You Say You Want a Devolution?

[salvorhardin]

Only tangentially political, and a few months old, but still a good essay.

For most of the last century, America’s cultural landscape—its fashion, art, music, design, entertainment—changed dramatically every 20 years or so. But these days, even as technological and scientific leaps have continued to revolutionize life, popular style has been stuck on repeat, consuming the past instead of creating the new.

...

We seem to have trapped ourselves in a vicious cycle—economic progress and innovation stagnated, except in information technology; which leads us to embrace the past and turn the present into a pleasantly eclectic for-profit museum; which deprives the cultures of innovation of the fuel they need to conjure genuinely new ideas and forms; which deters radical change, reinforcing the economic (and political) stagnation. ...I worry some days, this is the way that Western civilization declines, not with a bang but with a long, nostalgic whimper.

Full essay: http://www.vanityfair.com/style/2012/01/prisoners-of-style-201201

[bongbong]

1. One of my own personal pet theories

I've been occasionally opining to friends on a less-fleshed-out version of this same theory for a few years now. Shoulda wrote an article on it....

At least one quibble with the article, however.

> One reason automobile styling has changed so little these last two decades is because the industry has been struggling to survive, which made the perpetual big annual styling changes of the Golden Age a reducible business expense.

No, that's not the reason. The reason is that aerodynamics, a direct ingredient of fuel economy, only has a few optimal shapes. Secondly, it costs as much to make a new set of dies for the sheet metal of a radically different design as it does for a "freshening" of the car. Thirdly, there were lots of periods in the past when many car models changed very little from one year to the next, with just a new grille or something.

[cbrer]

2. More evidence that a non-progressive

Political philosophy is backwards thinking, selfish, and stifles learning.

[PopeOxycontinI]

3. What an exageration

Sir mix a lot is nothing like today's hip-hop, Adele is nothing like Mariah Carey(except for both being overrated).
I don't see people dressed like 1992. However, if you cut things up into 10-year increments instead of
20 years, I think he would have a point. 2012 looks and sounds more like 2002 than 2002 sounds and looks like
1992. He totally missed the passing of grunge/alt rock for boy bands and Britney Spears type stuff.
I think he's right about literature, though.
He might be another old guy just complaining about the younger generation, but with different complaint than
usual...instead of being too wild crazy and newfangled, the youngins are now boring.

Doug Stanhope's prediction may yet come true: