What went wrong in the 1990's?

The early 1990's were a time when the future of humanity seemed genuinely positive.

The fall of Communism and the end of the Cold War.

End of Apartheid in South Africa and the freedom of Nelson Mandela.

The rise of the Internet, and the spread and sharing of the information age.

The world coming closer, in what seemed an evolving global community.

The greater emergence of free trade.

The success of United Nations Peace Keeping Forces.

Then something terrible, horrible went wrong. Something that I cannot put my finger on. There was no single event.

What caused the world to have a dire reverse change of outlook from optimism to pessimism?

I think it may have started with the leadup to the year 2000. Perhaps people DID put into their unconsciousness the thought of biblical armageddon with the symbolic year. There was also the fear of the computer Y2K bug. Also September 11 happened, but that was in the 21st Century, the next decade.

In your opinion, what caused the fundamental shift of global optimisim in the early 1990's, to the grim pessimism that we have today?

 

Well who was honestly looking for peace? Noone. It was business as usual, Gath, so it's hardly surprising that we saw, say, ethnic conflict erupting.

E_S

 

What went wrong?

Cheers, the televison show went off the air in May,1993.

The place where "every body knew your name" ceased to be a forum for understanding..

And everyone started fighting....

 

grim pessimism = 1970's

 

The early 90s were a lot more bitter than the late 90s. In the later years everyone's problem was that they were too damn cheery, soaking up every little commodity culture had to offer.

 

what went wrong in the 90's? the lyrics to this song became a disturbingly accurate portaryal of modern life and prioritizing.


fitter
happier
more productive
comfortable
not drinking too much
regular exercise at the gym (3 days a week)
getting on better with your associate employee contemporaries
at ease
eating well (no more microwave dinners and saturated fats)
a patient better driver
a safer car (baby smiling in back seat)
sleeping well (no bad dreams)
no paranoia
careful to all animals (never washing spiders down the plughole)
keep in contact with old friends (enjoy a drink now and then)
will frequently check credit at (moral) bank (hole in wall)
favours for favours
fond but not in love
charity standing orders
on sundays ring road supermarket
(no killing moths or putting boiling water on the ants)
car wash (also on sundays)
no longer afraid of the dark
or midday shadows
nothing so ridiculously teenage and desperate
nothing so childish
at a better pace
slower and more calculated
no chance of escape
now self-employed
concerned (but powerless)
an empowered and informed member of society (pragmatism not idealism)
will not cry in public
less chance of illness
tires that grip in the wet (shot of baby strapped in back seat)
a good memory
still cries at a good film
still kisses with saliva
no longer empty and frantic
like a cat
tied to a stick
that's driven into
frozen winter **** (the ability to laugh at weakness)
calm
fitter, healthier and more productive
a pig
in a cage
on antibiotics


the 70's brought about Sly and The Family Stone. much more optimistic i'd say. but the sense of style was all screwed up.

 

Several things.

First off, capitalism and other social structures (for lack of a better term) did a lot, but not everything. Widespread poverty and illness, among a list of many other things, is more or less gone in America, yet it did not get rid of them completely. Since everyone has always wanted a little bit of cash, and no one wants to get sick, it was annoying that we still have those problems occasionally. There may be some solutions to them, but any of them would take a long time.

Another big problem to me is that we can get a lot of what we want a lot faster now. You want a new book; you can get it delivered to your doorstep the moment it comes out. Want to watch a new movie, you can go to a mega theater and watch it opening weekend.

Third thing (and this may have been true of all time) is that appearances are more important than what actually is for too many people.

So combine them. You want to feel better, so you go to a doctor and get some drugs that don't really help why you are sick, but you feel better quickly. The annoyances will come back. You want to help the poor, so you give a turkey to a homeless shelter during Thanksgiving when they are swamped with such things for a weekend, and you blow them off for the rest of the year, but you feel good about yourself because you help. People are still poor.

I suppose those things are better than nothing.

Poverty and illness are clearly not the only things obviously, but they are just 2 clear examples. It is not a single thing that led the 90's astray, nor can any one quick fix work to prevent it from happening again. Also, these are not true of everyone, but to me, they are true of enough people.

 

Want to watch a new movie, you can go to a mega theater and watch it opening weekend.

actually, people can often beat the crowds at opening shows by downloading and viewing some movies off the net before it's release in theatres. but i get your point. people are impatient and desire immediate gratification.

