Here's the second big idea I need to get out there on a Sunday
afternoon. What's the next big social zeitgeist jump and why isn't it
here yet?
Let's take some fairly arbitrary dates. We can argue about exactly when
they happened and if they were significant but bear with me.
1959
Youth Culture in full swing.
1968
Turn On, Tune In, Throw the old game away and start a new one.
1976
Smash it up, Punk.
1982
New Conservativism. Me. Me. Me.
1989
Berlin Wall. Dance. The New Hedonism.
1995
Connect everything with the Internet
??
Then it gets very difficult for me to see what, when, why and how. There
was a lot of pre- and post-millenial feeling, a lot of working out the
details. There were things like 9/11, Iraq-Afghanistan, the New
Conservativism part II, Ubiquitous Social Media. What I don't feel is
that there's a zeitgeist jump in any way comparable to the previous
dates. Perhaps, right at the end of that period, The Arab Spring will be
seen as a defining moment in history.
Which brings us to:-
2012
Revolution Now. I think we're long overdue for a social, political,
global revolution in all aspects of life. Not just arts and music but in
the way we think about ourselves and the way we live. This time around
we're so connected that it will happen really, really fast. Or ("or" he
said!), the revolution will itself be so fragmented that we won't see it
as a zeitgeist change at all. It'll be the fragmentation that will be
revolutionary, not a mass change in thinking.
Any ideas on what, why, how and when?46-71 Trinity Rd, Ware, Hertfordshire SG12 7
I mean proper, augmented reality so that my glasses/contact lenses/direct neural interface overlays what I am seeing with useful information. Surely the glasses version is only years off...I'd be prepared to allow a little longer for the direct neural integration.
I don't wear glasses and have always had 20:20 vision but (at nearly 40) it is only a matter of time until that changes. I'm hoping by the time I do need them they will have facial recognition to overlay people's names, when I last met them, train timetables, navigation and traffic, emails, news feeds...
So, this might be a longer term prediction, and it might be exacerbated by the revolution meme, but I can see a time when people grow up in whichever environment they're raised in, then, when they are able to make a choice, they simply move to the place that they feel fits them. (I'm not picturing emo-world, but I wouldn't rule it out).
Interesting question. 1959, no, just background noise. 1968, definitely yes. I'm sure everyone from Warhol to the Situationist International knew they were having a revolution. 1976. Punk happened in the middle of the mass media and Mclaren and others were deliberately manipulating the media message. 1982, no. It's only in history that we string together riots, monetarism, Thatcher/Reagan. 1989. The break up of the Soviet Union was a BIG THING. The new hedonism happened largely below the radar. 1995. You really had to be paying attention to spot how important the Web was going to be.
So on to the next one. We've talked about fragmentation before and also the shortness of attention spans. A huge amount happened between 1995 and 2010 but each thing only stayed in the news cycle for 48 hours and it was a very large number of localised events. Instead of the one big mass media Tsunami washing over us, it's a swarm of locusts sweeping through. You see a few individual locusts changing things and then look up one day and the whole crop has gone and the landscape has changed forever.
And then on this day, Tripoli falls. Maybe we'll look back on 2011 and see the moment when the Arab world switched to self-governance. If we can just hold our attention in one place for long enough.
So if you look at zeitgeist moments of the past, they happened almost out of the blue, because not many people had access to the clues that they were about to happen, even when they did come out in the somewhat restricted level of availability through conventional media. That can't happen any more with the proliferation of sources and availability.
Additionally, the media controls much of the 'respected' analysis of information, and also the volume of information about certain topics. If they want to bury news they can, and if they want to hype it they can. That doesn't stop the proliferation of sources, but it raises or lowers the profile.
"There's something happening here. But what it is ain't exactly clear". That was written about the late 60s. It seems pretty undeniable that there was a huge sea change in thinking and attitudes across a wide range of social, cultural and political aspects of western society in the late 60s. That happened despite a much as because of the media coverage.
Classic examples of this are the behaviour of the British (and other European) invaders to the native Americans. The truth is there, and the behaviour was largely excerable. However, it's not being taught clearly in US (or other nations) schools, and it's not being acted on - in fact the 'crimes against humanity' (as much of the behaviour could/should be deemed) are being exacerbated by current US government policy. That's just one example but it's a stark one. Another similar one is the treatment of Australian Aborigines, and the Murdoch regimes media campaign against them. I know they didn't happen in the latter part of the 20th Century but the repercusions continue into this century.