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POP PHILOSOPHY: Defining the generations
It can only be the most grandiose act of passive aggression that Obama waited until three days after the royal wedding to pull the trigger on the most wanted criminal in the history of the world. Britain, consider your thunder stolen.
POP PHILOSOPHY: Defining the generations
It can only be the most grandiose act of passive aggression that Obama waited until three days after the royal wedding to pull the trigger on the most wanted criminal in the history of the world. Britain, consider your thunder stolen.
It is interesting, though, to think how much more common these big events occur. They used to come pretty rarely: the final episode of Seinfeld, who's the next Oscar host, Captain Sullenberger landing a jet safely on the Hudson, the occasional environmental disaster, you know ... the usual.
But lately it seems like every man woman and child is talking about a major current event every couple of weeks: oil spills, Japan's radioactive earthquakes, the most devastating series of tornados in history, a royal wedding, Osama Bin Laden's death. To me, this means at least one of two things: (1) the world is getting smaller and our digital life makes it hard to be out of the loop, or (2) alarmingly important things are happening with more frequency.
It's probably a coincidentally timed combination of both, which sets up every news day to look like it's our last. But does the stuff we gab about at the water cooler define us? Only if you think the '60s were defined by Vietnam and Woodstock.
You might say, "That sounds about right...” But I would like to point out a distinction. Vietnam wasn't a famous war because it was essentially better or worse than any other war. It was a famous war due to the visible protests of the youth. Woodstock wasn't famous because some concert promoters put on a music fest. Woodstock was famous because hippies turned a clusterfuck into the most unrealistically peaceful and arrest-free million-youth-party of all time.
The '60s generation wasn’t defined by what the world did to THEM, it was defined by what THEY did to the world. And, as such, I should point out that they are the last generation to have a really strong identity. John Lennon’s death and Reagan calling on Mikhail Gorbachev to tear down the Berlin Wall didn’t define the '80s. It was defined by big hair and cocaine. A pretty pathetic distinction, for sure, and no offencse if the 80s are your digs. I'm just sayin...
That's why the aughts weren't defined by 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina — even though historians might disagree. It was defined by music downloading, social networking and flash-mobs. We were defined by the stuff we did. The culture of a generation is way more important to its identity than its news events, with the exception of those rare headlines that are so monumental that they actually change a culture — and here's hoping we don't get any of those any time soon. It would suck if we started a style blog ten years from now discussing what logos are hip to wear on your government-issue gas masks.
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