As we come to the close of another decade, I've been doing a lot of thinking about how we use this particular factor of time to define out social evolution. The decade is often used as a platform for nostalgia and reminiscing. Depending on your age, you might look back on a particular decade as a "golden age" or base your generational identity on the events and products of that time. We think of fashion and music and movies within a classification system which relies on this arbitrary 10 year span to create a sense of progression. Our identities as individuals and groups conform to these cycles and stamp us with signifiers which link us to the times of our youth, adulthood and old age. Overall, the use of this segmentation helps to give us a sense of forward momentum, the feeling like we are traveling along a continuum and heading towards some kind of accomplishment.
It seems to me that Western civilization began delimiting decades as cultural and generational eras beginning with the 20th century, or perhaps just before it. I suspect it is closely tied to the industrial revolution and remains linked to technological advancements to this day. Prior to that, things didn't change much except in terms of centuries where you might get an enlightened period or a dark age or ongoing wars between nations and ethnic groups, but for the most part, the way people lived didn't change too dramatically until machines and electricity came into the picture. Then you get an exponentially accelerating process of social upheaval as successive new technologies emerge. Within that, the decade became a convenient marker by which to retrospectively assess and assimilate the primary social shifts which occurred in the past.
From what I've observed, the means and methods of consuming media have been of particular importance in defining these shifts. Perhaps the advent of written texts and then the printing press would be the first major propellants of cultural evolution. Then we have the telephone, radio, recorded media (photography, film, audio and video tapes and discs), Television, computers, the internet and, finally, wireless broadband among the key communication revolutions. The advent of each of these and the process of them becoming ubiquitous within our civilization has carried with it a unique set of social adaptations which changed the way we relate to one another. Ideas could be shared with increasing speed, spreading the assimilation of new concepts and changing the way we perceive and comprehend reality. The very act of recording is, in effect, a sort of "time machine", allowing us to venture into the past and project ourselves into the future.
Economic circumstances were also a key factor, particularly in the first half of the 20th century with the "roaring twenties" defining an era of abundance and economic boom, while the "dirty thirties" was a decade of financial ruin with the social upheaval which resulted ultimately culminating in a decade marked by a world war and the prospect of literal planetary extermination coming within the grasp of our species for the first time. But in spite of the looming specter of nuclear annihilation, the 1950s dawned as a decade of prosperity and plenty. Post war, birth rates soured, income increased and the new technologies were making themselves known as the cultural concepts of modernism & futurism became embedded into the psyche of the mainstream. Technological advancements could be experienced directly as new machines and appliances entered the homes of large numbers of people in a mostly egalitarian way.
Popular culture became critical as a social glue in the mid-century decades. TV brought entertainment into every home and youth culture became an economic factor as manufacturers and service industries realized that teens and preteens had access to wealth and resources never before available to so many. The "middle class" came into its own in the West. Things like rock and roll music could motivate millions of young people to purchase all sorts of products from clothes to cars to cans of Coke. The sales pitch became an art form and began to develop a sophistication capable of manipulating susceptible minds. Propaganda was turned towards selling goods instead of pushing ideology. Capitalism became the ideology and its success was measured in profit margins.
The 1960s ushered in the "space age" as the move to put people among the stars took hold and drove the science of the day, but other sorts of travel were also in the cards thanks to the advent of psychedelic drugs, a technology which came into prominence at the beginning of the decade as clandestine experiments by the military and government leaked into the streets. Thanks to the subversive efforts of certain intellectuals in the universities, these substances became widely available to the youth of the day, with the result being a realization that they had a voice and could take to the streets to demand change, as opposed to being no more than pawns in the capitalistic cat and mouse games of product peddling.
This was all expertly crushed down in the 1970s when the youth were diverted away from activism as the "me decade" offered up self-indulgent fashion trends like disco and punk to provide a sense of self expression while simultaneously feeding the cash registers of the corporations creating all the clothes and music being consumed. But this only worked to a certain extent as some valuable lessons were learned in the previous decade and actual social change did manage to start to creep into the cultural fabric. Race relations, gender politics and sexual orientation all found their feet during this decade and began the process of fighting for rights and recognition which had been denied up to this point. The world also began to recognize the environmental toll being exacted on the planet as pollution, in its various forms, started to show that it wasn't just nuclear destruction which offered an existential threat to humanity. Our day to day abuses of our natural resources could also upset the balance enough to trigger potentially catastrophic consequences.
The 1980s saw the advent of the "computer world" as the first personal computers began to enter the home, though it wouldn't be until the next decade that these would truly make their mark. However, culturally, the electronics boom drove society into it's first dalliances with cell phones and satellite TV opened up the possibilities of specialized programming and niche markets. Above all, the capitalist money machine kicked into high gear as "greed is good" became the mantra of the mainstream. Wealth and decadence were the hallmarks of this neon day-glo, big hair, broad shouldered decade. It seemed as though money was all you needed to buy your happiness and your social standing.
This culture of prosperity and technology carried over into the 1990s as the personal computer truly found its home on the desktops of middle class homes throughout the west. Digital became the watchword as CDs and DVDs brought crystal clear, pixel perfect reproductions of content to consumers. The skeleton of the internet established itself during this time and the potential of unlimited connectivity loomed. Cell phones transformed from awkward bricks into something that more closely resembled the fantasy sci-fi communicators of Star Trek, small and palm sized, easy to pocket, making communication possible virtually anywhere at any time.
The new millennium dawned amid paranoia about "Y2K" disasters as people began to realized how much they'd become dependent on technology and its computing power. The prospect of a simple miscalculation sending global infrastructures and economies into chaos drove crisis culture into realms of conspiracies. The build-out of the World Wide Web broke business models for media distribution and monetization as file sharing and rampant pirating of content meant that the container was no longer king in the world of data distribution. Ones and zeros could be transmitted effortlessly from any one location to another, so artifacts like CDs and their physical counterparts became irrelevant and lost their value.