 

"What went wrong in the 1990's?"


I know I'm going to start a fight with this one, but my simple answer.......



Bill Clinton

 

There's so much I could say about that post.

And won't.

E_S

 

Well, actually Bill Clinton did in some ways embody those things I mentioned. When we would be attacked overseas, we would just send some bombs over to where we thought there was trouble. No long term planning, and no real effectiveness, but it made it feel like we were fighting those who opposed us.

Then again, I still am not sure I am happy with the whole War on Terrorism thing.

And I hope that this does not become a debate over Clinton in general.

 

What went wrong? Easy.

Destruction of the family unit.
Moral Unaccountability
Lowering Standards

 

Why are we so negative today well lets see there is a republican in the white house that explains it. It's all the falt of Bush! He did this to us we were fine under the clinton years.

 

please ignore the above troll. widespread sock use is what went wrong in the 90's.

 

I hate socks!!!!
Please ignore the above trolls!
I am the true Yodashizzzle!
democrat till the end am I!

 

Dont let things like that fool you. What seems to be going wrong is meerely a turning point towards better things.

Then something terrible, horrible went wrong. Something that I cannot put my finger on. There was no single event.

Life is how you perceive it. For many, what you say may seem true. To me, and maybe I'm one of a few, many things seem to be going right.

But looking at all those seemingly positive events going on you pointed out, the conclusion I come to is the multitude of events caused people to look at the whole picture. All those points you stated seem good but maybe it caused people to ponder what it really means. I think a lot hinges on the mass-communication we're all afforded now. So, sure, those events happened but now people can talk or share opinions in forums like this and they tell you, honestly, how things are. Sure there's a greater emergence of 'free trade' which sounds fine, to some, but now you can chat to someone who is affected by those things. And you realize that it's not the right thing for everyone. And slowly, people learn to understand more and more what things mean to others. And thats a good thing, in my eyes.

What people are also realizing is the obvious fact that we're all the same. The more everyone shares the more they realize we all want the best for each other. It's like a veil or shroud has been lifted and instead of people wanting solitude they want companionship. They want to share experiences.

And so, sure, if that's a change of ways, then there may a bit of unrest or uncertaintly for a while. But to me, it seems it's turning towards the right direction. It is all good.

Grand Ol Designer

 

Well, I think several thingw might have gone wrong in the 90's - from a certain point of view.

As someone has already mentioned, communications became faster and easier. Anybody can know almost anything any time they want to. Everyone had beepers, then cel phones so we are never able to just get away from people. And the internet and satalite TV and 24-hour news channels and all of this. Well, when something bad does happen, we know about it instantly now. There's almost no way to escape it unless you don't believ in electricity. It's not really that things are all that much worse, it's just that now we know about it all, and we know it immediately.

Another thing that probably hurt in the 90's was the addition of so many frivolous and senseless laws and other restrictions. It started getting completely out of hand, and it's still getting worse right now. The solution here isn't that we need more laws, but that we need FEWER laws, but better ones. I don't know if this happened across the country, but here in NY they passed a law a few years ago making it illegal to talk on a cel phone while driving, but then they ddn't attach a real deterrent to the law. Fining someone $50 dollars? Well, that hasn't worked for speeding or the seat belt law, so why would it for this? And it hasn't. Make more serious punishments. $5,000 dollars if you are talking on your damn phone while driving. And if you cause an accident, you don't drive anymore. And if someone is killed because you had to have a conversation while driving, prison time. Harsh? Maybe, but it will cut down on the number of nozzleheads who almost hit my car because they are too busy talking on their damn phone to drive.

Sorry, where was I? Right, useless laws. Banning certain types of guns? What did this really accomplish? Most of the time crimes that are commited with these types of weapons, the people committing the crimes did NOT go to the gun shop, fill out all the forms, wait the required waiting period, and then use the gun that is registered to them to commit a crime. No, they bought a gun out of some...independent businessman's...trunk, and the banning laws will not be able to stem that. The law that would have made sense would be stiffer penalties for shooting someone.

Banning things never leads to things getting better. You think we would have learned that by now, but I guess people are stupid. And the government trying to censor and/or ban anything that some nitwit complained about I think helped the feeling of decline in the 90's.

