As a species? Not hardly. Gods, we continue to accelerate with no end in sight. When you see technology, culture, industry start to stagnate with no other options available to continue…THEN we have peaked.
As a nation? No, the US has hardly peaked…we also continue to accelerate, though at a slower pace then before. However, I don’t think countries have a hard fast ‘peak’. Countries that ‘peaked’ in the past have transformed themselves and are again making strides forward (I’m thinking of several in Europe and Asia). I think in its present incarnation the US might peak in this century relative to the rest of the world, and that its possible that several nations might catch us and perhaps even surpass us in that time frame. Then again, maybe not.
I actually have to agree with ElvisL1ves (strange as that may seem )…its too early to tell, ask again in a few generations.
Good point. Human history is millennia old, not decades. One might as well wonder if we peaked during the Rennaissance, or the Augustan empire, or the enlightenment. (And that’s European history only.)
Let’s see, social and political conservatives consider the 60s a horrendous time, a time when America really lost all the values that made it good and so forth. Therefore, we did peak during the 60s. I can’t think of a better barometer.
I do anticipate another peak once the current wave of social conservatism ebbs, perhaps comparable to the 60s.
Do you believe in magic? Are you experienced? Well you know, we all want to save the world. War, children, it’s just a shot away. Love, sister, it’s just a kiss away.
A big difference is the way fundies have bent the discourse over the past 30 years: In 1965, Time asked “Is God Dead?” on its cover. In 1967 as an 8-year old child I received a Transogram game called Ka-Bala. The Mysterious Game that Foretells the Future. It consisted of a round tilty platform (made of greenly glowing in the dark plastic) with a ball rolling in a circular groove that spelled out letters and numbers Ouija-style, but along a round track. In the center was the “Eye of Zohar,” a huge staring, swiveling black eyeball surrounded by black plastic Shiva-style flames. It also came with Tarot cards and black magick spells to recite to call the spirits. I am not making this up. Can you imagine anyone trying to sell this game to American tykes nowadays? Inconceivable. The fundies would be up in arms. Not that I’m defending such a silly game (satisfyingly eldritch and weird though it was). My point is that in the '60s, it wasn’t generally accepted or expected that fundies would exert such an overbearing influence on public policy as they do today.
As they turn their exertions to an anti-science agenda, that will spell the end of American world leadership, if they succeed in driving away the world’s best scientific minds, who once thought this was the leading scientific country to immigrate to. That will have real consequences we should be concerned about as a nation.
Well, I was going for the shorthand version of the “Marianas Trench” chestnut. Perhaps it was a bit over-nuanced, but I assure you that I fancy no ascots. I don’t even plain them.
Another vote that this is an example of the Boomer obsession with themselves. I dread the inevitable millenial cults that will be forming by 2020 as the Boomers become convinced that the world itself will end when they die.
I know it might sound like boomer self-indulgence, but I think things really were better in the 1960s. The music was better, the cars were faster, the politicians were by today’s standards the model of civility, we never heard of terrorism, the recreational drugs were safer, the women dressed sexier, the space program was successful. There were 8 baseball teams in each league at the start of the decade and 10 at the end. No wild card teams in baseball, no designated hitter, no steroid monstrosities in any sport, no three point shot, no overtime in college football, no shootout in the NHL and no hockey teams below the Mason-Dixon line. From that point on things went downhill.
Rose colored glasses. During the 60’s guys like me could NEVER have owned their own companies, married a blonde from the East Coast, lived in the neighborhood I live in or moved as easily through society as I do. Guys with darker skin than me had an even worse time of it.
In the 60’s we could never have dreamed of having this discussion, of having access to the data or communications we all take for granted now a days…nor could we have enjoyed Lost every wed. night (when the bastards aren’t showing us re-runs!).
BTW, I think the drugs are just as safe today as they were then.
Now that’s debatable! IMO, old-school Punk and New Wave are superior to '60s music. (I do like a lot of the music from the '60s though.) Dean Martin, a '50s pop singer, disparaged the ‘British Invasion’. In his mind music in the '60s sucked.
Faster how? Top speed? Quarter-mile? Zero to sixty? According to some old issues of Road & Track I have lying about, cars were not particularly fast back then. My '66 MGB (the one I drove, and the one that’s still in resto) had a 95 hp engine. Being light in weight, it was sprightly for its time.
