First a brief overview on human history. First, we were hunter-gatherers. After a few hundred thousand years of that, the agricultural revolution occurred. And a few thousand years later, the first industrial revolution occurred. With that, the population became urbanized in Western Europe. Soon afterwards, there was the second industrial revolution. Hot on the heels of that was the two world wars. Which brings us up to the 1950's, which is the first period of time we want to take a close look at. Now, in the previous agricultural revolution, and the two industrial revolutions, there were vast, sweeping changes to the way people lived and work and thought. But these vast sweeping changes took place over decades -- in the case of the agricultural revolution, probably centuries. Now, in the scant decades between 1950 and 2000, we've had some pretty major changes.
In the 1950's, (and I'm talking primarily about North America here), there existed what we call consensus culture. It was the triumph of nuclear family, let's call it Leave It To Beaver Syndrome. The confines of Leave It To Beaver Syndrome were very constrictive. There was little wriggle room. The perception was that a stable family, with wife at home and middle management husband bringing in the dough, with 2.3 kids and a dog whatever crap. The reality of course was much different, but the point is that the perception of stability was present. Leave It To Beaver Syndrome gave people a concrete image that they could hang onto and savour.
The 1960's. This was the hippie era, the summer of love, LSD, the man on the moon, and stuff. But for all this bra burning, this era was still the 1950's. Consensus culture still dominated. What do you think these hippies were rebelling against anyways? The hippies were an aberration. Consensus culture still held the day.
The 1970's. Aha. Backlash against the hippies. The hippies grew up and found themselves in the middle of a worldwide recession. Consensus culture by this time was pretty much gone. But the economic situation that the former hippies found themselves in necessitated some sort of financial responsibility. They had tone down their ideas. Rear children. Crap like that. So this is the first sign of fragmentation in mainstream society. People who have had a taste of rebellion and freedom, but have been co-erced to join the mainstream.
The 1980's of course were the age of Reagonomics. Americans were feeling good about themselves. The cold war was winding down internationally, but in America it was stronger than ever. Reagon's SDI was giving America wet dreams about taking over the world. So in a sense, there was a common bond between people once again. Intense nationalism. That's only for America though. Up here in Canada, I think we were a little bit confused. The 80's were the beginning of a semi-decline of Canada as an international power. For us, our nationalist peak was during the sixties and seventies, the heydays of Trudeau. Now with Lyin' Brian at the helm, we were finding out just what a second rate power was all about. Nationalism was on the wane. As a country, we were bewildered. But I digress. In truth, it's really America that matters, isn't it? And they were pulling together like never before.
The 1990's were when things fell apart, quite literally. Canada was very nearly torn apart as a country, the American president was indicted, and hell, for a good long time, nobody knew who the American president was going to be. Politics in the US was as confusing as it came. The Cold War came to an end. This was a big one. People didn't know what to think when this happened. They had spent all their lives entrenched in this almost religious war against the Reds. When it was over, nobody really knew what to make of it. Hell, even Hollywood was at a loss for bad guys. In the business world, things were looking mighty strange indeed. All over the place, conglomerates merged with conglomerates. Perhaps we should rename the 90's as the decade of corporate merging. Billion dollar companies joined billion dollar companies. The number of people who controlled the vast wealth of the world were very likely diminishing every year. The stock market went crazy in the last few years of the decade. Analysts were predicting anything from a crash comparable to 1929 to sky high prices for hi-tech stocks. Market volatility was unprecedented. The internet happened. Suddenly people had access to more information than they had ever dreamed of. People fell in and out of love, they made and lost fortunes, they gained access to email, they stopped buying cd's -- all on the internet. This one single phenomenon, paired of course with the ubiquitous PC, is a big big reason for the giant changes facing humanity the next few years.
Look at all this that has happened in the last ten years. Change is happening at an astonishing pace. I got a little bit off topic here today, sorry about that. But I got interested in the background. Tomorrow, this series will be continued....