In November 2014, Brooke Shields released a memoir, in which she reminisced about a few dates she shared with George Michael in the 1980s. The iconic photo of them brought back a decade, filled with glitz, glamour, and the high price of both. It is a world away from today's
tricky global economies and
crumbling infrastructure, where everything is
deadly serious. Nevertheless, it feels like something of the 80s is returning and that time is coming full circle. Sadly,
Whitney Houston's daughter has reminded me of the 1980s; so does
Dakota Johnson, daughter of
Melanie Griffith and
Don Johnson, in her breakout role in cinemas in
Fifty Shades of Grey. There were many more nuances to that time, more profound than the ones selected here below the jump. But what is shown here was a major American theme: high living with beautiful people and
smooth operators in the sunshine.
One of the videos below the jump is from 1982:
Eminence Front from
The Who's studio album
It's Hard:
In the song,
Townshend sings about the delusions and drug use of the wealthy and hedonistic. The lyrics describe a party in which people hide from their problems behind a facade. Townshend has introduced the song in live performances with: "This song is about what happens when you take too much white powder; it's called 'Eminence Front.'"
The 80s promised wealth and all its sins to the masses of the United States (and to
her allies who were
invited to the party). Today,
wealth is exclusive again in America.
Capital as Power speaks of the 2010s' New Gilded Age for the Plutonomy. The United States sports a
handful of
home-grown billionaires. But riches are no longer promised democratically and freely to the general population of the country. That is what the exuberance, styles and expectations of the 1980s were about. The door to a big, prosperous middle class was wide open. An entire nation would become wealthy. No child left behind.
Everyone would be wealthy. In 2015, Americans know better; they are abandoning the
glossy, marbled shopping malls, the proletarian palaces of 80s' spending. Conspicuous consumption and money's excesses have moved on: in the
late 90s, they finally arrived in
London; then they flew to
Dubai; to
Hong Kong and
Singapore; then
Mumbai; by 2012, they roared through
Seoul,
Gangnam Style, and now, money is flooding the Asia-Pacific region, in cities like
Jakarta. Don't believe the beautiful illusions, people. The crash always follows.
Some don't learn. Some surf the wave, moving from place to place, following the money, and never learning the full lesson. If you want to do that,
pack your bags for sub-Saharan Africa, and get there before the 2030s. Or you can follow where the
Internet of Things will take you, although according to
CompTIA tech analyst Seth Robinson, "There's no map" for that.
Some do learn.
Sobered Americans, like the
Japanese,
Greeks and
other peoples who blew all their money, are ahead of the curve, not behind it. They rose to the height of prosperity based on industry and trade. They shared the unambiguous virtues of engineers and builders of society. It's like that line in
Citizen Kane: "It's not hard to make a lot of money, if all you want to do is make a lot of money." The real psychological and moral challenges come from squandered riches. As money trickles back to America and other once-ultra-prosperous nations, the cautionary tales which explored those challenges in the 1980s and 1990s return. This is because the challenges posed by spent money are fully digested in culture, not in the economy, politics or society. That is why
Twin Peaks, David Lynch's perilous 1990-1991 journey into the American soul, is set to return in 2016:
In May 2013, cast member Ray Wise stated what Lynch had said to him regarding a possible reboot: "Well, Ray, you know, the town is still there. And I suppose it's possible that we could revisit it. Of course, you're already dead ... but we could maybe work around that."
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