So What Was That Decade About, Anyway?
Did you ever notice how everybody lays claim to the sixties...even if they weren't old enough, or hip enough, to have done any real damage back then? The nineties were a lot like that, too. We all plugged in, fired up and instant messaged. (A descendant, perhaps, of "Turn on, tune in, drop out." ) A few of us even blogged - or watched others do it. People everywhere became connected and anything was possible. It was amazing! Then, admittedly, it got a little too crowded. Not everyone was guaranteed a good trip and some folks suffered actual bummers. (Just like at Woodstock.) Ah yesterday!
Lately I've been thinking about the non-glamorous preceding decades, though: the fifties and the eighties. When you see them in relation to the wild and revolutionary times that followed, they come into focus as intense, often painful bouts of gestation...not unlike pregnancy. The fifties, for example, combined a growing national prosperity with a cloud of paranoia left over from World War II and its atomic climax. The resulting atmosphere was largely one of restraint and conformity. And while sincere efforts were made in the eighties to get the party going again, a similar depressiveness won out as both the sexual revolution and Wall Street's bull streak came to an abrupt end.
The breakthrough developments that followed each of these rotations rendered the prior bleakness almost tolerable; and in retrospect, even necessary. To a certain degree, individuals and cultures are defined by what they rebel against, hide from or try to avoid. Maybe creativity itself goes through a hibernation period, notably characterized by bad haircuts and lame music. First the spread of Communism and Cold War. Then -- suddenly and seemingly out of nowhere -- the Beatles appear on Ed Sullivan! What was that? Later it was unemployment, inflation and the resulting Reganomics...which all felt like a super-long appointment with the orthodontist. But then -- Shazam! -- Al Gore (or whomever) dreams up the whole Interweb thingy and we're back in business. Alchemy or magic? You decide.
The economic boom of the nineties gave rise to the idealization of wealth and those who created it, much as Eastern gurus and Beat poets were idealized in the sixties. The companies that created the new prosperity became part of our everyday vocabulary and the pronouncements of successful business leaders became the popular wisdom of our culture. In another age, these icons might have been viewed as merely opportunistic; in the nineties, they were catapulted to the status of visionaries. On a personal level, many believed themselves to be just one interesting idea and two clicks away from financial Nirvana...another echo of the Messianic sixties.
So, back to the future. This rather shabby decade of ours ends next month --not last December -- as those of you who paid attention to when the millennium actually began will recall. Disappointing, devastating and numbingly awful as it may have been, I would urge you to remember the sixties and the nineties. Both decades were preceded by some pretty crappy periods, as well; disturbing with regard to the frequency and intensity of the labor pains they produced. Both decades ultimately gave birth to the most extraordinary thought and innovation we've ever seen. Both became synonymous with the overwhelming conviction that fundamental, global change was imminent...and it was, in spades. As Marcus Aurelius said, "It loved to happen."
These last ten years? Probably just another miserable incubation stage. Who knows what's in the oven? Not me. But I'll bet it's something really tasty.
Image by Jmabel or CC-BY-SA-3.0, via Wikimedia Commons