The internationally most successful film of the decade was "Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King." Harry Potter was the most successful literary character. Both are children's stories that are also enjoyed by adults. We are withdrawing into an infantile world, in which attractive heroes conquer evil. The modern fairy tale is our response to a harsh world.
Harry Potter, yes. But he thinks that The Lord of the Rings is a children's tale?? Sorry, but no. Fairy tales started as stories for grownups, and were made into children's stories when grownups stopped believing in them. However Tolkien was aware that the structure of the fairy tale lends itself to darker themes that aren't for children, and the LotR is a deliberate exploration of that dynamic.
Judging by my quick skim of the rest, he recited a lot of things I already knew without any real attempt at analysis, then called it perspective.
>In a few days, the first decade of the 21st century and of the third millennium will come to an end.
Sigh. Given that our calendar started with year one and not year zero, the first decade of the 21st century started in 2001 and will end at the close of 2010.
I believe counting out decades is a secular concept oriented towards the decimal numbers involved, rather than a religious concept founded in a old mistaken date for the birth of an historical Jesus.
In other words, the precise starting point of the calendar doesn't mean much to normal people who use the term "decade".
Yes, in just the same way that I think people who start counting from -1 on a measuring tape or from 37 on a speedometer are doing it wrong. Just because a convention is entirely arbitrary doesn't prevent people from being wrong about it.
Economic misery and turmoil through war are not new to the 21st century, and the fact that we did not achieve unending prosperity through an Internet-based economy or eternal peace through the end of the cold war should come as a surprise to none but the most naive of observers of human nature.
This decade was no more "lost" than was the generation that followed the "war to end all wars." Both labels arise from those who placed unbounded hopes in human potential only to discover that the drivers in this world can often be as malevolent as they can be good.
Will the information age change any of this, as the authors imply? There is much good that indeed comes from having the interconnectedness of instant worldwide communication and of social networks and the like. But, if someone is going to argue that this will alter centuries of human experience that has been bedeviled by the bad as well as the good, he will have to come up with something far more convincing than the headline-level analysis and naive hope in new political structures that the authors seem to espouse as the basis for our future hope.
I found the article interesting if only for the comparison of information connectivity to electrical connectivity. Just as some people feel that electricity is a basic necessity, people also feel the same about communication. A mere 30 years ago, people could not have imagined such a statement.
Over the last decade, the Western political system has lost its claim to global preeminence; it is no longer certain whether democracy will eventually prevail everywhere. In fact, it is not even certain that it will last forever in Western countries.
It's not hard to come up with sad but unlikely eventualities. The question is whether any of this article's hypothesis are true. This question is far from settled. For example, the whole retreat to an infantile world bit. The examples are cherry-picked. In television, the most acclaimed and talked about shows have characters far more ambiguous than decades past. Even in movies, the idea of inferring a trend from but two datapoints that are almost by definition outliers (I.e. the record-setters) is sensational but unsound.
I've only read some of the article. But of what I did read 100% was bullshit of similar provenance. I don't trust it.
For example, the whole retreat to an infantile world bit. The examples are cherry-picked. In television, the most acclaimed and talked about shows have characters far more ambiguous than decades past.
We're exiting postmodernism in favor of a world less nihilistic and relativistic, which makes heroism attractive, even when the hero is morally questionable (e.g. Jack Bauer, Dr. House).
On the other hand, casual sex is as common as ever, so nihilism and self-loathing haven't gone away entirely.
By "questionable" I mean "can be questioned". I'm not using the euphemistic definition, whereby "questionable" means the question is already answered.
Dr. House behaves in a way that would generally be considered ethical, but that is at odds with medical protocol (because his cases are always exceptional and odd). Most people wouldn't call this wrong, but it is "questionable", when the word is taken at face value.
Huh? Casual sex can be an expression of nihilism and self-loathing, but aren't necessarily.
In theory, you're right. In practice, "hookup culture" is founded on the humiliation of the woman, which makes it an expression of loathing for humanity.
> In practice, "hookup culture" is founded on the humiliation of the woman, which makes it an expression of loathing for humanity.
Someone else pointed out that you're wrong about hookups, so I'll point out that casual sex is a broader term than hookups and humiliation isn't necessarily part of it either.
My kinky friends would point our that humiliation need not have anything to do with self-loathing, let along loathing for humanity.
> On the other hand, casual sex is as common as ever
Citation needed. Other than lots of pictures of nekkid people on the internet, most studies show sexual activity (amongst teens and college students anyway) to be going down. It's been argued that availability of porn is reducing the amount of casual sex.
Really? I hope you're right. It's hard as hell for a guy to find a marriageable woman in New York right now. I'd love to see this improve in the next 10 years.
If you're implying that casual sex is a result of nihilism and self-loathing I simply don't get that. If anything, I see casual sex as an exploration of self and another form of communication and understanding.
That would only necessarily be bad if you believe democracy is an end in and of itself, or the theoretical pinnacle of governmental systems for freedom or whatever else your end goal is.
I like your positivity, maybe something better than democracy will emerge. As Churchill said "Democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried"
I felt sad because the article implied that the decline of democracy might imply the rise of totalitarian rule.
Keep in mind that the article culminated with two key arguments, first that "the Western way of life is coming under pressure from two sides at once, Islam and climate change" and second that "the West can still be strong, provided it remains true to itself, its concept of humanity, which is based on Christian ideas, and democracy".
That the author seems to view the present through the lens of a struggle between Islam and Christianity, it is somewhat unsurprising that he should view the future through the similarly black-and-white lens of Western democracy v. totalitarianism.
I think corporatism (the same corporatism as was the precursor to Italian fascism) is the most likely threat.
Most Americans want affordable, high-quality healthcare, but they're unlikely to get it in this political environment, since most of our politicians (e.g. Joe Liebermann) are owned by insurance companies. This, and the continuation of an unpopular war, are signs that our democracy is starting to falter.
Whether the 2000s feel like a lost decade depends a lot on where you lived. I don't think they were particularly bad for Canada - we had a strong economy and currency, decent government, and Quebec separatism is almost a non-issue now. We shared in the US recessions, but neither has been anywhere near as severe in Canada. We enjoyed the commodities bubble without suffering from a housing bust. All told, I don't have many complaints.
Similarly, I doubt it would be easy to find many eastern Europeans, Indians, or Asians that felt the 2000s were worse than the 1990s.
"Climate change" isn't putting any pressure on civilization, at least not yet. Only the politicians and bureaucrats who want to use it to increase their power are putting pressure on civilization. (And researchers, sucking up to the gov't teat, who want to increase their grants).
The internationally most successful film of the decade was "Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King." Harry Potter was the most successful literary character. Both are children's stories that are also enjoyed by adults. We are withdrawing into an infantile world, in which attractive heroes conquer evil. The modern fairy tale is our response to a harsh world.
Harry Potter, yes. But he thinks that The Lord of the Rings is a children's tale?? Sorry, but no. Fairy tales started as stories for grownups, and were made into children's stories when grownups stopped believing in them. However Tolkien was aware that the structure of the fairy tale lends itself to darker themes that aren't for children, and the LotR is a deliberate exploration of that dynamic.
Judging by my quick skim of the rest, he recited a lot of things I already knew without any real attempt at analysis, then called it perspective.