http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Future_Shock

At the dawn of 2007 future shock strikes me at last.  I thougt it might happen when the calendar rolled over to the year 2000.  I grew up with the phrase "the year 2000" as a synonym for the future.  The novelty of living in the year 2000 wore off by Groundhog Day.  I thought it might be 2001.  The year "2001" for my entire life connoted the future thanks to Arthur C. Clarke's "2001: A Space Odyssey" becoming a pop culture phenomenon.  So? We've had space stations for decades.  2001 was just another year until 9/11 caused a cultural paradigm shift.

It is finally in 2007 I feel the present has fallen behind the future.

This is nothing new.  Each generation in the 20th century experienced what Alvin Toffler would define as future shock.  It occurs because technological developments in the late 19th century began to change Western society exponentially faster than ever in the history of mankind.  Heck, in 1905, the year my grandfather was born, a car was still a horseless carriage.  It was novel and impractical toy for the rich.  Enter Henry Ford.  In 1925, boys were using cars to pick up girls and get laid, just like they do today!

The clearest example of "future shock" I can think of is illustrated in the "Shawshank Redemption."  Brooks, the old convict, went to prison as a young man in 1905.  He gets paroled as an old man in the 1950s.  "The world went and got itself in a big hurry!," says Brooks.  In the film, you can see his inability to cope with the new speed of life and the giant automobiles racing everywhere.

I remember hearing the Boomers talk about "future" shock in the early '80s.  It was more than the sum of its parts.  It was more than the personal computer, the space shuttle, and cable TV.  What the Silent Generation and the Baby Boomers were observing was a major cultural shift.  Society in all aspects was not the same as it was when they were born, 1930, 1940, or 1950. 

I have a sense of complete change today, just as earlier generations had at my age.  This is a different world from the one I entered in 1969.  Two quick examples:
In 1969, people did not have computers in their homes.  Computers were gigantic machines using unwielding punch cards and magnetic tape.  Only the government, major corporations, and university research labs used them.  They were the only entities that could afford computers, let alone make any practical use of them, let alone summon the human know-how to keep these gargantuan beasts of high technology up and running!

Today, a half-witted 15-year-old carries a computer in his pocket.  He can use it to send coded messages to his other half-witted friends at the mall.  Or he can just use it as a telephone and call them.  He can store photographs made of binary code, not chemicals, in the same device, even watch television with it, or play interactive games with the thing.  If he loses it or it breaks, he just shrugs and gets another. 

Science fiction in 1969.  Totally mundane today.

It's not just technology.

In 1969, my older sister attended a ballet school for children.  The teacher did not allow Black students in her school!  None of the other mothers objected.  Only my mom, the hippie chick, confronted the teacher.  She was not the least bit phased.  She just tossed her head and went about her business.  If the hippie chick didn't like her keeping the Negros out, that was the hippie chick's problem and none of her own.  My mom removed my sister from that ballet school, and that was the end of the issue.  This was not Richmond, or Atlanta, or Mobile.  This was Boston!  That ballet teacher was breaking civil rights law, but no legal action was taken.

Such brazen racism is almost unthinkable today.  A school of any kind that laid down such a policy would be shut down the first day of operation and its administrators brought upon charges as a matter of course.  In 1969, it was socially acceptable for a fine lady of Boston to regard Blacks with contempt.  They still do today, except they can't admit it to their closest friends and usually don't admit it to themselves. 

"Future shock," what say you?
???

Great post (I have to make this short 'cause I've gotta go in a sec).

I know what you mean, but people always underpredict the future. In the grand scheme of things, nothing since 1967 seems "old" old. If someone from back then (wow, forty years ago!) flashed ahead to today, outside of ipods and some other tech, they wouldn't be too shocked by our present world. They'd probably only think it was, like 1990.

I don't see things being noticeably different outside of little changes until 2020, probably more like 2040.

Still waiting for my jetpack.

http://www.furious-d.com/jetpack.jpg

It might be a life of watching sci-fi and horror, but the future is scary.

It might be a life of watching sci-fi and horror, but the future is scary.

If you went back 50 years and described today's consumer technology (the Internet, cell phones, etc.), you know what they'd say it would bring?

World peace.

You see...we put so much faith in technology to solve our problems, we developed the erroneous belief it would change human nature.  It doesn't.  I feel some of that sci-fi horror has come to pass.  All the technology available to us has served our iniquities more than our virtues.

The only pop culture figure from the '50s/'60s who would have agreed with me is Rod Serling.  "The Twilight Zone" is campy, but Serling's statements about mankind's direction were spot-on trenchant.

http://members.tripod.com/~switz/rod_serling.gif

The only pop culture figure from the '50s/'60s who would have agreed with me is Rod Serling.  "The Twilight Zone" is campy, but Serling's statements about mankind's direction were spot-on trenchant.

http://members.tripod.com/~switz/rod_serling.gif



You've been watching the Twilight Zone maratho on sci-fi, haven't you? ;D

You've been watching the Twilight Zone maratho on sci-fi, haven't you? ;D


Off and on, yes.  Every decade affirms ever more of Serling's warnings.

You notice Serling returns time and again to the perils of humans looking to machines/humanoid-substitutes for answers/salvation--Robots, ventriloquist dummies, player pianos, mannequins, novelty fortune-telling machines, telecommunications, all become object's of man's downfall in "The Twilight Zone."  Prophetic to say the least.

BUT...what really causes Serling's characters to come to grief are the deadly sins we've been warned of since antiquity: Greed, vanity, anger, lust, and selfishness. 

