And which recent decade was the best?
Recently there was a discussion online about which decade was the best: whether it was the 1960s, or the 1970s, or the 1980s, or the 1990s. And I noticed something interesting: that no one mentioned the 2000s.
Sure, it’s still early, and the discussion was mostly among older people who grew up or were young in those earlier decades, but I have the feeling that not many people in the future will have very fond memories of the 2000s, 2010s, 2020s. Because those decades were and are mostly awful. Even for young people, or especially for young people.
Will anyone be nostalgic about the 2020s? What’s there to remember? The Covid stuff? The permanent wars? Increasing censorship? Growing social disintegration?
Currently it’s a pretty bad period for young people. The economy, at least in Europe, is going from bad to worse. Germany, which used to be an economic powerhouse, now has negative growth and record unemployment. France is even worse. People are not having children anywhere and the whole of Europe is being taken over by foreign migrants.
Europe was for decades considered as a safe place, but in recent years I’ve known of several people in England, Spain, Italy and Germany who have been mugged in the streets, or worse. The governments have brought so many migrants from Africa, India, South America to replace their own population. And, guess what, now Europe is having more and more crime and dysfunction like in Africa, India and South America. Who could have guessed, right?
The job market everywhere is awful and growing automation threatens to put everyone on the streets, at the same time that they cut all benefits, and buying a house is impossible for the young. So, yeah, things are looking pretty bad.
And it’s clear that the 1990s were the last “happy” or at least the last memorable decade. Also because it was before social media, which in fact has been a catastrophe for social relations, and people still met and talked in person. White people were still a majority in most Western countries, and social degeneracy hadn’t progressed all that far.
What happened after that?
The 2000s were completely taken over by 9/11 and terrorism paranoia and war, and even the more well-known movies from that period were all about that, such as for instance the Batman Dark Knight movies. Then the 2010s, I can’t even think of anything very distinctive about those years. Well, I guess there was Breaking Bad, and a few other things, but nothing that makes as think of it in terms of a culturally unique decade. And the 2020s, well, it was marked by Covid, war everywhere, and now AI.
Not a lot of memorable things in terms of film of music, but I don’t really watch a lot of modern movies or listen to modern music, so I wouldn’t know. Perhaps Squid Game, signalling the end of Hollywood dominance and the raise of Asian productions, but, to be honest, the series wasn’t even that great or original, and the ending was awful.
But let’s go back and talk a little bit about the previous decades, before the deluge.
The 1960s
Recently I was re-watching some episodes of the 1966s series “Batman” which I remember watching in my childhood.
I didn’t grow up in the 1960s. I’m old, but not that old. But in the 1980s, when I was a child, we didn’t have streaming, we didn’t even have cable, and a lot of things in network television where I lived were actually reruns of older series. So I grew up watching Batman, Bewitched, Jeannie, and so on. The pretty women in those series were my first crushes.
Julie Newmar as Catwoman was amazing, and seeing her again now in my middle age, I can see better why. You can mark the decadence of the intervening years just by looking at all the later actresses that played Catwoman. Not one of them had the same sexiness or humour or poise or charm. I mean, I love Michelle Pfeiffer, but I preferred her in other roles. Newmar is Catwoman. And I don’t think that she was even a great actress, it’s just that she was perfect for that role.
The impression I get of the 1960s is that they were a fun time to be alive. Sure, it was the beginning of the long march through the institutions, and of course there was already some brainwashing even in those early TV series, but it was just the very beginning, and most things were still pretty innocent. Batman and Catwoman don’t even kiss.
The dialog is surprisingly literate for a children’s show. Batman uses a lot of fancy words and alliterations. Even Catwoman at some point says, “it is time to separate Damon from Pythias”. Even I had to search that one, and it refers to an old Greek myth about two inseparable friends. The point being that at the time, people tended to have more culture and would still grasp such references. If you watch game shows or talk shows from the 1950s and 1960s, you will probably be surprised to hear how articulate and elegant most people were. Compare it to how people talk and dress today. It’s like another planet.
So I think the 1960s was a good decade, even though it was the start of the process that lead us to today.
The 1970s
The 1970s had good things in terms of music, and some of the best films were made in this period, both in the US and in Europe — remember when there was such a thing as European movies? — but it was also a period in which the cultural brainwashing started to be more direct.
In retrospect, the 1960s seem very naive. Peace and love, free love, yes, but in many ways it was all still very innocent. But in the 1970s, things started to get dark.
For instance, the whole androgyny thing started to be pushed hard in this period, as well as hard drugs and satanism. In many ways, the 1970s were like a dark version of the hippie 1960s, even if it still had some good things going on.
The 1980s
Probably the 1980s were the peak decade of the modern Western world. I was still a small child during this period, but I have fond memories of the 80s. As a child, I remember playing a lot outside in the streets and having lots of fun.
And of course you still had access to the best that had been produced in the 1960s and 1970s. But the 1980s were still a very distinctive decade. You had great films, great music, there were some great alternative indie bands, there was a sense that something new and beautiful was starting.
Even TV was good. All my 1960s TV crushes were suddenly replaced by Cybill Shepherd in Moonlighting, who seemed like the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. And it was probably the golden age of sitcoms, even if, of course, brainwashing was already on overdrive, but it still wasn’t as bad as today.
There was some exciting new technology, such as the walkman and computers, but of course people were not all the time glued to their screens as they are now. Mostly, I think there was a good balance, and it was a time of unbridled optimism.
And, if in recent years there have been a lot of shows about 80s nostalgia, it is because the decade really was memorable in many ways. So, for me, the 1980s gets the vote as the best decade, even though I am more of a 1990s child.
The 1990s
The 1990s, as I said, was the last “happy” decade. But was it really that happy? Its most distinctive musical movement was so-called grunge, which had depressive songs with dark lyrics, and its main star, 27-year old Kurt Cobain, used heroin and ended up shooting himself in the face. So, not such a happy period in many ways. Movies also started to have a darker tone. On TV, one of the most memorable shows, at least from the early 90s, was Twin Peaks, and it was good but it wasn’t exactly light-hearted.
But it was still before social media took over, and people still seemed to be having fun, and going to parties, and the women still tried to look pretty instead of being, you know, angry and fat blue-haired feminists full of piercings and tattoos.
Do young people still go to parties today? My impression is that most people just stay glued to their phones. Even when they go to parties, they still stay glued to their phones and can’t wait to go home. And children rarely play outside anymore.
So, I don’t think many people will be nostalgic about the 2020s, but there is hope that, you know, in the 2030s and 2040s and beyond, there is going to be a new Renaissance, and things will start to recover and get better again. I am probably not going to be here to see it, or if I am I will be too old to enjoy it, but I hope that things get better again, for the sake of today’s children.
