Hey Children, What's That Sound?

I can never tell if the real world reflects my own perceptions or if my existence has become so "bubble-like" that I often see what I want to see. However, what I think I am picking up on lately is a shifting zeitgeist, a new "spirit of the age."

For lack of a better phrase, people seem "less prudish" -- inhibitions seem to have been lowered, people are more willing to openly talk about taboo subjects and “throw ink” on collectively held myths. I'm seeing things said and done by people that would have been shocking a decade ago, and no one seems to care. Some have told me that this new expression comes with an angry tinge attached to it; it's not enough to "do your own thing" people today are in your face about it.

It's as if our collective consciousness had been in a cage for a decade, a rubber band stretched to its limits. I have to think this has everything to do with the new President and the ousting of the Republican Party from power in a literal and ideological sense. But I don't think we are undergoing something entirely new, the pendulum is sweeping out the old and bringing in something else. After the cultural revolution in the late-60s there was a similar period in the early-70s. I would argue that with the economy as it is, this resembles the 30s in some sense, which was perhaps an even more radical period of history. Something's changed, and I think it has translated from the political realm into the cultural one.

There's something else I'm picking up on besides a throwing off of repression; it feels like our culture is improving in quality, and is slightly less disposable. The best word to describe the 90s was "bland" regardless of a Democratic president. "Cultural Chernobyl" indeed. The 2000s haven't been a lot better, but the Internet has really made us capable of seeking out what we want instead of what we are handed on one-way mediums like television and radio.

Regardless of the advent of the internet, this is something I've felt only in the past month. There seems to be an eagerness to delve into the subtle over the overt, the full spectrum over the primary colors. In the Bush years I could see a McDonalds being built beside old faithful and a Starbucks installed in the head of the Statue of Liberty...I don't expect that anymore. I sense some sort of "return to quality and permanence" -- less plastic and styrofoam, more concrete and steel. Instead of a mall, build a bridge. I've even toyed with the idea in my wildest dreams that the post-modern error may be concluding and we may once again have some standard for judging art and logic will again have a place in society.

Am I just wearing "hope and change"-colored glasses? Don't get me wrong, I'm a pessimist by nature, even if I know that statistically speaking it means a shorter life-span. I just can't help feel that something’s going on out there and I don't think I'm alone...