It seems as though every decade is remembered with a major trend. For instance the 1920's were the roaring 20's of prohibition or the 70's with disco and bell bottoms but the first decade of the 21st century seems to have a strange feel to it. Virtually every major trend from 2000 to 2009 has been a remake of an earlier trend and nothing unique to this decade. It is especially true in the final few years of this decade.
While Hollywood continues to pump out new movies and record labels put out new music at alarming rates everything seems to be a direct remake of the original or a slightly altered version of a previous time. I have been thinking a lot about how history is going to remember this time and what happened.
Here's a list of major events that think we be considered to define this decade:
9/11 and the resulting invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq are going to a topic that will undoubtedly be discussed and speculated about for many years to come. Now that there are so many new conspiracy theories being propagated it is only a matter of time until the discussion intensifies again.
The United States elects the first black president. I don't really need to expand on this much since the media has been hammering both sides of this since months before the election but in the end it shows that, as a nation, we are more concerned with the better candidate than their skin color.
This one may actually be trend for the next decade but it could also be known for this one. Going green(er) in order to stop global catastrophe. If there is a major breakthrough in the next decade that significantly reduces or eliminates fossil fuels then that will be the theme for that decade.
As I see it those are the only three events that are major enough and haven't already been done to define this decade. I know your thinking about the housing meltdown and all the banking issues but in reality they pale in comparison to the great depression that started in 1929. The only other thing that there's even a possibility that this decade could be known for is the current health care reform but considering the growing opposition to it because of the already insane national debt I'm not sure that it will ever get pushed through.
Compared to most decades of the 1900's we have seemingly made little progress towards the betterment of our nation. I think we just needed a break. In 1900 most people rode horses and few people had cars with no road system in place once you got out of town. In 1999 most family's had multiple cars with a massive road system that covered the entire county. In the 1900's we also had two world wars, made amazing advances in medicine, brought technology to a state where people could talk instantly to each other from distant parts of the globe. As a whole the 1900's were really busy.
This decade is coming to a close and our break hasn't been peaches and cream but now it's time that we look to the future again. Start moving forward to the unknown and become the people who lead the way to a better tomorrow.
