I was thinking about our times...
In a perhaps biased and not wholly factual retrospect, to me the 80s was the beginning of an era of decay. It was an era in which hope ended and visions of bright futures diminish. Indeed, during the 80s one can notice that Sci Fi began to reflect a "dark" dystopic future. The elites however, did not find this to be much of a problem. Actually, it's hard to gauge what they thought about the future. Perhaps the elites were still sober pragmatics, the 80s being an era in which the U.S. elites were able to stop almost everything (in the 3rd world, specifically Latin-America) that ran agains their interests abroad. They also probably gotten more intelligent in politics, after all Reagen was just "window-dressing"/puppet for the christian right while the real power players behind the scenes worked to pull back working class gains and to stop increasing secularism. Although in other countries things played out different, but the effects were the same: social programs were attacked and the tide of reformism has changed from an "offensive" attitude to a defeatist "defensive" position (in most cases). Not that it matters, becuase they'll barely be able to defend them anyway. I've read in a few places about how certain "profits margins" are dropping or something of that sort in relation to expenditures, etc; stuff that was in a sense detailed in Das Kapital.
Popular Culture in the 80s might as well been reflecting this attitude, either directly or indirectly.
In the 90s things began to change. With the collapse of the Soviet Union (the failure of beaurocratic state capitalism) the bourgeoise of the first world, especially in the Anglo countries (U.S. and UK), began to turn from pragmatics to a more senile state of mind, due to hubris I guess that came form the fall of the USSR. Indeed, the U.S./NATO reaction towards Russia, beginning to turn the ex-Soviet countries into NATO allies, after the fall was an almost arrogant reaction on their part. After all, it was during that time that one wrote a book that "free trade capitalism" was the end of history and would "last forever."
Whoever wrote that must have misunderstood Marx in the first place, which is where this "end of history" stuff comes from. In a sense, it's impossible for capitalism to be stable due to the potentiality of class conflict. As long as there's a potential for class conflcit to escalate, then capitalism will always face the danger of revolution.
90s Sci-Fi reflected a different view then that of the 80s and that of the recent past (like the 50s, etc). The 90s showed things being "the same as now" yet with more high-tech goodies. It provide a visual image to what Fukayama (the man who wrote the book about free-trade capitalism being the end of history) theorized. The 80s showed a social decline of the 1st world/2nd world (and one would assume that the rest of the 3rd would would just "stagnant"/never develop). The 50s talked about a "bright future" and an end of social problems and world government. The 90s showed things "remaining the same" in the social sense.
Keeping this in mind, I recently played a somewhat celebrated video game saga called "The Longest Journey" in which there's a future world (called Stark) and another world that is based on the past (and magic) called Arcadia.
The 1st game coincided with the 80s mentality of the future; but the 2nd game ("Dreamfall") protrayed an interesting image of the future that might reflect a new vision being developed from the beginning of the millenium onwards.
In the 2nd game you play a character who lives in a future Casablanca, Morrocco. Casablanca of the future looks very modern, bright, and progressing. However, the character travles to other places and the social conditions change. In New Jersey (or somewhere in the U.S.) the city looks like a downtrodden slum (even worst then the 1st game). An area in Tokyo however looks like "little social change."
This vision must have been created due to the 21st century phenomenon called China and India. These 3rd world nations ara rapidly developing and have city-scapes that are always changing and progressing. Although behind the facade of development there's still misery it does demonstrate that 3rd world nations are still able to develop and possibly turn into a 1st world nation. The fictional Morrocco in the game posits a world that 3rd world nations can develop and even reach a point where they have much better standards then declining 1st world nations.
