(no subject)

[the_fantastic_ms_fox]

Taking the financial crisis stupidity-consequence into view alongside Obama's presidenty, and the

Have we entered one of those transitional periods that separates one culture's  "decade" from the next? A point where one period in a place like say Anglo Northamerica is defined by its divergence from the prior? Where that "decade" actually begins? Like how much of what pop culture associates with "the sixties" has more to do with the period between 1964 and 1975 than it does with 1960-1969?

Will the 00's begin with the late 90's dotcom bust, Bush's presidency, the end of the Canadian Liberal Party monopoly, or the attack on the World Trade Center? And with the change in American leadership, Russian leadership, the global markets, and the Iraq war, will people's idea of "this is what the Northamerican 00's were like" end roundabout now?

Has the next decade already started?

Comments

On the topic of America

[mocks.livejournal.com]

I think so. I spend a lot of time thinking about this very question; something about reading On The Road at the same time as a well-written and surprisingly persuasive article on how it's a big deal that this is our first Gen-X president. I worry, of course, about stupid things like the economy and reasonable things like the environment and corporate hegemony and dysgenics and if anything is actually going to change. But what I always realize, in the end, is that it doesn't matter.

I don't want to think of myself as a child of the W years, but I am. I was a 17 years old when he was elected; for all the years I've been a politically active and aware adult, George Walker Bush has been President of the United States of America. On January 20th it will be Barack Hussein Obama.

It's not quite true that I don't care about the race thing, or the centrist/leftist thing. But I think Obama's most important, and most attractive characteristic, is that he is not George Walker Bush, nor a member of the 21st Century "League of Villains" Republican Party.

So it doesn't matter, frankly, if Obama makes huge intelligent strides towards, well, economic sense or a non-suicidal foreign policy. He can sit on his hands and blow bubbles for the next eight years, and still be a vast improvement. For the first time in my adult life, the head of state of the (probably still, albeit barely) most powerful nation in the world is not actively trying to ruin everything forever in every facet of life.

Does this mean that there will necessarily be a huge shift in how American politics work? I don't know, and but I think Nate Silver has the right idea: http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2008/11/was-2008-realigning-election-ask-me-in.html (and if you don't know Nate, well, you really really should), but definitely in the middle-term decade sense, I think we're pretty clearly into something new.

Re: On the topic of America

[hundun.livejournal.com]

My political coming of age happened in the vanilla era of a Liberal majority and Clinton.

I concur on your sentiments on Obama. My hope was "jsut don't make things worse, and, if you can, make an intelligent speech on race or fatherhood or something twice a year, and I'll be satisfied."

Re: On the topic of America

[mocks.livejournal.com]

I am interested by the deeper ramifications of this. How do our differing primal experiences informs differences between your generation and mine?

(Leaving aside, of course, that the difference between your formative years and mine are not as completely distinct that sentence implies.)

Are my people more cynical, yours apathetic? Has my generation radicalized left like Vietnam did the hippies? And has that same radicalization rendered us incapable of participating meaningfully in actual day-to-day democracy the way it did the fuckin' hippies?

This is one of the reasons I think the possibly unreasonable enthusiasm Obama generates could actually be positive; if young people can delude themselves into thinking the acceptably decent politicians might be on their side, they might actually bother to vote against the real monsters. Of course, if Obama squanders their enthusiasm (as LBJ and Humphrey did), it'll make things that much worse.