a new world order

The 50s were a period of conformity, and a celebration of all things America. After two devastating wars, we deserved the opportunity to live our American dreams. But in the 60s and 70s, as we hit an oil crisis and another involvement in a foreign war, our American idealism shrank, and the counterculture movement of the hippies took precedence. The dawning of the Age of Aquarius meant a critical rethinking of our values. We protested the war in Vietnam; we demanded equal rights for all.

And in the 80s, sick to death of starry-eyed idealism, we loosened economic restrictions and reveled in capitalism run amok. Yuppies bought cars and TVs and fancy vacations. And their kids followed in their footsteps, pushing us through the dotcom boom and bust, and into a new world of technological utopia. And underneath it all, lay the shadow of resource depletion, labor inequality, and the looming spectre of climate change.

So now we have the YAWNs, those of us in our 20s, 30s, and 40s, a generational overlap of collective whiplash. We’ve rejected the unbridled consumerism, stress, and corporate mismanagement of the past few decades. We don’t rely on stuff to reveal social status. We care about the environment in a very real way. We’ve returned to the grouplove of the hippie movement, except we aren’t angry revolutionaries - we’re idealistic technophiles. We’ll solve the problems of the world with our convictions… and our inventions.

We donate vast amounts of money to charity; we save for retirement. We take our financial cues from Bono and Warren Buffett, rather than Donald Trump and Ludacris. We’re sick of spending ourselves into debt; we’re tired of the 90/10 gap. We don’t want war and larger cars - we want real solutions to global poverty, lack of health care, mass consumer debt, and dwindling natural resources.

Looking back over the past 75 years, we see the icons that define generations. Pin-up girls, and Marlon Brando, McCarthy and Eisenhower, Cadillacs, Nixon and Vietnam War protesters, the Challenger and Coca-Cola and Wall Street. And now we have the Toyota Prius and Mohammed Yunus. Kiva. Facebook. Make Trade Fair. Freecycle. The One Campaign. The waning of Microsoft and the waxing of Google. Darfur. Melting ice caps.

In a few decades, we might cycle back to mass consumerism once again. I’d like to think we’ll break the cycle, because I can’t imagine our world can handle the 80s again (and this time with several times the population). But we are clever and inventive, and perhaps we’ll find a less consumerist way of consumerism (perhaps a recycled consumerism?). Only time can tell.