Learn English – word for discontent with the present in favor of the past

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What would you call the belief that the present is a bad time and the past is the example of how it should be? Not that the past was a perfect or even necessarily good age, but that the present is much worse.

Suppose that you were given the chance to go back to any given era. Some people would choose to do so because that era is the lesser of two evils. These people might be described as ____s, ____ist or ____ish, and their social trend might be described as ____ism.

Amish people might be a good example, but too specific to be a satisfactory answer. ____s might not all have rules they're socially expected to follow or live in communities of the like-minded. They might not even agree on which point in time in the past was better. In fact, there is no official ____ism movement. This word simply describes people who constantly grumble about this particular topic.

I found a related question, but it asks for an individual, and the most upvoted answer, "nostalgic," doesn't quite fit the bill. I think of nostalgia as fond remembrance rather than discontent with the present. However, if there is some way to qualify the word nostalgia so that it could be understood to mean a cynical view of the present as compared to the past, that might be acceptable.

Best Answer

There have been numerous "traditionalist" movements with the word meaning different thing at different times, making the word less helpful because of it's association with specific movements.

ALSO> I don't think the word works today because it sounds too "normal" and any word that has less than a clearly pejorative ring to it won't be acceptable to those that don't want to normalize dangerous ways of thinking.

... that being said, what you refer to is close to:

traditionalist, traditionalism

meriam-webster

noun tra·di·tion·al·ism \trə-ˈdish-nə-ˌli-zəm, -ˈdi-shə-nəl-ˌi-\

1 : adherence to the doctrines or practices of a tradition

2 : the beliefs of those opposed to modernism, liberalism, or radicalism

Below is a discussion at Wikipedia of one period roughly categorized as Traditionalist Conservatism

Traditionalist Conservatism, also known as Traditional Conservatism, Traditionalism, Classical Conservatism and (in the United Kingdom and Canada) Toryism, is a political philosophy emphasizing the need for the principles of natural law and transcendent moral order, tradition, hierarchy and organic unity, agrarianism, classicism and high culture, and the intersecting spheres of loyalty.1 Some traditionalists have embraced the labels "reactionary" and "counterrevolutionary", defying the stigma that has attached to these terms since the Enlightenment.

Traditionalism developed throughout the 18th-century Europe (particularly in response to the disorder of the English Civil War and the radicalism of the French Revolution). In the middle of the 20th century it started to organize itself in earnest as an intellectual and political force. This more modern expression of traditionalist conservatism began among a group of U.S. university professors (labeled the "New Conservatives" by the popular press) who rejected the notions of individualism, liberalism, egalitarianism, modernity, and social progress, promoted cultural and educational renewal,2 and revived interest in the Church, the family, the state, local community, etc.

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