A recent fascination in my study of history has been the history of history itself. Those who attempt to weave history into narrative (though not all historians can be described this way) rely on a key assumption: namely, that history is something more than the sum or series of its events. The past means something; it progresses; it motivates and is motivated; its events are tied together in causal and instructive ways. The legacy of debate over the shape of historical progress is rich, variegated, and fascinating. Dear reader, what do you make of it?
Does history return to itself cyclically as W.B. Yeats would have it, or is the Augustinian story of a linear procession from Creation all the way to the Final Judgment more apt? Do the stadial frameworks of Adam Smith or Karl Marx paint a realistic portrait of progress despite civilizational oscillation? Smith proposed that civilizations evolve from hunter societies to those of shepherds, then farmers, then commercial polities, while Marx suggested that communism is the denouement of successive modes of production beginning with feudalism and transitioning into capitalism, then socialism. Both conceived of shifting economic realities as the primary mechanism of historical change, but does anything really ‘move’ history? Did British Whigs correctly assert that history is a steady march toward modern liberal values (with its apogee, of course, firmly identified in 19th century Britain)? Must we call Martin Luther King Jr.’s “arc of the moral universe… bend[ing] toward justice” a Pollyanna-ish mirage when historical reality, in the postmodern gospel, consists of a sequence of undirected events untethered to any meta-narrative and devoid of permanent, objective, or moral improvements?
Most theories of historical progress concern themselves with a ‘telos’—the final purpose or ultimate aim of history. Some derive that telos from human beginnings in the Garden of Eden (framing the attempt to return to the Edenic state as the central narrative of human history); others from the final Redemption and Judgement of the Earth. Some cyclical theorists identify a kind of telos in the very perpetuation of history’s cycle; others deny civilization-level objectives while affirming individual telos within the broader historical current. Some schools of thought anchor it in the enlightened, secular future; some deny that such a purpose exists at all.
Now consider the unspoken assumptions about the arc of historical progress which undergird what I call “back-in-the-day politics.” Reminiscing about the ‘good old days’ is one of humanity’s permanent and oldest pastimes. Hesiod lamented the loss of Greece’s “Golden Age”; historians of the declining Roman Empire mourned the old, virtuous republic. Renaissance thinkers romanticized antiquity; Enlightenment thinkers pined after pre-commercial simplicity. In 2026, “back in the day” frequently prefaces claims such as, “kids played outside and ate dinner with their families,” “news was objective,” “music was better,” “things were built to last,” “the youth respected their elders,” “one income could support a family,” “politics weren’t so divisive,” “college gave you practical skills,” “you didn’t have to lock your doors,” or “there were only two genders.”
This nostalgia for the rosy characteristics of some past era is born of a valid and normal impulse to benchmark the progress and pitfalls of the present against the past. Memory tends to be selective and foggy, so back-in-the-day thinking often makes thorough use of the availability heuristic: today’s fully observed, salient negatives are weighed against a small bundle of primarily positive perceptions from the past, while problematic realities are swept under the rug of romanticized memory. It is deeply biased, but it is potent and, in some limited ways, informative.
The “back-in-the-day” sentiment is not new. What is relatively new is the extent to which that sentiment pervades and motivates American politics. Many Americans proudly wear red hats emblazoned with the word “Again,” a load-bearing adverb giving the MAGA motto a flavor quite distinct from simply, “Make America Great.” Manfred Kets de Vries describes the sentiment as a “hard, defensive nostalgia: a myth of a golden past, curated and weaponized against the discomforts of the present.” MAGA rhetoric puts forward a fabricated, piecemeal collage of real or imagined historical moments from the last 250 years. It seems, however, that MAGA’s ‘Paradise Lost’ is centered around the 1950s, the last era in which, coincidentally, the movement popularly believes that the white, Christian male exercised unflinching dominance over all aspects of American society.
