When did the 'contemporary era' start?

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What I mean by contemporary, is what is the earliest time that had values and lifestyle that is similar to today? Even 20 years ago in the early 1990s, the Internet was only just invented and most people were unaware of its existence. Cell phones were large and most people didn't have them, and forget about them having any features. Yet I think the social attitudes and the appearance of the physical world even as far back as the late 1970s were pretty similar to today aside from the fashion, based on what my mom has told me and just seeing films and stuff from that time period. Even hip hop dates back to 1979. A lot of signage and buildings and stuff outside still look very much like how they looked in the 70s and 80s, especially where I live here in Oregon.

So I'm gonna generally say that the contemporary era relative to the year 2012 began around the year 1980.

Last edited by donnie_darko on 08 Feb 2012, 2:37 pm, edited 2 times in total.

08:30 EST this morning.

ruveyn

Ive toyed with the idea that "modern times started with the first world war, and ended with the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.

Since then weve been in the "post modern era".

Geopolitially - it was all about unfinished business from world war one - for three generations. The first world war begat the second world war, which begat the cold war- which didnt end until 1989.

Other things as well seem to fall into that time bracket.

The first age of mass culture and mass communication was made possible by Gutenberg and the printing press in 1450- but didnt reach critical mass until the mass literacy of the Victorian era.

Modern times -from WW one to around 1990 was the second age of mass culture based on Thomas Edison and analog technology: movies, records, radio, and TV. After 1990 we moved into the digital age (including the internet) - the current phase in mass communication and mass culture.

The 70s were pretty similar, minus some consumer electronics and the mass market internet. But the 70s and 80s seem pretty similar to the 40s and 50s in my view. Cars, newspapers, land line telephones. More of a pain to access information. Some substantial differences were the changing morals, tv and then cable tv. And tv was still full of shows from the 50s and 60s through reruns. We were still connected to that time. Plus major networks were still keeping everyone on the same cultural page, though that was starting to fail.

I'll go with the mid 90s as the beginning of this era. Cellphones and the internet were starting to spread to the masses. That was the beginning of a change in how people are connected.

I blame Napoleon.

Tadzio

After WWII, based on the idea that there are still people alive today ("Contemprary People") that were alive then.

Ye olde "Three-Score & Ten" seems appropriate to me - about 70 to 80 years, or the average span of a human life.

Last edited by Fnord on 08 Feb 2012, 6:25 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I would call the contemporary era the age of reason or the age of enlightenment, which began in the 18th century. Although whenever I read the news, I'm not so sure that this is really the age of reason

I would say the contemporary era started with Regan and Thatcher.

More important the toys and trinkets you had the reversal of progress towards equality, the build up of the massive debt bubble that just burst and the slow motion destruction of US/UK economies.

Merriam-Webster defines Contemporary as:

Thus, it can be seen that for anything to be considered "contemporary", it must exist now or during the existence of another person, place, or thing.

"Newton's discovery of the calculus was contemporary with that of Leibniz."

"My contemporaries range in age from newborns to post-centenarians."

I think that's a contradiction in terms.

The movement towards social equality started long before Reagan and Thatcher btw. If it wasn't for this movement, you might live as an uneducated serf without human rights under a monarchy.

No I think what he means is, that since then, they have begun to undo the progress made towards the goal of equality.

And they have, the middle class has been shrinking since the 1980's, the banks have begun to go back to their outrageous behaviors as exhibited in the 20's, and the rich have gotten exponentially richer at levels that can only be matched in the 1920's. In fact as far as I'm concerned.. the election of Ronald Reagen to the presidency, probably in the long term will wind up having been more damaging to the United States than a selective nuclear exchange with the Soviets would have been..

Some people speak of a "post-modern era."

I wonder if we might be in a "post-contemporary era."

What the fluffy bunny man said is what I meant.

I can't tell if it was sarcasm or not so apologies if it was, but

1. I do live in a monarchy
2. I am an uneducated serf (they changed the name of collar to 'chavscum' though, working class was just too 'classy')
3. The conservative government is trying very hard to overturn the ECHR at every opportunity so hopefully sometime soon.


But at least my government saved my nation's precious banking system from those filthy Germans. And French. And er Dutch. And erm every single other country in Europe.

Sorry about that.

Oops, sorry In that case I agree with you. I misread your comment as "the reversal of progress, which led towards equality". My way of reading it probably only made sense in my head. It is getting late and I can't focus anymore.

I think of the contemporary era as encompassing the last ten years and representing the styles and ideas that are the most current. I certainly think of the contemporary era as currently being within the postmodern era and the modernist era being over. But I also think it's really impossible to put a label on historical periods or style periods except in retrospect when you can really see common themes that define those periods. Contemporary events always seem chaotic and "trendy." A reflection on trends of the past show patterns. The 60's showed a lot of people who purportedly did their own thing, but in reality their behaviors weren't really all that individualistic since the matched each other so much. It's still not uncommon to want to be different just like everyone else.

Individual expression seem to me to have a lifespan of about 10 years before a number of those expressions start to resemble each other and new ideas aren't "new" anymore. At one point Nirvana represented a solid break from the great music of the 80s and was the new legit "thing" that kids with serious issues could really relate to. Within 6 months after "Smells Like Teen Spirit" hit the airwaves, mall boutique shops were selling flannel. Suddenly grunge bands that weren't Nirvana, Soundgarden, Pearl Jam, or Pantera were "posers." The same is often true in other aspects of life, but areas like philosophy and literature tend to show more longevity when it comes to new trends. Music oddly enough seems to lag behind art and literature by a good 50 years or so.

Just about every style, vogue and technology that is a big deal today, was foreshadowed or even more than foreshadowed when I was a kid 60 years ago and even much before that. The world has been Wired since 1866, when the Transatlantic Cable was laid down. The main difference is the Baud rate. T.V. was up and running in 1938 (I saw it at the World's Fair) and Goddard had already invented a practical rocket of which the Saturn Five was only an enlargement. In 1915 there were electric automobiles. And science? Relativity and Quantum physics were in place in 1925. What we have today is the latter day incremental version of these two scientific revolutions. In 1922 Hubble figure out the Cosmos was expanding. In 1938 Atsenoff had invented the electronic computer in the U.S. and Konrad Zuess independently invented it in Germany. What we have are simply faster versions of what came to be called von Neuman automata. All the pieces were in place by the end of WW 2.

ruveyn