The Chinese Curse - A Response

Someone recently said that things seem more complex today than in decades past. I am not so sure I agree with that, but I think it comes close to how I feel about the times we live in. When historians look back at the 40s, 50s, 60s and the early 70s, I believe they will agree with the press on the most important events of the day. Then, the most important events made the top of page one. The bombing of Pearl Harbor, D-Day, Hiroshima, the civil rights movement, Kennedy's assassination, the escalation of troops in Vietnam, the fall of Saigon and the fall of Nixon were front pages and will be the focus of the history books. I do not feel the same is true for today. Historians may very well pull articles from the back of the business page or find events not covered by any news organization and hold them up as the pivotal events of the decade. The Internet, the rise of multinational corporations, the growing disparity in wealth among people and nations and a thousand other changes in the way we live both visible and invisible may transform into the most important events of the era, but it's hard for us to see it. We work in the now, without the perspective of history. The Vietnam War was not simple, as another on the list noted, but it did have the sweep of a big story. It had narrative. Heroes and villains were easy to spot, with some filling both roles for those on different sides of the issue.

A working reporter could tell the story of a single helicopter crew one day and then step back and report on the totality of the war the next, confident that he was working on the most important story of the day. The same could be said of his contemporaries working in Watergate-era Washington, London during the Blitz or anywhere the day Kennedy died. They knew they were present at history. We have few of those stories today. Things are too fractured and confused. Ask any person on this list what the most important story of the 1990s was and you will probably get a different answer than what you believe or what the next person you ask will believe. Big things have happened, of course. We've had a few wars, terrible things have happened to people who didn't deserve it and politicians did their stupid politician tricks. In perspective though, none of it feels like more than a footnote to the story of humanity. This may change. History may happen any day. Some days I feel like India and Pakistan are doing their damnedest to make some history. Other days I feel like the tech article used as filler on page 3-C may become the most important story of the next thousand years. I don't know. I know we live in interesting times. I just can't decide what exactly is interesting about them. William Davis is a 24-year-old journalist. Copyright © 1999 William Davis