Although MAGA Republicans certainly make the most aggressive rhetorical use of that sentiment today, Democrats indulge in plenty of their own back-in-the-day-ifying. ‘Back in the day’ for the Democrats constitutes, well, the time before Donald Trump. To the chagrin of all who wish for a Democratic Party which promulgates a positive, future-forward alternative vision for America, the Party has instead spent a decade obsessed, possessed, and ruined by its single-minded opposition to Trump and a pining to return to the pre-Trump instantiation of the elite liberal order.
The problem with back-in-the-day politics is that it locates the telos of historical progress in some fairly arbitrary—and usually mythological—past. It is not just an admission of present problems (which all sane politics must include) but an admission of defeat coupled with the implication that the proper direction of societal movement is backwards. It usually suggests something stronger than that the past ‘had it better’: it asserts that the past ‘had it right.’ Politically, it mangles the quest for the virtues perceived to be present in the ‘old ways’ into a retrogressive quest for a return to the institutions and policies of the past.
The trouble is, as T.S. Eliot put it, that “We cannot revive old factions / We cannot restore old policies / Or follow an antique drum.” The ‘golden past’ is simply a point of departure to which humanity cannot return. We are a different humanity now, animated by different institutions and at the far end of many cultural, social, and political revolutions. A people conditioned by the rights, privileges, and problems of 2026 would be a poor fit for the norms and institutions of 1956.
Fortunately, there is no need to succumb to the past-or-present binary. Let’s take the example of families: “back in the day, couples wanted to have children and families stuck together.” The back-in-the-day sentiment suggests that the 2026 family should, in fact, strive to be the 1956 family. Consider that against a recent statement, more empirical than simply sentimental, by President Dallin H. Oaks: “The national declines in marriage and childbearing are understandable for historic reasons, but Latter-day Saint values and practices should improve—not follow—those trends.” Under the back-in-the-day paradigm, President Oaks, who has also affirmed as positive the increasing availability of education and opportunity for women, seems to be welcoming an irresolvable tension.
Historically, the desirable trends of female freedom (more pronounced in 2026) and of large families (more prominent in 1956) have run inverse of each other. But President Oaks’ forward-facing philosophy asks Latter-day Saints to collect, improve on, and channel that which is positive about past and present into a prophetic future (wherein is the telos). If a society can manage a continuance of its good trends and an abatement of its bad ones, then it may move into an improved ‘third way’ which combines back-in-the-day virtue with our present, wonderful advancements. 2026 families should not become 1956 families, but rather 21st century families which are strong, cohesive, honorable, and resilient; “casting,” as Elder B.H. Roberts put it, “[old methods and doctrines] in new formulas” suited for the challenges of the present and future.
“The Past may be forgotten, but it never dies,” wrote T.W. Rolleston:
“[Its elements] stamp the character and genius of the people ...The present is the child of the past, and the future of the present… [and] in [the people], a vast historic stream of national life is passing from its distant and mysterious origin towards a future which is largely conditioned by all the past wanderings of that human stream, but which is also, in no small degree, what they, by their courage, their patriotism, their knowledge, and their understanding, choose to make it.”
Perhaps the best way to falsify history and ossify the progress of a nation’s history is to make our loyalty to that nation dependent on a particular idea of its history—both on how that history moves, and on a set of defining national characteristics. Such an approach stultifies the onward current of progress and dams the passage of ‘that human stream’ from the past into the future. I align with the Chestertonian view that the best object for patriotism is the nation itself, and not a particular notion of the nation. For example, America should not be loved because it is ‘Christian’ or ‘white’ or ‘militaristically primal’ or ‘the freest’ or ‘the greatest’ or ‘becoming the world’s beacon of democracy’; love of America should be its own telos—it should be unconditional and improvement-oriented. Any other approach is fundamentally vulnerable to back-in-the-day-ism. We need instead a future, hope-inspiring telos anchored in the advancement and improvement of present institutions. A nation that worships its yesterday forfeits its tomorrow.