Lyrics to
an old Incredible String Band song that played in my old mind as I read
"The Best Decade Ever? The 1990s, Obviously":
Nostalgia for the era in which you were young is almost inevitable, so people born between 1970 and 1990 feel a natural fetishistic fondness for that decade. But even for the rest of us, the ’90s provoke a unique species of recherche du temps perdu, not mere bittersweet reveling in the passage of time. No, looking back at the final 10 years of the 20th century is grounds for genuine mourning: It was simply the happiest decade of our American lifetimes.
I'm skipping the part about politics and economics (even though Bill Clinton wants attention).
What is the most remarkably successful literary creation of the last several decades? The Harry Potter novels, the first three of which appeared in the ’90s. Supertalented literary youngsters appeared...And supertalented literary geezers... produced some of their best and most successful work as well. The quality of television radically improved... In feature films, it was the decade of “Pulp Fiction” and the indie movement...
ADDED: The linked essayist, Kurt Anderson, never gets around to saying that 90s feel so good is the good feeling got cut off so harshly and abruptly on September 11, 2001. The closest he comes is:
Americans have never much liked paying attention to foreign countries and their problems (see Rwanda, 1994), so the decade between the end of the Cold War and the beginning of the war on terror was very much our cup of tea.
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18 comments:
If you between the ages of 12 and 22 in the 1990s -- and thus born around 1978 -- then, yes, the Nineties were the best decade.
For the rest of us, not so much.
It wasn't particularly great for me. On the big stage, it was quiet, not a lot happened, the economy was decent, so it has a lot to recommend itself.
I liked the nineties. I think the music was pretty good. A lot of it holds up pretty well. On a par with the sixties. People just don't remember how much crap music, now long forgotten, was around then.
If you are an old fart who bought into the politics of a Phil Oches, there is no help for you and your opinion is of no value to those outside of your cohort.
Gotta love this line: "You could still buy a beautiful Brooklyn townhouse for $500,000 or less. And so on."
That's because that beautiful Brooklyn townhouse was in a hellhole neighborhood and sooner or later you'd get shiv'd for your wallet while someone else does $1,000 worth of damage to your car to steal your $500 stereo to sell for $20 worth of crack.
But the house was cheap, so GOOD TIMES!
I was born in 1962 and thought the 90's were great.
12 years of Reagan-Bush had the economy in good shape, the military was more powerful than its next few competitors and the cold war won for our side.
Even Clinton wasn't so bad. He lost Congress after two years and before managing to do anything terribly stupid and lacked the power after that to damage the economy. Nafta and Welfare reform were positives and showed that a GOP Congress and a Dem President can get good things done.
His administration was asleep at the national security switch--which we paid dearly for, but that unpleasantness happened after the 90's and so is outside the scope of this topic.
The 1990s was a period of optimism comparable to the 1920s.
The USSR had collapsed and the Cold War (and the threat of mutual assured destruction) was over.
The U.S. had won a big victory in the Gulf War and seemed to have reached the pinnacle.
The stock market was rising sharply.
Third World nations had dropped socialism and were becoming emerging markets.
Francis Fukuyama wrote an influential book, "The End of History," in which he argued that the end of the big totalitarian threats might well usher in a long-term period of peace in the 21st century.
Fukuyama asserted that we were at "the end point of mankind's ideological evolution and the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government."
But then, as we all know, 9-11 happened.
This decade has a lot to recommend it, and we're only at the halfway mark.
I wish I could have blogged the 90s!
I would have had a lot more trouble dealing with including my own life in the blog, since there are so many complicated issues about a parent blogging about her minor children.
Having read all I'd care to of the article, I have to say I'm not certain how to take it--whether straight or subtle parody.
As noted above, that line about the $500,000 Brooklyn townhouse caught my eye as an example of cherry-picking and spin designed to keep a narrative going through the rough patches. But then he started talking about the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993, the low but growing murmur of Islamic terrorism, and the legislative acts that planted the seeds for our current recession.
By the end, it all starts to feel like Don Henley's "All She Wants to Do Is Dance," Russian aristocrats at a lavish ball while the peasants riot in the streets, or a child's cozy bedroom with monsters peering out from the closet and under the bed.
The 1990s were the womb of 9/11.
But while this reading is clearly there, I'm not sure the author sees it.
Leonard Cohen's song "The Future" was released in 1992. Pretty much called it, in my opinion.
I am Laslo.
The end of the cold war.
The Untied States was the only superpower.
The malaise of the 70's was forgotten.
Bush. Perot. The Clintons. Gingrich.
Stock Market "bubbles".
Faux balanced budget.
The "era of big goverment is dead". NOT.
Peace dividend squandered.
"Bill jobs" in the Oval office.
The meaning of the word "is".
The erosion of tradition.
The self described first "Black" president.
Yeah, those were the halcyon days of the
20th century.
""The Best Decade Ever? The 1990s, Obviously"
As the NYT turns into Buzzfeed.
I am Laslo.
I graduated from college in 1991, and I thought the 90s were pretty great. Great movies, great music, plus the Internet! The only thing that would have made it better was if Match.com had been around. I think I had two dates between 1992 and 1996.
Bad decade for baseball. First the cancellation of the playoffs and World Series in 1994, then the Steroid Era and the Yankee Renaissance.
Still thinking the 1970’s wasn't that bad. Demographically, the country skewed much younger. Everything was youth oriented and the Vietnam War was over. Musically; early 70’s - Rolling Stones best years, lots of really great bands; late 70’s punk rock. Yeah, the economy and OPEC sucked, but you could still get a shitty job and rent a three bedroom apartment in Cambridge for $225. You could also roll down Mass Route 128 and see the future of the tech industry. Real people worked there. They didn’t have gazillion dollar stock options and they drove shitty cars just like you. But they made really cool things that had never been seen before. Semiconductors, computing, medical, aerospace, telecommunication. Lots of smart people solving serious problems. I don’t think there has been a more innovative decade since the 70’s. Everything was appropriated by the PC industry in the 80’s, which is now in the entertainment business. It’s a little dispiriting to remember the possibilities of high tech in the 70’s and see the end result in a douche like Mark Zuckerberg.
The best nostalgia is always your own.
Bubbles are always fun as they inflate, right?
The 90s were stupid. I mean, it's like the entire country took dumb pills. The most striking aspect of the entire decade is how many idiotic decisions were made, how little of enduring worth was created, and how shallow and uninspired were the social themes of the day.
The aughts and the teens (this century) may be rough, but at least there are scattered examples of character and insight, attempts to make genuine progress, and sober grappling with genuine problems. One can hope that children coming of age in the 00s and 10s will not be nearly as vapid and useless as those who came of age in the 90s.
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