Douglas Raybeck, professor of anthropology, was quoted in a Washington Post article examining popular culture in the aftermath of Sept. 11.
...Great, sweeping cultural changes happen in waves, one incremental change lapping over another microscopic blip, gradually building in intensity. It's only afterward that we look back and realize that we've been hit by a tsunami. After all, the '60s -- or what we like to think of as happening in the '60s -- didn't occur all at once: First there was the civil rights movement, then the assassinations, Vietnam and eventually Watergate. Somewhere in all that came the pill, women's lib and a revolution in pop music. By the time the '60s were in full force, it was, well, 1975.
"September 11 is what I'd call a 'second order change,' " says futurist and psychological anthropologist Doug Raybeck, who describes the gradual changes of the '60s as "first order changes." "It took us to a place we'd never been before. We've lost our innocence, lost our invulnerability, and we're in the process of losing our naivete."
For the complete article, "Playing in the Shadows: Popular Culture in the Aftermath of Sept. 11 Is a Chorus Without a Hook, a Movie Without an Ending," go to:
