We no longer like the future. We loved it a lot in the past, just look at the way our ancestors at the beginning of the 20th century imagined the year 2000: everything was joyous progress. We then imagined a radiant future that we wanted. But the very idea of progress is at half mast: in an article by the French philosopher Georges Canguilhem, as early as 1987, it was announced “the decadence of the idea of progress”. The very study of the use of the term “progress” in numerous languages (French, Italian, Spanish, German, etc.) shows the decline of its occurrences in literature from the 1960s.
This devitalization of the future can be approached in many ways. It is tangible, particularly when we ask our fellow citizens if they would like to live in the future: the answer is no. So, in his book The Economy of HappinessClaudia Senik tells us that only 3% of French people say they want the future, while 30% would choose to live in the present, and two thirds in the recent past, with a preference for the 1980s. The most curious thing is that this decade is chosen even by those who did not experience it and were born even after the 2000s! This nostalgia for the immediate past perhaps stems from the impression that this period, within reach, offered a more readable, less multipolar world, where the sovereignty of nations had not yet been weakened by globalization… a world more controllable where things were going slower.
The French are far from being the only ones to be in this state of mind. A survey by the Ipsos Institute of more than 50,000 people in 50 countries shows that this is a global concern. The results have just been published and reveal, for example, that, despite cultural differences, many countries look with obsession and envy at their immediate past and cower in the enjoyments of the present. Thus, around the world, 57% of those questioned would like their country “to be like before”. In France, 56% of us in 2013 agreed on this subject, while today we are 64%.
A strong desire to “slow down”
This nostalgic feeling is progressing almost everywhere, since at European level we went from 46% to 56% during the same period. It is present in countries as different as Turkey, where it has increased by 21 points to reach 76% of respondents, while in Sweden, where it was in the minority ten years ago, it has now reached 56%. It is based on the idea of a loss of control over one’s environment, particularly due to globalization and technology. The idea that globalization is beneficial falls by 22 points at the global level and reaches, in France, a record (negative) of 34% in 2024. As for technology, 57% of those questioned fear, at the international level, that it does not destroy our lives 57%. This score reaches 62% among our fellow citizens today, while it was only 43% in 2013. We find this global trend at the European level.
This fear of the future, associated with nostalgia, is coupled with the feeling that it is urgent to enjoy the present. We observe a claim to “slow down” the world among 65% of individuals internationally: this desire has increased by 10 to 20 points in the last ten years. It therefore appears urgent to “enjoy the present without worrying about the future” among 61% of respondents in the survey, and it is the French who, with 68%, are the international champions on this subject. It should be noted that this hedonistic imperative has increased over the last ten years and is significantly correlated with the declared awareness that the future has become uncertain.
Examination of this important global survey shows that many of our fellow human beings are overcome by a global feeling of helplessness, and that this instills in them a desire that is both nostalgic and hedonistic. A desire for the present and the immediate past to mix to bring about or return a more desirable world – what we could call “nowstalgia”. It is not certain that this feeling is the one that best prepares us for the challenges that the future presents.
Gérald Bronner is a sociologist and professor at La Sorbonne University.
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