Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Which decade would you say was more revolutionary overall (the sum of everything that matters from politics to technology to popular culture to globalism)?
Much of the purported 'revolution' in the 60's was just the baby boomers going through their teething period. There was the civil rights issue, which was significant. I'd have to pick the 1990's--end of the cold war, emergence of China as an economic power, and the internet. Although arguably all three of those were more 80's-based than 90's based. Better to compare the 60's to the 80's. It all hinges on Ronald Reagan.
Since I'm just old enough to live through the '90s changes from end to end and based on what I've read secondhand, I'll have to say the 1990s. Technology is clearly the deciding factor, as most people never even appreciated the impact of the Internet until mid-decade, viewing it in the '80s as top secret and for the geeks. Telecommunications in the form of cellphones also had its biggest growth in that decade, eliminating such old telephony terms such as dialing long distance. Pop culture also became more fragmented than ever in the '90s, whereas despite the stuff in the '60s, it was all commonly shared toward Baby Boomers, Gen X/early Millennials splintered off to what that wanted in the '90s to enjoy. The '90s also brought about Political Correctness to the mainstream.
the shift of television from simple entertainment to a pervasive force in American society, especially in politics where it totally changed the paradigm;
the Civil Rights movement and the end of Jim Crow de jure segregation;
the expansion of constitutional rights, most notably with SCOTUS' decisions on freedom of speech, separation of church and state, and the rights of criminal defendents;
the introduction of the birth control pill which led to the Sexual Revolution, which in turn, resurrected the Woman's Movement that had languished since the passage of the 19th Amendment;
in 1962, Rachel Carson published Silent Spring, which helped launch the environmental movement;
the "space race", culminating with Neil Armstrong walking on the Moon in 1969, put science and technology into the forefront of the American education and research and created the foundation for many of the technological advances that would follow in later decades;
the US Surgeon General's warning on the harmful effects of smoking, which was the beginning of the national fight against the tobacco industry;
the Vietnam War and the anti-war movement profoundly changed most Americans' view of their government and its actions, resulting in much more criticism of and/or opposition to American policies at home and abroad, and the end of the military draft.
I'm sure there are other important aspects that I missed, so I will say the 1960s.
Now, somebody do a list for the 1990s to prove me wrong.
I voted the 60s, the civil rights movement, space race, second vatican council is a pretty big deal for Catholics, 1966 was the Cultural Revolution in China. China and the USSR went went their own ways during this time. Colonialism really started to fall apart during this time.
Only people who didn't live in the 60's would ask such a question. There is NO comparison. EVERYTHING about society itself changed. There will probably never again be a decade like the 60's.
I voted the 60s, the civil rights movement, space race, second vatican council is a pretty big deal for Catholics, 1966 was the Cultural Revolution in China. China and the USSR went went their own ways during this time. Colonialism really started to fall apart during this time.
I knew there were other stuff ... I totally missed those.
We also had the rise of political assassination in the Sixties: Medgar Evers, JFK, Martin Luther King, Bobby Kennedy...
In some ways, the 1960s made the decades that followed as different from the decades before as the Civil War did.
Why are the 40's not included? That was a decade of technological and geopolitical change that is unrivaled in modern history.
Of the two choices you provide, I give the nod to the 90's because of the revolutionary impacts of computer technology and the internet comming into commercial use.
I was a kid in the 60's, and a working adult in the 90's, so my perspectives may be driven by my age as much as actual change in each decade.
The Screaming 60s were far and away more revolutionary than the 90s.
But if you want a decade that would compare to the Screaming 60s it would be the Roaring 20s. On the technology front the radio, the automobile, and the airplane were suddenly everywhere. Stop and think about what had come before those things. Believe me, that generation climbed an ENORMOUS technology mountain! Electric lights and telephones, cameras that were reasonably practical--many of these things may have existed before that, but only the Rich could afford them.
On the sociological front women's dresses suddenly showed leg--shocking, unheard-of. And women had the right to vote and politicians suddenly had to scramble to catch the new wind that was blowing. Alcohol was illegal and it launched our first drug war, fought with Tommy guns and drive-by shootings and the product served secretely in speakeasies. The rauccous sounds of jazz dared to be called music and a wild public orgy called the "Charleston" was dignified with the title of "dance"! What was the country coming to?
What a shock the Roaring 20s were to the generation that grew up in the Gay 90s!
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.