Nostalgia & Klanmind In Tennessee
The word “nostalgia” comes from two Greek roots, nostos meaning “return home” and algia “longing.” I would define it as a longing for a home that no longer exists or has never existed. Nostalgia is a sentiment of loss and displacement, but it is also a romance with one’s own fantasy. Nostalgic love can only survive in a long-distance relationship. A cinematic image of nostalgia is a double exposure, or a superimposition of two images—of home and abroad, of past and present, of dream and everyday life. The moment we try to force it into a single image, it breaks the frame or burns the surface…
Nostalgia appears to be a longing for a place, but it is actually a yearning for a different time—the time of our childhood, the slower rhythms of our dreams. In a broader sense, nostalgia is a rebellion against the modern idea of time, the time of history and progress. The nostalgic desires to turn history into private or collective mythology, to revisit time like space, refusing to surrender to the irreversibility of time that plagues the human condition. Hence the past of nostalgia, to paraphrase William Faulkner, is not even past…
The danger of nostalgia is that it tends to confuse the actual home and the imaginary one. In extreme cases it can create a phantom homeland, for the sake of which one is ready to die or kill. Unreflective nostalgia can breed monsters…
There is a global epidemic of nostalgia, an affective yearning for a community with a collective memory, a longing for continuity in a fragmented world. Nostalgia inevitably reappears as a defense mechanism in a time of accelerated rhythms of life and historical upheavals. But this defense mechanism has its own side effects.
Svetlana Boym, “Nostalgia and its Discontents” (adapted from The Future of Nostalgia)
The above passage recently came to mind as I’ve continued to reflect on Governor Bill Lee’s decision to ban thought, conversation, and reading material that challenge white supremacist terror ideology in public schools. The poet Ed Sanders refers to that ideology as klanmind, a peculiar meanness specific to the culture Bill Lee and I share, a perverse conception of self and others that festers under cover of darkness and dollars. Boym is helping me see that it’s often based in unreflective nostalgia and militant ignorance. Klanmind might be a helpful shorthand for Bill Lee’s uncritical race theory.
The above image appeared on my Twitter feed in response to a tweet published by Senator Bill Hagerty of St. George’s Episcopal Church. This is the tweet:
I have lovely memories of St. George’s Episcopal Church. If I remember correctly, the community there was the first to invite me to address a Sunday School class (I believe “Faith and Film” was the subject). I hope someone within the organization asks Senator Hagerty to reconsider his decision to hold fast to the slogan above and to renounce his public association with a man who assembled and incentivized a terror attack on our government. A call for unity with abusers is a call for more abuse.
It’s unfortunate that Senator Hagerty chose to word his devotion to “AMERICA FIRST!” as a kind of promise, but I’m confident that St. George’s Episcopal Church has the insight and the resources to restore Senator Hagerty, to help him see that religious nationalism—that phantom homeland—is a dead-end, and to communicate the possibility of a loving future available to him, despite the fact that he’s disgraced himself in this way. Perhaps he’ll delete the tweet, offer a public apology, and regroup. Where there is grace there is no shame. We live in hope.
Unreflective nostalgia can breed monsters.
Reflective nostalgia, on the other hand, can compel us to imagine ourselves and others more artfully. It can also help us develop and deepen a sense of righteous expectation. I can fondly recall the art exhibits, concerts, and sound teaching I’ve experienced at St. George’s Episcopal Church and grieve the fact that the institution now provides moral cover for a United States Senator who’s behaving abusively. We can hover there and demand more of the leadership of organizations like St. George’s and Christ Presbyterian Church (which harbors Senator Marsha Blackburn) while expressing appreciation for the times they’ve managed to be gifts to their neighbors. Everyone’s invited to artfulness.
Reflective nostalgia can breed prophets.