Deja Vu: How we got here

The physical act of getting down to writing this entry was damn challenging – and it’s all the fault of Hulu. I wanted to type today’s entries on my Alphasmart Neo – a portable keyboard – so that I could watch Hulu on my computer (“first world problems,” I know). Unfortunately, the Neo needed batteries and I needed to lose it’s teeny, tiny screw in the process of changing those batteries. Then, I had to search under the couch – which turned out to be a disgusting realm of entropy, dust, cat toys, and bottle caps (also cat toys). I ended up moving the furniture, sweeping up a quarter of a trash bag of dirt, and working myself into an irritated lather. But now the living room is restored, the dirt is swept up, and Razzle is biting my arm in annoyance that I would dare to type while he’s on my lap. On the floor, Tibby is stretched out in his kitty bed and The Murdoch Mysteries are playing on the laptop. My screw is still missing (a theory many have probably put forth before now) but all is more or less right with the world.

As you’ve probably noticed, I usually like to devote these entries to more and one title, but there’s so much to say about this one that it merits its own page.

First the why: I picked up this book after I started watching That ‘70s Show. I’m not hip or cool or in the know, so I somehow missed the show when it was on the air, but I came to enjoy the reruns (and not just because, hen stranded in Canada, the boys declare, “We love Rush!”). But, watching it, I realized how little I know about modern history and I decided to set about filling in the blanks. I started The Glory and the Dream for a long view and, after a significant amount of research, settled on Frum’s work for a short one.

I went into it with reservations, of course; the book had been criticized as right leaning, so I was ready to put it down if I got too offended. There were a few passages that revealed some bias, but what struck me overall was how much the issues of the 1970s mirror the issues of today. Frum discusses the following:

Boring, meaningless jobs; the feeling that there’s no meaning in one’s work (a concern I often hear from my students) (20)

Distructs of the President – Nixon in this case, but I’d say it applies now, too!

Distrust of the government and turning to conspiracy theories as a means of explanation (49)

Putting oneself first, above community; I would equate this to a modern trend towards entitlement (74)

Loss of privacy and discretion (as seen, today, in social media) (100)

Ambivalence about having kids or caring for kids (again, I’m usingt my students as a benchmark, though they may all change their minds, of course!) (107)

Valuing emotion and intuition over reason and intellectualism

Back-to-the-land movement; today, represented in “going-green” or “farm-to-table” (119)

The dumbing down of education (136)

High culture discredited in favor of mass appeal (143)

End-of-the-world pessimism, echoed in the apocalyptic literature and films so popular with teen audiences today (160)

A cycle of fitness crazes complete with clothing (175)

The conflict between getting rid of class barriers and class tensions (183-84)

Unbridled sexuality, the erotic moving out into the open (this made me think of the excitement generated by Fifty Shades trilogy – gag me with a spoon) (191-93)

Anxieties about what constitutes masculinity (207)

Fighting for gay rights (209)

Americanization/ hostility to immigrants (267)

Fear of communism (303)

Frum cautions against nostalgia for the 70s, but argues that it was out of the “low tide” of that decade that the innovations and successes of the 80s and 90s came. Since we seem to be at a similarly low tide now, I’ll be hoping that the coming years see success in the places where they’re most needed: the environment, race, squaring income with cost of living, peace, and so on…

One of the reasons I love the Victorian era is because it is at that moment that many of the issues we still struggle with came into the picture, so it seems I must find some affection for the 70s, too! Or, I must at least acknowledge that, “the more things change, the more they stay the same!”