Vaults full of research attest to how emerging-market optimism is more soundly based than rich-country pessimism. People around the world are living longer, healthier lives; fewer fall victim to war and famine; as education spreads, discrimination and prejudice are waning. Similarly, the summers were rarely as idyllic or the nation as glorious as sentiment would have it.
大量研究結果可以證實，新興市場的樂觀主義如何比富裕國家的悲觀主義基礎更堅實。全世界人民的壽命更長、生活方式更健康；越來越少的人成為戰爭和饑荒的受害者；隨著教育的普及，歧視和偏見正在逐漸減弱。同樣，以前的夏季很少像現在這樣有詩般田園風光，國家也沒有像現在這般有民族自豪感。
But to reject pessimism and nostalgia as simply inaccurate misses the point. They are powerful forces that are shaping politics. To harness them, you must first understand them.
但僅僅因不準確就完全抵制為悲觀主義和懷舊情緒，也是不得其道的。這兩樣是塑造政治格局的強力。欲要駕馭，必先了解。
Nostalgia serves optimists and pessimists alike as an anchor in a world being transformed. New technologies, including artificial intelligence, threaten to disrupt entire industries and to alter the relationship between the state and the citizen. After two centuries power is shifting from the West back to China. The planet is ageing faster than at any time in history. Its climate is changing. It is ever more racially and culturally mixed.
在正在轉變的世界，懷舊對于樂觀主義者和悲觀主義者來說，就像一個錨。包括人工智能在內的新技術，是顛覆各個行業、改變國家和公民關系的威脅。兩個世紀后，權力正從西方轉移至中國。地球正以史上最快速度老去。地球氣候正在變化。種族、文化都更加交融。
At such moments, people are drawn to nostalgia as a source of reassurance and self-esteem. Many Brexiteers hope that leaving the European Union means they will once again belong to a dynamic “global Britain”. Catalans evoke an idealised past in pursuit of a distinctive identity. Alarmed by corruption and recession, Brazilians have elected a president who harks back to the certainties of a military dictatorship they rid themselves of three decades ago. When Mr Trump boosts coal and steel, men who feared that they had been marginalised in dirty, dying industries suddenly feel as if they are worth something again.
在這種時刻，人們都被作為安慰和自尊來源的懷舊情緒所吸引。很多脫歐派希望脫離歐盟，這意味著他們希望再次迎來一個充滿活力的“全球化英國”。震驚于腐敗和衰退的巴西人選出了一位讓人回想起三十年前帶領他們擺脫軍事獨裁統治的總統。特朗普推動煤炭、鋼鐵業發展，擔心在骯臟、有死亡危險的行業被邊緣化的人們突然覺得自己又有價值了。
In the rich world, nostalgia also offers a way to rebel against someone else’s idea of progress—to “take back control”. The farright Alternative for Germany has its strongest support in the former East, where voters regret their loss of community and security. In France the gilets jaunes smash shop windows on the Champs-Elysées because they cannot make ends meet. They reject the trade-off offered by their president, Emmanuel Macron, between national prosperity and individual economic security.
在富裕國家，懷舊也提供了一種反抗他人對進步看法的途徑——用以“奪回控制權”。德國極右翼政黨另類選擇黨在前東德獲得了最強有力的支持，而前東德選民后悔失去社區和安全。在法國，“黃背心運動”者砸碎了香榭麗舍大街上的商店櫥窗，因為他們入不敷出。他們拒絕總統埃馬紐埃爾·馬克龍提出的國家繁榮和個人經濟安全之間的折中方案。
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