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Romanticism Strikes Back. Towards a new balance between progressive and conservative values

Wrecking ball

Nostalgia is on the rise, not only amongst the older generations, but also – and, curiously enough – amongst young people. LP records are back in vogue, as is the return of film rolls and analogue photography. But there is also a strong yearning for other tangible certainties of the past: clear-cut binary gender categories, traditional gender roles, the resurgence of traditional religion, or the popularity of authoritarian leaders. A recent study in Belgium shows that round twenty per cent of young Gen Z men believe that women should obey them. In an age of digital literacy, physical strength is once again seen as a sign of virility, and the ‘manosphere’ offers reassurance to many young men searching for direction. The ‘tradwives’ demonstrate that this is not exclusively a male issue. There is also a revival of traditional faith amongst young men and women, in both Islam and Christianity, characterised above all by a strict adherence to the tenets of the faith.

These developments should come as no surprise in an era of great uncertainty, confusion, rapid change, perpetual crisis and profound shifts in the balance of power and influence. Naturally, one then turns to the stability of days gone by.

But there is more to it than that. It is a sign of a structural imbalance. In particular, we have gone too far in embracing the values of the Enlightenment at the expense of those of Romanticism. Romanticism is now striking back, not in a moderate way, but in a radical and extreme form. This is logical, for what goes unheard will shout ever louder and lash out ever more wildly. This clash forms the dominant fault line in the current polarised climate.

Let me unpack and substantiate this statement. The values of the Enlightenment have brought our Western civilisation to where we are today: with the liberation of the individual, universal equality, rationality, science, progress, growth, innovation, globalisation, technology to solve all problems and the free market. For decades, we have shared in their benefits, in the form of increasing prosperity, development, opportunities and individual freedom for all. That this came at the expense of traditional values was perhaps a pity, but we gained so much in return.

However, ever since the Twin Towers, the dot-com bubble and all the crises that followed, optimism has rapidly gone downhill. Above all, it has led to uncertainty, fear and doubts about the sustainability and desirability of this entire model. We are now being harshly confronted with the downside of this: the depletion of the planet; climate change; large-scale migration flows; social fragmentation caused by the loss of shared goals, values, norms and social bonds; loneliness; and crises of meaning and identity. In this new context, many are realising that, above all, we have lost a great deal.

This pendulum swing to one extreme has created its own counter-movement. Not as a gentle correction, but as a radical rejection of everything the Enlightenment stands for. It is a long list: The more rationality and secularisation, the more religious fundamentalism. The more globalisation, the more nationalism and traditionalism. The more individual freedom, the stronger the feeling of isolation and loneliness, the greater the need for the security of neo-tribal bonds and the louder the call for authoritarian leaders. The faster the pace of progress, the more nostalgia. The greater the emphasis on equality, the stronger the rise of supremacism. The more we believe in a malleable and controllable world by using technology and social engineering, the greater the feeling of powerlessness and fatalism. The greater the pressure survival in a competitive world, the more tempting the escape into magical (virtual) worlds and narcotics.

How did things get this far? By failing to take these counter-movements seriously for decades, dismissing them as marginal rearguard actions and rejecting them – either derisively or moralistically – as backward and narrow-minded. Instead of recognising the underlying signs of unease and acting on them, we were too busy condemning and combating their extreme manifestations. By neglecting these signs and failing to give them the recognition they deserve, they have become the monopoly of populists, extreme voices and authoritarian leaders, who can exploit them shamelessly.

There is a need to strike a new balance between the progressive values of the Enlightenment and the more conservative values of Romanticism: preservation, tradition, community, identity, awe and respect, authority, feeling of duty, a higher purpose, spirituality. To achieve this, we must once again recognise the positive core that lies beneath the extreme and often negative manifestations. Beneath religious fundamentalism lies a legitimate need for meaning and purpose, spirituality and a sense of community. And beneath nationalism and the ‘our people first’ mentality lie genuine needs for identity and pride. Being able to see and recognise this positive underlying core, in itself, is the key to re-connect and restore the dialogue.

Instead of pitting these two perspectives against one another, we can also view them as two sides that balance, complement and reinforce one another: belief in human inginuity and technology AND awe for the complex ecological interdependence; individual freedom AND a close-knit community; equality AND celebrating the uniqueness in our indentity… A collective invitation to seek out new forms that make such a synthesis possible.

If we fail to find a contemporary synthesis between these two sets of values, there is a gigantic riskthat reactionary, dogmatic and authoritarian tendencies will easily gain the upper hand and catapult us back seventy years or more in time, before we can make the shift in the other direction again.

Ivo Brughmans is a philosopher and political scientist, and the author of several books on connecting opposites and navigating paradoxes.