4 ms·

Looking back at media from that time, there was what looks like a quaint optimism now. But from what I remember from living in the '80s, there was also a darkne

by mwfunk 12y ago

Looking back at media from that time, there was what looks like a quaint optimism now. But from what I remember from living in the '80s, there was also a darkness that is just not really a thing anymore. I graduated from high school in 1989, so this is biased by the fact that I was a kid or a teenager throughout the '80s, so I'm not sure to what degree this was just me. But I remember just taking the inevitability of nuclear war almost as a given. It felt like for my whole life the world was trapped in a Mexican standoff, and the inevitable result was the annihilation of all life on the planet. It's still a possibility, of course, but I just remembered spending a lot of time in the '80s thinking it was inevitable. When I remember the goofy '80s stuff, it was always in stark contrast to the apocalyptic stuff. The goofiness and bubbliness of '80s media felt like a reaction to the darkness of the reality. I don't know how much of that undertone of darkness was a shared sentiment vs. my own bias because I was a moody dramatic teenager at the time. The '80s were also the heyday of the global disaster movies, that were about the extinction of the human race. I just remember a steady stream of movies about human extinction from nuclear war, disease, climate change, comets, zombies (of course), aliens, apes, etc. People still make apocalyptic movies, of course, but it just felt like fear of extinction was more in the collective subconscious then than it is now. Or maybe that was just the kind of kid that I was? I'd be interested to hear how others experienced the same years.

Cowicide 12y ago
>I remember just taking the inevitability of nuclear war almost as a given. It was damn closer than most people realize. That nutball Reagan nearly killed all of us: http://www.alternet.org/story/149821/how_reagan_brought_the_world_to_the_brink_of_nuclear_destruction http://www.alternet.org/story/149821/how_reagan_brought_the_... And, we're not out of the woods yet. If we end up with another madman Republican perhaps like McCain, we'll probably get sent over the edge with Russia since we already know that Putin is also a nut. Not to mention Russia was perhaps (arguably) on its way to launching nukes on a false alarm if it wasn't for one guy who didn't follow orders: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov#The_incident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov#The_incident Maybe if he hadn't disobeyed orders someone else would've stopped the launch, maybe not. But, considering the incredible stakes, I think it was all just a bit too close for comfort either way. Moral of the story? Live every day like it's your last day on Earth, because someday it'll be true.
- lupin_sansei 12y ago
  You might find this interesting to balance some of that out a bit: "Think Again: Ronald Reagan - The Gipper wasn't the warhound his conservative followers would have you think." http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/06/07/think_again_ronald_reagan http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/06/07/think_again...
  - Cowicide 12y ago
    Thank you for your article. Keep in mind, the FP article really doesn't do much to discount the piece I linked to and, as a matter of fact, reinforces just how close Reagan brought us to the brink of nuclear destruction. From the FP article you linked to: "His dread only grew by year's end when he learned that his nuclear buildup and anti-Soviet speeches had so terrified Kremlin leaders that they interpreted a nato war game as preparation for a real attack and put their military on high alert." If it wasn't for reforms in the USSR (see Gorbachev), things might have very well ended in a nuclear holocaust due to Reagan's initial war mongering. > to balance some of that out a bit I'm not sure you read the article I linked to fully. It mentions Reagan's efforts to bring us back from the brink after he first disparaged and dismissed the nuclear freeze movement. The article actually mentions the fact that Reagan even went further than activists had asked for: From the article I linked to: " ... by the time of Reagan’s second term, the nuclear weapons policies of his administration actually went far beyond what the organizers of the freeze campaign had advocated. The Reagan Administration did not just halt the nuclear arms race, it actually began to reverse it." But, for FP to try to polish Reagan up as a man of peace terrified of war is a bit delusional once we consider what it took to finally get him to cool his heels and desperately kick in massive damage control in the nick of time before nuclear armageddon. It's also interesting that FP didn't mention activists and their effect on the issue. And, again, if it wasn't for the dumb luck of Gorbachev taking power, I have sincere doubts that Reagan could have rectified his previous war mongering in time. As I said, we came much closer than most realize and Reagan nearly sent us all off the nuclear rails.
    - lupin_sansei 12y ago
      I read the article. It was interesting but like so many others it puts all the blame at Reagan's feet, and brushes over the culture of extreme paranoia the Soviet leadership had at the time due to poor intelligence: "The greatest catalyst to the Able Archer war scare occurred more than two years earlier. In a May 1981 closed-session meeting of senior KGB officers and Soviet leaders, General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev and KGB chairman Yuri Andropov bluntly announced that the United States was preparing a secret nuclear attack on the USSR" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Able_Archer_83#Operation_RYAN http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Able_Archer_83#Operation_RYAN
arh68 12y ago
(: thanks. Your comment helps put [1] in perspective for me, helps place it in the zeitgeist. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Terminator https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Terminator
davidw 12y ago
A nice video that captures some of that is Fishbone's "Party at Ground Zero" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Party_at_Ground_Zero http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Party_at_Ground_Zero
vidarh 12y ago
I grew up in Norway. The pivotal moments of the 80's for me were things like going to school in 1986 and exchange dark jokes about the radiation clouds heading our way from Chernobyl. Or waking up my parents to tell them about the assassination of the Swedish prime minister Olof Palme. And Tiananmen Square. Hardly uplifting moments. And an endless stream of civil wars where the insurgents and governments where alternately supported by the Soviet Union and the US. It was reflected everywhere in popular culture too: One one hand you had the excesses, but on the other you had the post-apocalyptic movies as you point out, and comics. I remember in particular Watchmen, which to me in many ways captures that feeling amazingly well. (I didn't actually read the original when it was released; but I very much remember the discussions around it, and remember seeing the ominous front pages in the news stand as they were released) Ironically, the Watchmen movie caught a lot of flack when it was released for the music choices, many of which seemed strange to those not growing up during that era, or perhaps not growing up in Europe during that era (though set largely in the US, Watchmen is very much British in sensibilities - not surprising given Alan Moore). But songs like Nena's 99 Luft Baloons captured the feeling perfectly for me. A lot of the music in Watchmen was what I listened to in the 80's when I was feeling in melancholic mood... (And since I brought up comics, there's of course Frank Millers "The Dark Knight Returns") A lot of the light-hearted music and movies from the 80's feel like shallow veneer over that darker undercurrent.

