The New Roaring Twenties: Welcome to the Revolution
One hundred years ago, women were just about to win the fight to ratify the 19th amendment and what followed was a cultural manifestation of that new independence. It was an opulent display bordering on hedonism, where opium and sexuality dripped as hair and dresses shortened. It was a time of moral battle and soaring crime with prohibition and puritans fighting against the new machine. It was an iconic period that changed the face of this country, and to some degree, the world over, for better and for worse.
Here we are, embarking on yet another “twenties” era, and with this one comes an entirely new battlefield, one with much greater worldly impact. The vastness of this world is shrinking as technology seamlessly and effortlessly connects strangers separated by thousands of miles of land and sea. People markedly apart in cultural differences are finding themselves remarkably similar in basic grievances.
We can now intimately experience the struggles of others and recognize the same in ourselves. The modern innovations that have on one hand isolated us from interaction and companionship with people in our immediate presence have on the other hand connected us to far away worlds. We can be in Hong Kong during violent protests. We can talk to people who explain what media ignores about the unrest in Iraq. We find ourselves escaping on boats into hellish red skies with Australians.
Photo by Freedom House/Flickr.
We are given tools to experience plights of others and to see for once how alike we really are. We are slowly but surely uniting across the world, with people divided largely into two camps: us and them. And there are far more of us who contend with some basic but detrimental challenges.
The world over is feeling the wrath of climate change, the choking of income inequality and the oppression of of corrupt religious and political orders. These are the greatest issues of our time and by and large, they unite us across borders.
You can feel it in the air. The thickening tension, the small fires before the inferno, the coming of the next revolution.
There is only so long people will tolerate boots on their necks. There is only so much gentrification, racial injustice, housing insecurity and gig economy dependence people can survive while small groups of people thrive on our miseries. There is only so much fire and flood, food and water shortage people can sustain. The is only so much silencing of the majority under greedy political and religious minority leadership citizens will put up with. There are only so many pills they can feed us to numb the pains and growing anger.
There is a revolution brewing in the wind, and those at the top who hoard the money and power should take heed before they end up on the wrong end of a global fury.
You Might Also Like