Also, our entertainment changed in the 90's. Things got a lot darker. Music especially went downhill. We had been listening to some rather upbeat stuff. The radio and MTV were chock full of it. Then along came Mr. Cobain to try and kill rock and roll, and things spiraled downhill. In the long run, his attempt failed, but it was pretty dark there for a while. But where are you now, Curt? Huh? Judging by the concerts I have attended, and the new albums I have bought the last few years, rock and roll is definitely still alive and making quite the comeback. And where are you Curt? Oh that's right. YOU'RE DEAD! Rock and roll kicked your scrawny, wasted, hopped-up, no-talent ass all to hell. Good riddance!

Ahem. Anyway, that's what I see as what went wrong in the 90's. Communications, stupid laws, and Cobain. And without those last two, we could have easily weathered the first one. Oh well. Things are starting to get better, right?

 

"What went wrong? Easy.

Destruction of the family unit.
Moral Unaccountability
Lowering Standards "

Pfft. "Family values" is a blight upon this society that serves only to hold us back from our social and mental evolution. "Family values" means a government beholden to religion, it means the man is the 'head of the household' and women are breeding stock, it means bigotry and a stagnant, calcified society. There is more than one kind of family, your 'family values' are not the only ones.

 

But perhaps you are twisting the concept of "family values" in order to demonize it.

"There is more than one kind of family, your 'family values' are not the only ones. "

You state this only after you provide what you perceive as the accepted definition.

To me, family values means

• Treating marriage as a commitment, not so frivolously as to result in a 50% divorce rate



• Making your children, if you choose to have them, the highest priority in your life



• As a child, respecting your parents



• Being faithful to your spouse/S.O., and restraining from cheating and abusing without excuses



• Raising your children to be self-sustaining and contributors to society



• Not abandoning your kids and becoming a deadbeat dad

Look at Clara Harris. Look at Scott Peterson. The Glenbrook North incident. Mothers who train their kids to steal. And excuse the dead horse, but also the guy who betrayed his wife and daughter to have a sexual dalliance with someone half his age.

These are abuses of family values. There is no allegiance to religion, bigotry, and sexism in the values I listed. Nor do they preclude anyone from living the single lifestyle, gay lifestyle, or the "living together" lifestyle.

I wish people would stop assaulting family values in the name of social freedom.

 

Those family values are fine, I can dig that.

The kind of family values I'm talking about is the kind being 'assaulted' by pornography and homosexuals.

 

"being 'assaulted' by pornography and homosexuals. "

Well I agree here (that those things are not "wrong"), and I fully support yesterday's Supreme Court ruling.

What you said was correct, everyone has their own definition of family values. Some people hijack it and take it to the (usually religious) extreme, and others use that fact to denigrate the entire concept.

But I tend to see things from more of a secular perspective, I admit.

 

Well I hear alot from the religious right, so that's the first thing that comes to mind when i hear family values. Organisations like the American Family Association(which has like 3 radio stations in my city )

I definately don't mean to disrespect anyone's religion, just certain aspects of their religion

 

What went wrong? No single event for sure. Life goes in cycles, society goes in cycles. People realized that this great boom wasn't so great after all. All this new technology and world peace wasn't as great as it was supposed to be and even then it didn't really feel real. SO everything downspiraled into the opposite.

 

Frankly, I don't think anything went wrong between 1990 and 2000. Sure, both the beginning and end of the decade were marked by recessions, but there was a recession at the beginning of the 1980s and 1970s.

I was just becoming socially aware in 1990 (about 13 years old). As a child of the '80s, ever-assured in the age of Reagan, I felt the world was gonna end when Bush raised taxes in 1990. I look back at the early '90s as a dark time. The LA riots, Serbia invades Bosnia, The Gulf War, Waco, popular music became boring, I had a skull fracture, etc. On the other hand, who has a jolly ol' time when they're 13, 14, 15 years old?

The decade was the core of a process of coming back to Earth, so to speak.

 

On the other hand, who has a jolly ol' time when they're 13, 14, 15 years old?

Well, I was a teen in the 80's, and I gotta say I had a BLAST! Of course, I believe the 80's was a far better decade to be a teen. Although I may not be objective, but things were a lot more fun then. Not nearly as depressing as they became around the turn of the decade.