Scott, here is one oddity I have noticed concerning the rate of change...
I like to watch old movies as well as new. I watch a lot of classics from the 40's or 50's, such as Casablanca, All About Eve, and so forth. Although these films are 50 or 60 years old, It occurs to me in watching them that nothing looks all that much different from today. The clothes, the manner of speech, the houses, the furniture, the look of kitchens, the whole life-style depicted, transportation, and on and on. Yes, there are superficial changes evident, as in the look of cars. But then I think -- if in 1950 I were watching a film made in 1900, all the aspects I am mentioning would have looked far more radically different. There wouldn't even be any cars! Indeed, the technology of the film itself would have changed far more drastically in the first half of the century than in the second half. Even the plots of any movies made at the turn of the last century would have seemed completely alien and inappropriate to life in the 1950's, far more so than comparing 1950 to 2000.
I have no idea what point I am making (!) ... other than that it strikes me as a curiosity when we speak of how the rate of change in society is always accelerating.
J.C. |
