid economic change and I see this majority of the time depending on where you live. The reason policymaker succumb to that is they think the economy does not change diametrically over time and sought to apply a prescription that may be successful in the past to today (Laffer's supply side economic theory has been debunked and yet they catered to the idea to cater to the base).
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