The 20th Century - What Will Last?
Compiled and Edited by Asia
The 20th century! An era of great change and innovation. A century of progress, or so-called progress. A time of new social ideas and of restructuring society. What of all this will last? This is the question that was posed to the members of Panhistoria. Read on for our members' opinions.
In terms of changes to the way humanity exits on our planet,
the 20th century brought more changes to the way we live, than any given
one hundred
year period in the history of mankind.. So many things changed in just one
century than in any other century before. To chose a defining invention or
period or set of circumstances could take more than a hundred years, and so
for me, I would look at something that I would miss if it had not come along
or been invented.
So many changes to the way we live came about in the 20th Century but for me, the birth of the personal stereo … The Sony Walkman … was the real big invention. The human race has always loved music. Music is a very important and wonderful part of being a human being and for me, the defining moment was when the Walkman came along and gave quality recording for everyone.
At the beginning of the 20th century if you wished to hear a song or a symphony you had to go to a concert. We take it for granted now that we can, for instance, buy a tape or a CD of say, Beethoven’s ninth symphony. However in 1900 you would have had to go to a concert to hear it and it follows that you might only ever hear such a piece of music just the once in your lifetime. Now though, you can take your Beethoven’s Ninth and listen to it whilst doing just about anything you can think of. There is no music that you may not hear whenever you wish. Lastly, the Walkman is one of the few 20th century inventions that has not been turned into a means of destroying humanity. Gotta love it.
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Plastic! Plastic never rots. Plastic and
batteries. Batteries don't rot either - do they? 2000 years from now,
if there are still archaeologists,
they will be oohing and aahing over plastic milk cartons and AAA batteries.
What a legacy.
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Lasers will shape our future! They are nifty and getting more clever every year that passes. They're big news!
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Instant news. The immediacy of the media reports on whatever is happening at the moment has not only made current events 'up to the minute' but it has changed the way we view our world. It used to be that whatever was happening took days at the very least to become known. Now we watch in fascination, or horror, as events unfold before our very eyes. In some ways this makes the world smaller, enabling us to perhaps sympathize more fully with the people involved. In other ways, it makes the world a much scarier place.
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Photos – A legacy from the past to the future.
I was just thinking about what might be a lasting legacy from the last century and one thing came to mind – photographs. I'm researching my family tree at the moment and what I find fascinating is the visual evidence that photographs represent. I have pictures from about 1901 showing my great grandmother, and my grandfather as a baby. It's not just the history of the photos, but they way they dressed and the environment that I get to see close up.
So much has changed to the landscape and to the people that inhabit it, and it's amazing to see how it used to look. Of course as time has gone by more people had access to a camera and we see the birth of humor in photographs, plus people doing the kind of things we expect to see in a modern setting – birthdays, weddings, just people mucking around. It's not so formal as before and perhaps that were we can start to appreciate how society has also followed this trend.
And now of course towards the end of the century we start to see access to video and film making. This in a way is even more terrifying – who wants to see that wedding from the 80's with the men in lavender tuxedos and the bride's hair up to the ceiling! Again, it's a legacy to fashion and to the inventions of man. Who knows what we'll see in the next century, and what might be caught on film for my distant descendants to laugh at!
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Computers! It is mind boggling how computers have changed
our lives!
I remember when UPS deposited the first Gateway was on the doorstep. I looked at the metal monstrosity and the huge bill and told my husband that this was a total waste of money and that I would have absolutely nothing to do with the useless thing. And now look at me! LOL!
But beyond my personal experience, computers have changed the way that people interact with each other. When was the last time you got an actual handwritten letter from one of your friends?
What bothers me sometimes is that it is now difficult, if not impossible to disappear. I don't know that we all haven't had some fantasy about running off and starting over. Remember the settling of America? For so many of our ancestors, that's how they got here. The man or woman who came from nowhere, started afresh with a new name and made good, or maybe not, but they got to try. There is no getting away from one's past now, is there?
And then there's the huge database of information on each of us, lurking in some machine someplace, waiting to pounce on us in some way or another. It further concerns me that actual people don't seem to be running basic services any more. We all know from our personal experience how tempermental computers can be.
So if the machines break, can life as we know it go on? Do the positives outweigh the negatives? I don't know.
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Do you have something you'd like to add to this discussion? Look for this topic, The 20th Century - What Will Last?, on the Dailies, right after the Panhistorian is published. We look forward to hearing from more of you!
Photographs for this article courtesy Sony, stock.xchng