Tag: society

The perpetual generation

A lot of people are talking about the changes that the web and new media are bringing to society at large, while at the same time fashion and all types of designers are digging in our past to find the good points in 30’s and 50’s design.
But let me present a tidbit that guaranteed will haunt you. This generation, this fashion, this snapshot of society in history, will be available in all it’s cultural glory for coming generations until the end of man. Facebook, Google, Youtube and Flickr are making sure that the culture of the early second millennium will be saved in witnesses description (blogs, twitter and articles) video (youtube) and high resolution pictures (flickr) until we stop using digital media.

50’s culture is amazingly alive today because of the availability of pictures and video from the decade. But when the digital material of decades is available on google for searching (possibly filtered by years, or sorted maybe? What do you think?) the game changes. The trends of today might haunt us, but there is no question that whatever we are captured doing or saying will stay with us until we are forgotten by our grand children’s children.

A happy thought no? Our legacy will live for a very long time, we will all achieve that which our forefathers struggled to do. Makes forming our lives the way we want them a bit more important don’t you think?

The plummet of man

I had an idea a few years ago about why societies fail. I was reading about the Roman empire and realized, as so many before me, that there was a colossal change in culture before the empire started so stagnate and eventually die.
The culture changed from individual responsibility and brutal competition to belief in centralized systems and an almost spoiled attitude.

I had another idea not long ago about values being passed between generations. A hundred years ago families lived together in close proximity. The family was the central unit instead of the individuals of today. While I’m a froth-mouthed defender of individualism I do realize that this has ramifications. When families lived so close together soft values (human interaction, family history, family connections, work ethic and so on) were transferred between generations.
Quite possibly to the dismay and hardship of many individuals and ideas, not least science.
Today this proximity is lost, and while it does make things lite paradigm changes a lot easier it also strains peoples ability to learn soft values.

These basic knowledges that are not quite facts but certainly important are lost between generations. This leads to quicker cultural changes. It could also lead us to the culture of slacking that was a factor in the destructions of Rome.

There are some large if’s in this rant. But as I said, it’s an idea. No don’t be a slacker, make up your own mind and let me know!