Friday, January 1, 2010

Feminism, split-level homes, jet-wing lapels...

David Warren sums up the 70s. At last I feel vindicated for thinking it was the worst decade EVER. And I had to survive it without drugs.


And then we had Gerald Ford as president. That was silly enough; but then we had Jimmy Carter. And through almost all of that decade, a prime minister up here named Pierre Trudeau. Believe it or not, these men were taken seriously. We can only begin to see what a strange era that was, only begin to appreciate the flakiness into which public life had descended, at this distance.

That the 1970s also represented a kind of aesthetic nadir for Western Civilization we may see by examining contemporary magazines. Even with our current, deeply depressed standards, we instinctively flinch at their apparel. It was by extension a boring, pointless decade: I pity anyone who had to grow up in that era, and am inclined to understand their propensity to mind-altering drugs.

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