Quote:
Originally Posted by DMB
Does anyone here see obvious divisions? How do you think people a couple of hundred years in the future will see it?
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I expect it will depend on the country you live in...
...and how broad a focus you are willing (emotionally) to take.
In general, it will be easier to identify the "breakpoints" the further back you go as more of the ramifications and indirect effects will have manifested as opposed to more recent events that have yet to play out fully.
For example, looking at the wars of the 20th century, one could just as plausibly argue that they are a collection of nationalistic power struggles or a single planet-wide ideological "debate" on the best way to organize and run a modern society. A debate that some might consider settled, having run from 1910-1989, while others would argue that the question is still open and that a global answer will never be found.
The breakpoints are real and over-abundant; easy to identify and list, *after* you decide what criteria/lens you want to look through. Looking to minimize emotional responses, one might say the major defining breakpoints of the 20th century are all technology driven; the invention of radio which enabled mass media, for one; the development of microprocessors and the still ongoing computing revolutions it has fostered, leading to revolutions in communications, entertainment, and education, which in turn are steadily changing regional cultures and people's way of life. Think: ebooks.
Other people can, and have, take(n) a demographic approach and breakdown change in terms of generational cohorts and the aggregate value systems.
It all depends on where you come from both literally and figuratively so the challenge isn't so much in identifying the breakpoints and the causality cascades that follow them as it is in getting people to agree on their importance and merit.