Saturday, August 30, 2008

attitudinal bias: who says a "golden age" requires a reversion?

Menzies Campbell: Obama's search for the golden age - Commentators, Opinion - The Independent: Ah, now here comes talk of a "golden" age in a cultural and a political context, but the commentator also thinks of this as being a "reversion to some golden age." It's time for an attitudinal shift.

There are no reversions, ever, at least not given our current functionalities with time and space. We have the present: Look around. Isn't this sort of a marvelous era in which to be alive? Could it be the golden age is right here, right now, and all we have to do is to keep moving?

Could it be that the emergence and blossoming of a golden age has very little to do with the November elections?

2 comments:

  1. Good post! I am becomin more and more convinced that unless our government leaders embrace what is happening around them that they will be left in the dust. If gen Y does vote, things will never be the same with community engagement and what we can achieve today, riht now.

    Although shouldn't we use what is best from bygone eras to make the new eras even better/

    ReplyDelete
  2. Yes, we always, and should always, I'd imagine, take what's best and build on it, improving as a people and as a culture. What is wrong about the commentator's phrasing, the nuances that betray his stance, is that a golden age is a reversion. A new golden age is certainly possible and in fact the only thing that can be; recreations are lifeless and curious--period pieces, for our amusement, for an instructive show or play. Who says that the new golden age will be anything much at all like the last one?

    ReplyDelete