I don’t know about that. Mini-skirts certainly were sexy. But that hair! Aiyiyi. I liked the styles of my youth in the early-'80s.
When you were young and your heart was an open book,
you used to say, “Live and let live.”
You know you did, you know you did, you know you did.
But if this ever-changing world in which we live in
makes you give in and cry…
I would take the long hair of the 60’s over the Big Hair of the 80’s or the Punk hair.
But I really liked the mini-skirts, tie-dies, cut-offs, less make-up, etc.
Music wise I prefer the Rock of the 70’s that started in the 60’s.
But the War did not make this a good time. My Sisters lost friends in Vietnam. The country was divided. There were riots in the cities. Even small cities like Asbury Park, NJ.
I think the 60’s had a lot wrong, but there was an idealism that has never been as strong. Love the Pony cars, my favorites. Give me a classic Mustang, Camaro or Goat any day. I am also a little envious of the “Free-Love”.
I would give the 70’s as the highpoint for TV Sitcoms. So many Sitcoms were smart and funny. MASH, All in the Family, Taxi, WKRP, Barney Miller, Mary Tyler Moore, Bob Newhart and probably a few I am forgetting. Disco really sucked but the Rock was my favorites.
The 80’s were my time of passage. I was class of ’84 and in Reagan’s military. Our music was ok, but nothing inspirational and little was innovative. I do think we had the best youth movies if that helps. A decade that includes Risky business, Real Genius, Breakfast Club, Better off Dead, and even Revenge of the Nerds, was definitely a great decade to be a teen and twenty something.
The 90’s were probably the best economic times and the Internet is an incredible leap forward. Good time to be a geek, maybe even the Geek decade.
This decade, I am not so happy about. We seem to be headed the wrong direction.
Not sure if it can be quantified, but the muscle cars like the 442 don’t seem to have any equivalent today. Not to mention you could actually access the engine and do some work yourself.
Yeah, I miss the days before I had to share a water fountain with a Negro. What this decade needs is a good old-fashioned draft. Send all those Gen X slackers and Gen Y rave kids off to Iraq. That will thin out THEIR ranks! :rolleyes:
Boomers have always been about self-indulgance. They were born in the good times following WWII. They came of age in the 60s and 70s when the assasination of JFK and Vietnam shattered their idealized childhood. By the 80s, they epitomized the “Me Generation”.
Gen-X didn’t always wear flannel. People forget that those same Kurt Cobain and Eddie Vedder wannabees in college and high school were wearing Ralph Lauren shirts and driving their Boomer parents BMS half a decade earlier.
This next generation (Gen Y) will likely be the most prosperous yet. Demographically they are as large as Boomers IIRC. They are the most tech-savy, having never known a time without computers, cell phones and the Internet. They will be entering the job market just as Boomers are retiring (or dieing) and they love to buy crap. They’re like Generation X but with a more approachable attitude.
I am a boomer and I do remember the 60s and it wasn’t all that great.
Let’s start with the early 1960s when we were convinced that if the Commies didn’t nuke us all, we’d either die from polio (no, it wasn’t quite licked yet) or thalidomide.
By the mid 60s we had seen our dynamic young President literally have his head blown apart, cities were being burned in race riots and as young men, we were all going to die in Vietnam.
By the late 60s, we’d seen a few more assasinations, a few more riots, Richard Nixon get elected President and an epic struggle with the “silent majority.” By the time of Kent State (the unoffical end of the 60s) more than a few of us were convinced that after “the Man” was going to go after anyone who could be faintly identified as a dissenter.
Joie d’vivre? The French were rioting then, as well. Peak? Hardly.
Chrysler makes a family sedan faster than that 442.
Chrysler sells two mid-priced cars with 425 HP, and one with 500 HP.
Ford’s new Mustang has 300Hp, and next year’s Shelby GT500 has close to 500.
The Corvette now has 500HP.
Econo cars like the Dodge Neon SRT-4 are faster than most of the big-block muscle cars of the 70’s.
In a modern car, 200 HP is considered minimal, 300HP good performance, and the real fast cars have more than that.
And these cars have modern suspensions, traction control, advanced electronic engine controls, etc.
We’re living in the golden age of the automobile right now, after a long decline during the 1970’s and 1980’s. The decade of the 1990’s was the automobile renaissance.
)…its too early to tell, ask again in a few generations.