a Post Covid creative and cultural shift?
Sarah’s Brainwave
I was chatting with my friend earlier, Sarah. She’s a bit bonkers but she does lob the odd stick of insightful dynamite into a conversation.
SARAH: How are you?
GARY: I’m alright. You?
SARAH: Yeah. What the fuck has happened to your hair?
(FIVE MINS LATER)
SARAH: … yeah I think once the pandemic eases we will be entering a kind of new roaring twenties or swinging sixties.
GARY: Now that’s an interesting thought.
A New Kind of Sixties
Sarah’s words got me thinking. I mean … what were the sixties (and 20s) about if not a kind of reaction to the mundane familiarity and inertia of what went before. If the last year has been anything (even now it’ll be a stretch of time before we’re out the woods totally) it has been restrictive and surely the collective spirit of everyone has taken a hit. Not only that, the pandemic has possibly intensified the claustrophobia of things in such a way that the feeling of release when things open back up will surely be magnified.
What if this was to inform some kind creative and cultural shift of a kind we’ve not seen before?
Newton's Third Law of Motion states that. "For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction."
An Explosive Counter Reaction
Doesn’t it then follow that when there is mass containment of creative energy there will likely be an explosive counter-reaction?
I’m writing this a few hours after my chat with Sarah so it’s a murky theory at best but I think she might have something.
Those previous cultural shifts were no doubt a response to the world wars that preceded them and the stifling traditions of the times.
Yes. We’ve not had wars to contend with and possibly are not at the effect of the habitual entrenchment of those bygone eras. But what we have experienced and are experiencing is unprecedented isn’t it? And I’m not attempting to describe what might come. I’m suggesting that potentially, and I’d go so far as to say more than likely, a new way of seeing the world will evolve as a consequence of the pandemic.
Something Special
What if we’re on the precipice of something special. Time will tell of course. I’m aware I’m scratching the surface with regards to what brought about the 20s and 60s revolutions and I’m speaking more about the symptom than the cause which possibly deserves a little more research.
But it possible, just maybe, that we’re on the cusp of a new creative and cultural shift?
I for one say bring it on.
G
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