Cable TV exploded in the 2000s and brought with it a host of product, both good and bad. Sophisticated dramas on HBO were balanced against trashy reality TV on other specialty channels. Being famous became an end in itself as
Warhol's "15 minutes" prediction turned into nightmarish reality. Economically, the house of cards was collapsing as born out by the 2008 crisis when banks and other financial institutions worked their way into disaster through speculation, unsustainable lending and sheer fraud on a scale never before imagined. Politically, the uncoupling of reality from expediency set the stage for a kind of delusional governance which would fully bare fruit in the decade to come.
This brings us to the 2010s as we close out this most recent decade and look forward to the 2020s. Looking forward is something I say with a bit of hesitancy as we sit now on the precipice of some disturbing realities. With hindsight being what it is, looking back on this last decade reveals some rather unsettling chickens coming home to roost. That sense of perpetual progression seems to be hitting the brakes now as the true cost of our follies begins to be calculated and the sums start hitting into zones of danger which had originally been projected for times much further into the future than our present.
I think if there's anything that defines the past ten years, it has to be the proliferation of social media in our culture. Though the technology to support it first came into being in 2007, the effect of it has truly been felt since the beginning of this decade as platforms like Facebook and Twitter have taken root and created this environment where facts have become optional. People are now free to create their own reality based on any old bias or prejudice they wish to indulge. Things are true because people want them to be true. "Fake" is a meaningless term now because everything is fake. One media source is just as good as another. It's only a matter of personal preference.
Environmentally, the alarm bells have been going off throughout the decade as severe weather anomalies and climate change become more and more difficult to dismiss. People looking back on this decade, if there are any to do so in the future, may likely pinpoint it as the tipping point for climate collapse and irreversible damage to our ability to sustain life. There is every chance we have already gone too far in terms of damaging ecological systems for us to effect repairs or stop the rest of the dominoes from falling.
Politically, we're living through something that would have only been imagined in a Batman movie plot in previous decades. Now, blatant criminals have stolen control of governments away from the electorate and prop themselves up with deluded masses of ignorant lackeys who follow because they've been bred to see selfishness and cruelty as virtues to be celebrated. People protected by their social media bubbles of self deceit rally around a buffoon like Trump and cheer as he spits insults and abuse, thinking this is a display of authority when, in fact, it's nothing more than a perversion of power. There is no level of debasement he is capable of which would dissuade them from their support.
Socially, this decade has seen the complete abandonment of the concept of a "middle class" as a small percentage of the mega-wealthy horde resources beyond any practical need and deny basic sustenance to the rest of the planet by preventing wages from growing with productivity and lobbying to repeal fundamental social gains made by unionization and labor movements in previous decades. They've convinced themselves that their money will buy them protection from the social collapse they're actively engaged in promoting as they undermine every social institution which used to help advance civilization. Profit motives have corrupted the courts, healthcare, education, policing, the military and spirituality. There isn't a single sanctuary remaining where the obsession with profit at any costs hasn't desecrated the concept of empathy, community and caring. We're all merely swirling around the toilet for the final flush, grasping at any piece of shit we can get our hands on before we get sucked down the drain, once and for all.
Where generations have previously followed the procession of advancement, always with a sense of optimism of working towards a better future, we are now at a precipice where more and more people are convinced there's no turning back and that there's no hope for salvation. We can't pretend anymore that these are just tough times, struggles we've gone through before and that we'll work our way through. That delusion has lost its usefulness as a salve to ease the pain of the wounds that keep being inflicted upon us. We're worn raw from the abuse and know there's no plan to relent or show mercy. The master is on the whip and any pretense at accommodation has been abandoned as an economic burden, too costly to justify. This last decade has sucked the wind from our sails, particularly the latter half of it. When blatant criminals can hold power in what is called "the land of the free", then the world has gone mad, even if that nation has always been something of a fraud in terms of being a proponent of "truth and justice".
My own personal journey through this decade as been one of disconnection and loss, right from its onset. Where the 1990s & 2000s saw me find footing in the technology sector, establishing a 16 year long successful career in software development, I started off 2010 by being unceremoniously ejected from that position and have not been able to secure any stable employment since. As I come up to my 10th anniversary of unemployment, I find myself in a kind of netherworld limbo, the "50 plus dead zone", where I'm too old to be considered for any regular employment (50 being the arbitrary cutoff currently in vogue), but not old enough to retire and collect a pension. In fact, the same people who won't hire people over 50 are also now pushing for holding off retirement until after 70, though they don't seem to see any issue with that 20 year purgatory they're creating in the process. Though I subsist in a state of disenfranchisement from the main economic engine, I'm still somehow allowed to exist in this position where I have a roof over my head and food on my table, ostensibly because I must still serve some meager economic purpose. The frightening thing is that I'm actually one of the lucky ones. By some anomaly of mathematics, I'm still considered in the upper percentile of affluence on this planet. Go figure.
Now, we're on the threshold of the 2020's. It's a nice looking number, to be sure, but what of the humans which will be defining this coming decade? Are they going to double down on disaster or turnabout into a rebound? Personally, my money's on the former as all signs point to a continuation of the madness which has stamped this past decade with its obscenities and inexcusable delusions. I suspect humanity needs a lesson in humility and survival before the idiots start to consider that you can't defy nature and reality indefinitely. Eventually the check is gonna come due and we're going to have to pay up for our hubris and wanton disregard for the limitations of our existence. The big question is going to be whether it's too late to right the wrongs and chance course. If there are historians to look back on what we did this past decade, let's hope we at least serve as an object lesson in mismanagement rather than an epitaph for the planet.
