At Last, the '70s Again

I know that retro-’70s nostalgia has been with us for almost two decades ago. In fact, the television show called “That ’70s Show” is about a period now as long ago as the ’50s were when “Happy Days” was the rage. (Look closely and you’ll see that the show is somewhat similar, with another red-haired scamp and his dorky friends along with one “cool” one.)
ButI feel a different kind of ’70s coming on. The ’70s of the post-’60s letdown and hangover. If you believe in these thirty-year cycles as a quick read of history, then the Internet utopianism of the ’90s was a clear echo of the rock ‘n’ roll fantasies of the ’60s. Now once again we are in the period of retrenchment. The dreams are being rolled back. A corrupt Republican president dismantles our freedoms one cynical move at a time.
Of course, if you squint hard enough just about anything can be seen as analogous to just about anything else.