Hauntology… we probably need to backtrack now after all this time to Derrida’s original (albeit political) idea and how it manifests in apolitical topics like art and culture (insofar as they are ever apolitical). So:

It is the idea that the present is haunted by the metaphorical “ghosts” of lost futures.

The concept asks people to consider how “spectres” of alternative futures influence current and historical discourse, and acknowledges that this “haunting” – or the study of the non-existent – has real effects.

The reverse side of the same coin might be concepts like “the good ol’ days” but for our purposes, let’s stick to the idea of idealized futures that never came to pass, leaving us… well… leaving us like this, battling to make sense of how things turned out, and arguing about what is and isn’t true, and what was never true to begin with.

Dueling mythologies of the past, never realized even in their own presents… and now we’re a bigger mess. I’m just trying to get through without being blown up, you know? I’m trying not to argue and quarrel and punch it out anymore. I’m too old for all that shit. My memory is still okay though, and I remember when people believed in what they at least thought would be good things. What’s left now? The music, I supposed.