Jacob Weisburg in Slate takes on what he considers to be the “cultural cliché” of the 1990s as carefree, trivial and self-absorbed, and 9-11 marking a sea change in the national culture.
Like most bits of conventional wisdom, the view of the 1990s as a decade of excess has some truth to it. Wealth exploded as never before since … the 1980s. The decade’s media extravaganzas were ridiculous in themselves as well as distractions from duller things that should have mattered more to more people. But hey, I was there too, and it didn’t feel quite so superficial to me. I would argue that the Zeitgeist of the 1990s wasn’t purely frivolity and selfishness. To the contrary, the decade that just ended was one of remarkable economic, technological, cultural, social, and even moral advancement. Some puritanical instinct tells us that doing well, personally or collectively, must have a dark side. But to paraphrase Elvis Costello, what’s so awful about peace, love, and prosperity?
I don’t know — I think it’s too close to be making those sorts of historical judgments. On the other hand, I’ve mouthed the myth, too, so perhaps I don’t have room to talk.
(Via Talking Points Memo)