The phrase "a backwards look" is correct and usable in written English.
It can be used when referring to a reflection on past events or experiences.
Example: "In her speech, she took a backwards look at the challenges the organization faced over the years."
Alternatives: "a retrospective view" or "a look back".
It's a backwards looking complaint that wrongly assumes new technology must adapt to a static world instead of a dynamic world adjusting to the technology.
The EU regularly carries out assessments of existing regulatory frameworks to make sure they are fit for purpose.4 This is in essence a backwards looking assessment to answer the question if the regulatory framework worked in the recent past.
Washington spends way too much time re-litigating the past — witness how much time has been devoted to debating old trade deals, the 2010 Affordable Care Act or the 1980s Reagan tax cuts — and has increasingly budgeted and legislated in a backwards looking way.
The monarch takes "a backwards looking, patriarchal, strife-ridden country" and advances it greatly.
Rather, the biggest problem facing the Republican Party is that they are a backwards looking party in a country that has always been oriented toward the future.
ICE Energy has a harder time engaging a large investor owned utility (IOU) servicing a territory that has not realistically priced energy, which is really too bad when we realize that the entire South East uses a great deal of air conditioning, with a backwards looking view on what a price for energy should be (no real carrots or sticks in quite a few states below the Mason Dixon line).
Yes, in the sense that a benchmark is a level of performance to be achieved, but no, since an outcome can't be measured until it is achieved, meaning that it is a backwards-looking, rather than forwards-looking, measure.
"Stephen Carter is keen on a big-picture solution, not a backwards-looking, small, temporary, sticking plaster," said Johnson.
In this context, you could argue that Les Demoiselles d'Avignon is in fact a backwards-looking, unoriginal work of art, a recycling of the 19th century's biggest cliches - "loose women" cavorting in exotic interiors.
I see it as a backwards-looking quick fix that will do far more long-term harm than short-term good.
