Sit your place in heaven at once.
When does a decade begin?
No, this is not the old millennium argument. What I want to know is when the decade starts culturally -- when, in the future, we look back and agree on what event really made the new decade start to feel new. We can agree, for example, that the Thirties as we understand them began with the Great Depression, kicked off by the stock market crash of '29. (Economists disagree with each other on that, but this is about cultural memory and "common knowledge," not economics.)
Therefore, when we think of "the Thirties." we usually think of the period beginning October 29, 1929 -- the infamous "Black Tuesday" -- and ending on December 7, 1941, the day the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor.
Unfortunately, these divides are almost always signaled by a shocking and sometimes violent event. It says something about the human condition, at least in a go-getter democracy like America, when a big, hard, sudden, utterly unforeseen mass-consciousness slap in the face happens every ten years like clockwork. Culturally or otherwise, the event in question never seems to be something most of us, including those in charge, ever see coming. (Conspiracy theorists, of course, maintain that this is all a trick; the magicians are only pretending to be shocked.)
With that in mind, I ask you... which events will cultural history, our collective consciousness, set in stone as the ones that changed the decades since then? Remember, we're looking for real game changers, not just an odometer ticking over. Not just big events, but
events that introduce a new era of... whatever.
And also remember: the beginning of one decade and what it represents, also means the death of the previous decade and what it represents.
Poll When did it begin?
No, this is not the old millennium argument. What I want to know is when the decade starts culturally -- when, in the future, we look back and agree on what event really made the new decade start to feel new. We can agree, for example, that the Thirties as we understand them began with the Great Depression, kicked off by the stock market crash of '29. (Economists disagree with each other on that, but this is about cultural memory and "common knowledge," not economics.)
Therefore, when we think of "the Thirties." we usually think of the period beginning October 29, 1929 -- the infamous "Black Tuesday" -- and ending on December 7, 1941, the day the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor.
Unfortunately, these divides are almost always signaled by a shocking and sometimes violent event. It says something about the human condition, at least in a go-getter democracy like America, when a big, hard, sudden, utterly unforeseen mass-consciousness slap in the face happens every ten years like clockwork. Culturally or otherwise, the event in question never seems to be something most of us, including those in charge, ever see coming. (Conspiracy theorists, of course, maintain that this is all a trick; the magicians are only pretending to be shocked.)
With that in mind, I ask you... which events will cultural history, our collective consciousness, set in stone as the ones that changed the decades since then? Remember, we're looking for real game changers, not just an odometer ticking over. Not just big events, but
events that introduce a new era of... whatever.
And also remember: the beginning of one decade and what it represents, also means the death of the previous decade and what it represents.
Poll When did it begin?