Don’t Let the Devil Have all the Best Tunes
Why do centrists Fail? Because centrists are usually 'technocrats' who
see politics as a process of piece meal problem solving based on focus
groups. They often have poor story telling skills. The very word
‘progressive’ invests hope in the future whereas the right is more
inclined to deploy nostalgia. Take BACK control or Make America great
AGAIN.
Can the left deploy nostalgia? I was recently inspired by an article by
novelist Zadie Smith who wrote of how she used to “have fun with her
American audiences… Telling quirky tales of functional healthcare and
education systems free at the point of use … But then came the moment
when those stories came to feel not just outdated, but like ancient
history. Or, more specifically, like a fairytale about a lost world, the
postwar world, “A world that – though very far from ever being perfected
– remains the closest my country has ever come to anything resembling
social equity.”
“But as the years passed”, she concluded that “the whole matter of the
past was becoming unmentionable, particularly in front of the young. It
sounded like the kind of generational taunting… Who wants to hear this
stuff? Who wants to hear about decent social housing, free education and
world-class medical care when you can’t pay the rent, the neighbourhood
school is failing” So she kept her fond memories of a functioning
country to herself” .
“But these days” she argues “that historical nostalgia should not be the
sole preserve of the right. The left can also make use of it. We can
remind ourselves that a more just society is possible, if only because a
few of the necessary conditions have at various moments actually existed
upon this Earth, and in the not-so-distant past.
With this in mind, she began thinking of the circumstances of her youth
not as a fairytale or as an impossible fantasy, but as a real-life thing
that did happen and might happen again.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/jul/03/zadie-smith-on-hope-trepidation-and-rebirth-after-14-years-of-the-tories
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