Kurt Andersen has raised the alarm. 'Warning! Our fashion, our cars, our economics and our politics have been yanked to a screeching halt by a culture heavy with nostalgia and fearful of the new thanks to technology and sprawling corporations!' He has a point, and he may even be right- for those who fail to see the purpose of innovation, and refuse to acknowledge the circumstances of today's cultural landscape.
"The future has arrived, and it's all about dreaming of the past." Before, people looked at the past with an air of disdain; avoided it in favor of the new.Yet today's clothing looks the same as it has since the 00's. Is this true? For the most part, it is! Looks have ceased to change in that frantic, adventurous way that he so wistfully craves. People started reviving instead of inventing. But did he ever stop to consider why that was? Sure, he argues that corporations depend on our taste for the material to remain constant. He writes that technology has allowed us to espy the radically different past and satisfy our desires for the fresh and new-sprung. Likely, yes- to both. But he's chosen to omit that those previous dramatic changes in cultural landscape were brought on by war, civil and political unrest, practicality, and repression. Something has changed today. Women aren't mitigated by oppressive societal expectations as they used to be. They can dress with greater freedom than ever before. In fact, anyone can, regardless of practicality or political expression. Pants aren't just for men, jeans aren't just for workers, flower crowns aren't just for hippies and neon hair isn't just for emos. So fashion has become something more personal, more individual- there isn't a "look" to the general population of today that can be labeled and archived in time. They're all the same in that they're all different. It doesn't mean the end of fashion. It means that there isn't a problem to solve.
The purpose of innovation is to solve a problem. Back then the problems were different; the fashionably distinctive hippie movement was spurred on by those who marched to end the Vietnam war. The brash vehicle design was fueled by an increase in wealthy, young people eager to impress with their fast, exotic cars. Well then, it's not surprising that Kurt finds the 21st century lacking- he's ignoring the problems that shape today's innovation, therefore looking where he won't find. Why is there a lack of stylistic bold and new? He himself pointed to the economic interest in keeping trends predictable, and what right has he to complain? The previous decades of innovation brought on the 2008 recession; all the money and more was used up, and the future generation was left to pick up and piece together the parts after the mess left by the rash, albeit fashionable, baby boomers. Our efforts to innovate have moved on from how a car looks to how gas efficient it is, how safe and how environmentally damaging it is. Perhaps looks aren't the focus of today's innovation. Yet this cultural change driven by substance over style is, as told by Kurt, " a permanent loss of appetite for innovation and the shockingly new", and "the way that Western civilization declines, not with a bang but with a long, nostalgic whimper." Quite dramatic, isn't it? While the desire for shockingly new innovation isn't where Kurt wants to find it, it exists well and alive- in technology and science, where today's problems find solving.
He acknowledges that innovation is found there, almost regretfully. He also introduced his so-called Great Paradox of Contemporary Cultural History by explaining that those incredible new changes have come with that loss of culture; the end of stylistic innovation. And he's not wrong; technology did allow for the obsession with the material to change. Not because people cowered at the sight of change of clung to the familiar, but because cultural priorities shifted. Some day, and it may be sooner than he thinks, style will come to life with sensational and brand-new design. But today, it is time to see the true purpose of innovation, and approach the issues faced today with new and clever approaches; not with clothes, not with cars, not even with politics or economics, but with those new tools so powerful they've already marked a new era not just for culture, but for humanity as a whole.
"The future has arrived, and it's all about dreaming of the past." Before, people looked at the past with an air of disdain; avoided it in favor of the new.Yet today's clothing looks the same as it has since the 00's. Is this true? For the most part, it is! Looks have ceased to change in that frantic, adventurous way that he so wistfully craves. People started reviving instead of inventing. But did he ever stop to consider why that was? Sure, he argues that corporations depend on our taste for the material to remain constant. He writes that technology has allowed us to espy the radically different past and satisfy our desires for the fresh and new-sprung. Likely, yes- to both. But he's chosen to omit that those previous dramatic changes in cultural landscape were brought on by war, civil and political unrest, practicality, and repression. Something has changed today. Women aren't mitigated by oppressive societal expectations as they used to be. They can dress with greater freedom than ever before. In fact, anyone can, regardless of practicality or political expression. Pants aren't just for men, jeans aren't just for workers, flower crowns aren't just for hippies and neon hair isn't just for emos. So fashion has become something more personal, more individual- there isn't a "look" to the general population of today that can be labeled and archived in time. They're all the same in that they're all different. It doesn't mean the end of fashion. It means that there isn't a problem to solve.
The purpose of innovation is to solve a problem. Back then the problems were different; the fashionably distinctive hippie movement was spurred on by those who marched to end the Vietnam war. The brash vehicle design was fueled by an increase in wealthy, young people eager to impress with their fast, exotic cars. Well then, it's not surprising that Kurt finds the 21st century lacking- he's ignoring the problems that shape today's innovation, therefore looking where he won't find. Why is there a lack of stylistic bold and new? He himself pointed to the economic interest in keeping trends predictable, and what right has he to complain? The previous decades of innovation brought on the 2008 recession; all the money and more was used up, and the future generation was left to pick up and piece together the parts after the mess left by the rash, albeit fashionable, baby boomers. Our efforts to innovate have moved on from how a car looks to how gas efficient it is, how safe and how environmentally damaging it is. Perhaps looks aren't the focus of today's innovation. Yet this cultural change driven by substance over style is, as told by Kurt, " a permanent loss of appetite for innovation and the shockingly new", and "the way that Western civilization declines, not with a bang but with a long, nostalgic whimper." Quite dramatic, isn't it? While the desire for shockingly new innovation isn't where Kurt wants to find it, it exists well and alive- in technology and science, where today's problems find solving.
He acknowledges that innovation is found there, almost regretfully. He also introduced his so-called Great Paradox of Contemporary Cultural History by explaining that those incredible new changes have come with that loss of culture; the end of stylistic innovation. And he's not wrong; technology did allow for the obsession with the material to change. Not because people cowered at the sight of change of clung to the familiar, but because cultural priorities shifted. Some day, and it may be sooner than he thinks, style will come to life with sensational and brand-new design. But today, it is time to see the true purpose of innovation, and approach the issues faced today with new and clever approaches; not with clothes, not with cars, not even with politics or economics, but with those new tools so powerful they've already marked a new era not just for culture, but for humanity as a whole.
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