fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #6387 ]

[ SECRET POST #6387 ]

⌈ Secret Post #6387 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 32 secrets from Secret Submission Post #913.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

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I mean, I do think that the 1990s were better than the present in extremely concrete ways in many parts of the world. There are good reasons to think this. Many historically bad things have happened since the 1990s that have made the world worse.

I mean I guess if you don’t consider the Somalia, Sudan, and North Korea famines, or the multiple World Trade Center bombings, the Oklahoma City bombing, the Olympics bombing, the Bosnian genocide, the Rwandan genocide, the police assault of Rodney King and the LA riots, the Columbine shooting, Ruby Ridge, Waco, the Clinton scandals (not just the blowjob; he raped a woman and she was ripped to shreds over it and someone was actually murdered and the trail led back to Hillary), gang wars, or the absolutely insane amount of violent celebrity deaths then I guess yeah, the 90s were such a peaceful time that was so much better than today.

I mean, I'm not saying the 1990s were perfect and I'm not trying to play Count the Number of Bodies or anything like that.

With that said - if you look at the negative global impacts of the 9/11 attacks and the response to those attacks, if you look at the financial crisis of the late 00s, if you look at COVID, and if you look at the rise of the far right politically across Europe and
America, those are all events that have happened that had very real and negative impacts on the world as a whole. The impacts of those things made the world a significantly worse place. Thus, to the extent that those things had not happened yet in the 1990s, the 1990s were better. And, I mean, it's not like there haven't been genocides since the 1990s, or famines, or terror attacks, or mass shootings, or presidential misconduct, or wars.

The 1990s weren't perfect by any means, they weren't a golden age. But if you look around at what's happened in a global historical scale over the last 25 years, you kind of have to say that, yeah, a lot of the things that have happened have been negative and have made the world a worse place than it was before.

I’m not saying that everything that’s happened the last 24 and a half years isn’t bad. I’m pointing out that those exact same things happened in every decade of the 20th century. Literally every decade. And all through the previous century and the one before that.

But the point isn't just that bad things happened in the last 25 years, it's that bad things happened that had very broad and concrete impacts on the world as a whole. I think most of the bad things that happened during the 1990s were not as impactful on the world as a whole.

And by contrast, you can also point to quite a few important world-historical things that happened in the late 1980s and 1990s that made the world a significantly better place in concrete ways. The collapse of the Soviet Union, the end of the Warsaw Pact, the fall of the Berlin Wall - those were good historical developments that, on the whole, made the world better and more hopeful than it had been before.

History isn't just a parade of historical things happening that are totally indistinguishable from each other. I'm not just talking about the quantity of bad things happening at any given moment in time. I'm talking about the overall trend of the world and the impact of different world-historical events.

Things - in general - do get better and worse in world history at different times.

Yes there were absolutely many great things in the 90s that made the world a better place. And there are things now that make the world a better place. Not much has changed, which is the point.

Do you think that there's any such thing as change over time?

If you want to make an argument that the positive changes since 1999 outweigh the negative ones, it's obviously open to you to do so. My feeling is that, at least, it's not so obviously true that people who believe the world has gotten worse can be dismissed out of hand.

No, the point is that OP is wrong about it being a hopeful time without genocide or fascism. Of course things change. Some get better and some get worse and some evolve. In the 90s we were on trajectory for the world to be pretty much exactly how it is now.

The secret is about how much better the 90s were because it was so much fun and full of hope. But it wasn’t. It implies there was no genocide or fascism. But there was, and in fact it was worse then than it is now.

I think the 90s were objectively more hopeful than the 2020s in specific, tangible ways.

I also strongly disagree with the suggestion that fascism was worse or a bigger problem in the 1990s than it is in the present day. I think that's just utterly wrong.

And I know that is a very American point of view.

It really just is not.

Chechnya. The Balkans (ymmv if Chechnya is included or not).Italy. Russia. France. Colombia. Haiti.

You have a very American point of view.

Sorry - you're saying the far right was more powerful and influential in France, Italy, and Russia in the 1990s compared to now?

Can you please explain what the fuck you mean by that?

You should go back and read the thread because I’m not saying that at all. In general I’m pointing out that OP is wrong. In this specific case I’m pointing out that fascism was a huge problem in the world in the 90s which AIRT said wasn’t true. Which sounds incredibly American because really what they mean is that it’s worse now because it’s happening in their country.

What I said was that fascism is a bigger problem today than the 1990s.

And it seems to me that fascism / far right politics is a much bigger problem in France, Italy and Russia today in the year 2024 than it was in the 1990s. In France and Italy, for example, Meloni and Le Pen - who I would describe as far right - are much more popular than any far right politicians were in the 1990s, and indeed Meloni is the prime minister in Italy, the first far right prime minister during the current era of Italian politics, and it's very possible that Le Pen is going to be the next French president. In Russia, Putin - who I would again describe as far right in global terms - has cemented his authority as a de facto dictator and now funds far-right movements around the world.

So based on that, I don't see how it's America-centric to say that fascism is a worse problem today than in the 1990s. In fact, looking at France, Italy and Russia supports my view that far right politics and fascism are more influential and a bigger problem today than they were in the 1990s.

If you think that far right politics have not gotten more popular since the 1990s, I think you're just objectively wrong. They have gotten more popular, more mainstream and more entrenched, not only in America but also throughout Europe (and authoritarian populist right-wing nationalism is also dominant in India in a way it wasn't in the 1990s).

(no subject)

(Anonymous) - 2024-07-02 02:18 (UTC) - Expand

Resident Italian nonny here and I grew up in the 90s. I can say without any shadow of doubt that the 90s were waaaaaay worse on the fascist front than now. We had neo-nazists (forza nuova to cite the biggest group) roaming free and proudly in the streets of my city until late 2000s. Now they are mostly in hiding.
Maybe it was different for "red cities"(cities where socialism/communism was historically more pronounced), but for me? NAH. Homophobia, racism, misogynist pigs, xenophobia everywhere. That shit traumatized me and I still have the mental and physical scars of that period.

We can say that fascism is on the rise now because of Fratelli D'Italia and Meloni gaining power, but you can say that because for a brief period things had improved very fast (maybe mid 2000s to mid 2010s). The general population is way less fascist and bigoted than when I grew up in the 90s. I really don't miss those times.
Now we can point out fascist people. Before it was useless because almost everyone was a fascist. Everyone was like Vanacci (a general that wrote a book with alt-right views who's now in the European Parliament with the Lega) and proudly declaring themselves so.
Those people were briefly "silenced" when stuff for minorities were rapidly getting better, now they are back with a vengeance. It's a cursed cycle.

Not necessarily.

The 90s were better in the sense things were getting better. We were seeing improvements, the lessening of oppression and discrimination. And now we're moving backwards again. Hopefully in another decade or two (or sooner if we're really, really lucky), things will start moving the other way again.

We were not seeing the lessening of oppression and discrimination at all though. I’m genuinely questioning now if everyone ITT was a kid or not even born in the 90s.

From a legal perspective, there were some really good decisions that came out, at least in the US. I can't speak for other countries. But yes, things were moving (albeit slowly) in the right direction.

A lot of positive decisions came out in the 60s, 70s, and 80s, too. The point being that things aren’t really all that different today as the 90s and OP’s hilariously bad take on a cautionary tale is bullshit.

Oh, they totally did. I'd say personally while some things are better today, right now at this moment a lot of things are moving backwards again. Increase in fascism, decrease in protection of equal rights.

Other things were moving backwards then. Again, point being that OP’s rose tinted glasses (likely of their childhood) is not reflective of reality.

No.

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