Welcome To The Warring ’20s

Photo by Marvin Meyer on Unsplash

Things happen two ways: Gradually, and then suddenly

The 1920s must have been a fun time, at least for well-off people. Women were freed from their long, heavy skirts and could cut their hair short. The switch from horses to cars was well underway. About a third of households had telephones. To me, the Roaring ’20s marks a shift into what we think of as modern life.

And as 2020 approached, I remember seeing some memes suggesting we’d soon be enjoying the Roaring ’20s again. I saw some pictures on social media of influencers dressed as flappers, ready to roar. What a blast that must have been — until it became clear that these ’20s would not be roaring at all. 

Every decade has its nickname, and usually we can only see it in retrospect. When you’re in the middle of it, it’s just current life. You can’t get a handle on the specific zeitgeist until you have some distance and perspective. I hope this decade will not be known as the Warring ’20s. We’re two years into this decade, and already we’ve dealt with a lot — do I really need to start a list? 

The 1920s decade was, just like the 2020s, a time of incredible income inequality. The stock market crash of 1929 abruptly quieted the roar. I imagine it came as quite a shock to those who thought their comfortable life was secure. And probably a lot of ordinary people thought that since they didn’t have money in the stock market, the crash would only affect other people. How long, I wonder, did it take the average American to realize that having no stock didn’t mean they’d be unaffected by the crash? You already know what I’m going to ask in this next sentence: How long, I wonder, will it take the average American to realize that not living in Ukraine doesn’t mean they’ll be unaffected by changes in the world?

History tells us many things change slowly and then all at once. 

(Famous line by Ernest Hemingway in The Sun Also Rises: 

“How did you go bankrupt?" 

“Two ways. Gradually, then suddenly.”)

A happier example from history that anybody born before about 1975 will recall: Nobody, including those who fought hardest against the division of East German and West German, foresaw the Berlin Wall coming down when it did. It was unimaginable until it wasn’t.

From everything I can see from my perch in the U.S., very few people in Ukraine actually believed the Russians would invade. Days before the invasion, people were reportedly going about their normal lives. There wasn’t a lot of stockpiling of supplies or other obvious preparations. The headlines in the U.S. every day were some variation of “Biden: Russia Will Invade Ukraine” and then “Russia Seriously Very Close To Invading Ukraine” and then “OK, We Know We Sound Like A Broken Record, But Honest To God, Russia IS Going To Invade Ukraine. Like, Really Soon.” And then Russia invaded Ukraine, and all of us were like, “Wait, what? That can happen in 2022?”

We seem to lack the ability to see and prepare for what’s coming if it’s very different from what we’re used to.

My belief is that we are all going to have to get used to once-unthinkable things happening first gradually and then all at once. (Climate change is the big one.) Don’t get too comfortable or think the changes won’t affect you.