Incidentally, this stuff could have been theorized/predicted in the 80s. Japan is an example of a "3rd world" (or more 2nd world, perhaps why it wasn't theorized early on) nation which industry went a similar process that China's industry is undergoing now. Japanese firms were subcontracted to make consumer goods for American firms, which is what Chinese firms do now. Over time, these firms grew and were later able to compete with the American firms they used to be subserviant to. It came to a point where the Americans thought exagerratedly that the "Japanese were going to own everything" in the U.S. (Perhaps started when Sony bought Columbia Pictures). The Japanese however were not going to become a "world power" due to historic restrictions on their armies/foreign policy and in the end their "growth bubble" burst and the Japanese economic "golden era" ended and now they are like the rest of the 1st world nations.
What pop culture is missing, which in a sense has to do with the current times, is that perhaps there can be a possibility for a revolution (and "revitalization") in the old "1st world."
Popular Culture in the 80s might as well been reflecting this attitude, either directly or indirectly.
In the 90s things began to change. With the collapse of the Soviet Union (the failure of beaurocratic state capitalism) the bourgeoise of the first world, especially in the Anglo countries (U.S. and UK), began to turn from pragmatics to a more senile state of mind, due to hubris I guess that came form the fall of the USSR. Indeed, the U.S./NATO reaction towards Russia, beginning to turn the ex-Soviet countries into NATO allies, after the fall was an almost arrogant reaction on their part. After all, it was during that time that one wrote a book that "free trade capitalism" was the end of history and would "last forever."
Whoever wrote that must have misunderstood Marx in the first place, which is where this "end of history" stuff comes from. In a sense, it's impossible for capitalism to be stable due to the potentiality of class conflict. As long as there's a potential for class conflcit to escalate, then capitalism will always face the danger of revolution.
90s Sci-Fi reflected a different view then that of the 80s and that of the recent past (like the 50s, etc). The 90s showed things being "the same as now" yet with more high-tech goodies. It provide a visual image to what Fukayama (the man who wrote the book about free-trade capitalism being the end of history) theorized. The 80s showed a social decline of the 1st world/2nd world (and one would assume that the rest of the 3rd would would just "stagnant"/never develop). The 50s talked about a "bright future" and an end of social problems and world government. The 90s showed things "remaining the same" in the social sense.
Keeping this in mind, I recently played a somewhat celebrated video game saga called "The Longest Journey" in which there's a future world (called Stark) and another world that is based on the past (and magic) called Arcadia.
The 1st game coincided with the 80s mentality of the future; but the 2nd game ("Dreamfall") protrayed an interesting image of the future that might reflect a new vision being developed from the beginning of the millenium onwards.
In the 2nd game you play a character who lives in a future Casablanca, Morrocco. Casablanca of the future looks very modern, bright, and progressing. However, the character travles to other places and the social conditions change. In New Jersey (or somewhere in the U.S.) the city looks like a downtrodden slum (even worst then the 1st game). An area in Tokyo however looks like "little social change."
This vision must have been created due to the 21st century phenomenon called China and India. These 3rd world nations ara rapidly developing and have city-scapes that are always changing and progressing. Although behind the facade of development there's still misery it does demonstrate that 3rd world nations are still able to develop and possibly turn into a 1st world nation. The fictional Morrocco in the game posits a world that 3rd world nations can develop and even reach a point where they have much better standards then declining 1st world nations.
Incidentally, this stuff could have been theorized/predicted in the 80s. Japan is an example of a "3rd world" (or more 2nd world, perhaps why it wasn't theorized early on) nation which industry went a similar process that China's industry is undergoing now. Japanese firms were subcontracted to make consumer goods for American firms, which is what Chinese firms do now. Over time, these firms grew and were later able to compete with the American firms they used to be subserviant to. It came to a point where the Americans thought exagerratedly that the "Japanese were going to own everything" in the U.S. (Perhaps started when Sony bought Columbia Pictures). The Japanese however were not going to become a "world power" due to historic restrictions on their armies/foreign policy and in the end their "growth bubble" burst and the Japanese economic "golden era" ended and now they are like the rest of the 1st world nations.
What pop culture is missing, which in a sense has to do with the current times, is that perhaps there can be a possibility for a revolution (and "revitalization") in the old "1st world."