Retrospective Ideas and representing nostalgia in contemporary Iran

Nostalgia or "past regret" is a central concept in contemporary identity and political discourse. Understanding nostalgia and its dimensions and angles in psychological, cultural, and social theories reflects the state of despair and fundamental alienation and temporal-spatial displacement, the emergence of a kind of deprivation and longing for the past, and the focus on the past. Symbolizing and ritualizing the legacy of the past, revealing the past and distant and pure worlds and free from conflict, present and future confiscation in favor of the past, restoration of lost past, idealization of the past, golden exploration of the nation's past and Futurism means a return to the realities of the realm of identity-political nostalgia. The necessity of discussing nostalgia is that nostalgic thinking has taken root among some of us Iranians as a mechanism of psychological defense to expel unpleasant emotional themes and subconsciously rooted for relief, conflict, and anxiety. The focus of this article is to analyze the nostalgic thought in contemporary Iran from a political perspective. Thus, the discussion of why the past is sheltered and nostalgic ideas are discussed in an attempt to restore the lost past. The main question is what is the nature and functions of nostalgia and how has it been reproduced in contemporary Iran? The hypothesis of the article is that nostalgia, above all, "involves negation" and "revolution against existing patterns and procedures", by resorting to the past by avoiding existing problems and through Empathize with its legacy.