As above, technology changes, human nature does not.  If the ancient Sumarians got ahold of the Internet, I think the outcome would be about the same!

Off and on, yes.  Every decade affirms ever more of Serling's warnings.

You notice Serling returns time and again to the perils of humans looking to machines/humanoid-substitutes for answers/salvation--Robots, ventriloquist dummies, player pianos, mannequins, novelty fortune-telling machines, telecommunications, all become object's of man's downfall in "The Twilight Zone."  Prophetic to say the least.

BUT...what really causes Serling's characters to come to grief are the deadly sins we've been warned of since antiquity: Greed, vanity, anger, lust, and selfishness. 

As above, technology changes, human nature does not.  If the ancient Sumarians got ahold of the Internet, I think the outcome would be about the same!



Very insightful. There was one episode of TZ that really describes human nature and that is "They landed on Elm Street" (or something like that-I can't quite remember the name of the episode. The "alians" turned off the electricty and at a boy's suggestion about alians (he got from a comic book), every freaked and started accusing everyone else. Basically the "real" alians figured they would let the humans distroy each other and they didn't have to do a thing.



Cat

Very insightful. There was one episode of TZ that really describes human nature and that is "They landed on Elm Street" (or something like that-I can't quite remember the name of the episode. The "alians" turned off the electricty and at a boy's suggestion about alians (he got from a comic book), every freaked and started accusing everyone else. Basically the "real" alians figured they would let the humans distroy each other and they didn't have to do a thing.



Cat

And the national mood these days is...what?
;)
That "Elm Street" one is a favorite Zone of mine!

Zager ands Evans
In The Year 2525

In the year 2525
If man is still alive
If woman can survive
They may find

In the year 3535
Ain't gonna need to tell the truth, tell no lies
Everything you think, do, and say
Is in the pill you took today

In the year 4545
Ain't gonna need your teeth, won't need your eyes
You won't find a thing chew
Nobody's gonna look at you

In the year 5555
Your arms are hanging limp at your sides
Your legs got not nothing to do
Some machine is doing that for you

In the year 6565
Ain't gonna need no husband, won't need no wife
You'll pick your son, pick your daughter too
From the bottom of a long glass tube

In the year 7510
If God's a-comin' he ought to make it by then
Maybe he'll look around himself and say
Guess it's time for the Judgement day

In the year 8510
God is gonna shake his mighty head
He'll either say I'm pleased where man has been
Or tear it down and start again

In the year 9595
I'm kinda wondering if man is gonna be alive
He's taken everything this old earth can give
And he ain't put back nothing

Now it's been 10,000 years
Man has cried a billion tears
For what he never knew
Now man's reign is through
But through the eternal night
The twinkling of starlight
So very far away
Maybe it's only yesterday

In the year 2525
If man is still alive
If woman can survive
They may find

In the year 3535
Ain't gonna need to tell the truth, tell no lies
Everything you think, do or say
Is in the pill you took today ....(fading...)

Very insightful. There was one episode of TZ that really describes human nature and that is "They landed on Elm Street" (or something like that-I can't quite remember the name of the episode. The "alians" turned off the electricty and at a boy's suggestion about alians (he got from a comic book), every freaked and started accusing everyone else. Basically the "real" alians figured they would let the humans distroy each other and they didn't have to do a thing.


The Monsters are Due on Maple Street" was actually written by Rod Serling himself.  It was intended to be a commentary on the paranioa that struck the country in the 1950's.  Actually, quite a number of his stories were disguised commentary on contemporary American life.

The episode was remade in the Forrest Wittaker version a few years ago, with the Monsters being compared to Terrorists instead of Communists.

The Monsters are Due on Maple Street" was actually written by Rod Serling himself.  It was intended to be a commentary on the paranioa that struck the country in the 1950's.  Actually, quite a number of his stories were disguised commentary on contemporary American life.

The episode was remade in the Forrest Wittaker version a few years ago, with the Monsters being compared to Terrorists instead of Communists.



Yeah, that's the name of that episode. Thanks. Maple Street, Elm Street-I knew it was one of those "tree" streets.  ;)




Cat

Zager ands Evans
In The Year 2525

http://www.inthe00s.com/smile/12/headbang.gif

The Monsters are Due on Maple Street" was actually written by Rod Serling himself.  It was intended to be a commentary on the paranioa that struck the country in the 1950's.  Actually, quite a number of his stories were disguised commentary on contemporary American life.

The episode was remade in the Forrest Wittaker version a few years ago, with the Monsters being compared to Terrorists instead of Communists.

A lot of 'Zones still work today.  No need to remake "Maple Street," the original does just fine.  The bomb shelter is dated, but the social conflicts are still relevant.

I'm probably in the minority with this one, but I'm actually glad we're not (and probably nowhere close to) living in a sci-fi world with house-cleaning robots, jetpacks and flying spaceship automobiles.


Yeah maybe the real present is kinda boring compared to what someone in the past would've pictured of "2007", but I think there's some comfort in the basic ways of life being relatively unchanged in the last 20, even 40 years. Just discounting tech, pop culture and some small ways of thinking, the world is the same. We still go to work, school and have the same problems people in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s did.

Alot of us on this board (me included) sometimes complain about how we miss the old-school world of 1994 or something. But I find it kinda comforting that alot of aspects of life I grew up with are still the same in the grand scheme of things. I wouldn't want to lose that.

I think what really bothers me about todays techology advances is that most of it is related to entertainment, i.e. ipods, DVDs, etc. I would love to see more advances in the medical field, renewable energies, etc.




Cat