What are/will be the defining characteristics of the 20th Century in Retrospect?

[Queequeg]

I saw "Looper" this weekend, and there's a bit of dialogue where Jeff Daniels, from 2077, criticizes Joseph-Gordon Levitt for wearing a tie, calling it "a rediculous 20th Century affectation."  The irony is that Daniels' clothes are pretty clearly Victorian inspired-everything comes back. 

Started wondering what the appeal of the 20th Century would be for someone from Looper's 2044 world.  It looks like the American economy collapsed about a decade ago, resulting in mass deindustrialization and possibly the collapse of the Government in it's recognizable form.  The 20th Century's social welfare state and social stability would almost certainly appeal to a youth whose early life was defined by social chaos that's almost impossible for Westerners to imagine. 

That got me thinking about common perceptions of the 19th Century.  The image is one of repression-of political, sexual, social and cultural movements stifled by decaying social mores and authoritarian co-opting of nationalist sentiment.   In 120 years, will people talk about the crazed follies of the 20th Century-Totalitarianism, say-or will they talk about the return of China under Deng Xiao Ping?   There's a lot of guesswork about the future involved in this, I suppose, but I still think it's an interesting topic. 

[HVC]

We built way more efficient ways to kill each other. That's a characteristic, right?

[Viking]

We built way more efficient ways to kill each other. That's a characteristic, right?

name a century where we didn't build more efficient way of killing each other?

21st - drones
20th - tanks, planes, aircraft carriers
19th - rifles, machine guns, battlships
18th - ring bayonette, iron cannons
17th - plug bayonette, bronze cannons, muskets
16th - arquebus
15th - cannon
14th - plate mail, longbows, halberds


etc.etc.... If anything the defining characteristic of the 20th century will be the Ideology. The century starts out with Communism rising from the ashes of Autocracy, through Fascism to the re-rise of ancient scepticism in post-modernism through to the end of history to the two reactions to the end of history in fundamentalist islam and multiculturalism.

[Syt]

20th - tanks, planes, aircraft carriers

I think you're missing an important invention or two there.

[CountDeMoney]

We built way more efficient ways to kill each other. That's a characteristic, right?

I agree with you, HVC, even if Viking equates the introduction of industrialization principles to mass killing with the invention of the ring bayonet.

[Neil]

The 21st century hasn't found a more efficient way to kill as compared to the 20th.  You've forgotten about the atom bomb.

[Viking]

20th - tanks, planes, aircraft carriers

I think you're missing an important invention or two there.

meh, anything that doesn't kill more than 200k people or isn't decisive in a war doesn't make my list.

[Viking]

We built way more efficient ways to kill each other. That's a characteristic, right?

I agree with you, HVC, even if Viking equates the introduction of industrialization principles to mass killing with the invention of the ring bayonet.

Of all the things on my list that you could have used that criticism on the ring bayonette is the worst. For the simple reason that the ring bayonette made line infantry drill possible and was the first vital step on the way to industrialized war. You no longer needed warriors to fight, you could make do with dull russian serfs or prussian recruits beaten to a inch of their life so as to fear their officers more than the enemy and drilled to exhaustion to act as a machine on the battlefield.

[Razgovory]

Eh, they had that before.  They just had guys hold big long sticks to support the gunners.

[dps]

I'd say that the defining characteristics of the 20th Century in retrospect will be the growth of mass communications and pop culture.  There were elements of the former going back at least to the telegraph, and of the latter arguably going back even further, but they both really developed hugely in the 20th Century.  (I'd say that mass communications was the more important of the two, and in fact pop culture as we know it probably couldn't exist without it.)

[crazy canuck]

In 120 years, will people talk about the crazed follies of the 20th Century-Totalitarianism, say-or will they talk about the return of China under Deng Xiao Ping?   There's a lot of guesswork about the future involved in this, I suppose, but I still think it's an interesting topic.

If things fall apart the 20th century will be remembered as the golden age when standards of living were high.   School kids will also wonder how anyone could live without the internet.

[Valmy]

I'd say that the defining characteristics of the 20th Century in retrospect will be the growth of mass communications and pop culture.  There were elements of the former going back at least to the telegraph, and of the latter arguably going back even further, but they both really developed hugely in the 20th Century.  (I'd say that mass communications was the more important of the two, and in fact pop culture as we know it probably couldn't exist without it.)

Yep.  Nobody will care about the wars and the deaths as time goes on.  These are the main things.

[DGuller]

I'd say that the defining characteristics of the 20th Century in retrospect will be the growth of mass communications and pop culture.  There were elements of the former going back at least to the telegraph, and of the latter arguably going back even further, but they both really developed hugely in the 20th Century.  (I'd say that mass communications was the more important of the two, and in fact pop culture as we know it probably couldn't exist without it.)

Yep.  Nobody will care about the wars and the deaths as time goes on.  These are the main things.

They will if we have a nuclear war that destroys civilization as we know it.

[Barrister]

That got me thinking about common perceptions of the 19th Century.  The image is one of repression-of political, sexual, social and cultural movements stifled by decaying social mores and authoritarian co-opting of nationalist sentiment. 

That feels like a very European perspective on the 19th century.

My perception of the 19th century was more one of expansion, exploration, advancement.  It was the era of the frontier, the gold rush, the colonial expansion, wiping white spaces off the map.

[crazy canuck]

That got me thinking about common perceptions of the 19th Century.  The image is one of repression-of political, sexual, social and cultural movements stifled by decaying social mores and authoritarian co-opting of nationalist sentiment. 

That feels like a very European perspective on the 19th century.

My perception of the 19th century was more one of expansion, exploration, advancement.  It was the era of the frontier, the gold rush, the colonial expansion, wiping white spaces off the map.

You mean making spaces on the map white dont you?