by mwfunk 12y ago

Cowicide 12y ago

>I remember just taking the inevitability of nuclear war almost as a given. It was damn closer than most people realize. That nutball Reagan nearly killed all of us: http://www.alternet.org/story/149821/how_reagan_brought_the_world_to_the_brink_of_nuclear_destruction http://www.alternet.org/story/149821/how_reagan_brought_the_... And, we're not out of the woods yet. If we end up with another madman Republican perhaps like McCain, we'll probably get sent over the edge with Russia since we already know that Putin is also a nut. Not to mention Russia was perhaps (arguably) on its way to launching nukes on a false alarm if it wasn't for one guy who didn't follow orders: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov#The_incident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov#The_incident Maybe if he hadn't disobeyed orders someone else would've stopped the launch, maybe not. But, considering the incredible stakes, I think it was all just a bit too close for comfort either way. Moral of the story? Live every day like it's your last day on Earth, because someday it'll be true.

lupin_sansei 12y ago
You might find this interesting to balance some of that out a bit: "Think Again: Ronald Reagan - The Gipper wasn't the warhound his conservative followers would have you think." http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/06/07/think_again_ronald_reagan http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/06/07/think_again...
- Cowicide 12y ago
  Thank you for your article. Keep in mind, the FP article really doesn't do much to discount the piece I linked to and, as a matter of fact, reinforces just how close Reagan brought us to the brink of nuclear destruction. From the FP article you linked to: "His dread only grew by year's end when he learned that his nuclear buildup and anti-Soviet speeches had so terrified Kremlin leaders that they interpreted a nato war game as preparation for a real attack and put their military on high alert." If it wasn't for reforms in the USSR (see Gorbachev), things might have very well ended in a nuclear holocaust due to Reagan's initial war mongering. > to balance some of that out a bit I'm not sure you read the article I linked to fully. It mentions Reagan's efforts to bring us back from the brink after he first disparaged and dismissed the nuclear freeze movement. The article actually mentions the fact that Reagan even went further than activists had asked for: From the article I linked to: " ... by the time of Reagan’s second term, the nuclear weapons policies of his administration actually went far beyond what the organizers of the freeze campaign had advocated. The Reagan Administration did not just halt the nuclear arms race, it actually began to reverse it." But, for FP to try to polish Reagan up as a man of peace terrified of war is a bit delusional once we consider what it took to finally get him to cool his heels and desperately kick in massive damage control in the nick of time before nuclear armageddon. It's also interesting that FP didn't mention activists and their effect on the issue. And, again, if it wasn't for the dumb luck of Gorbachev taking power, I have sincere doubts that Reagan could have rectified his previous war mongering in time. As I said, we came much closer than most realize and Reagan nearly sent us all off the nuclear rails.
  - lupin_sansei 12y ago
    I read the article. It was interesting but like so many others it puts all the blame at Reagan's feet, and brushes over the culture of extreme paranoia the Soviet leadership had at the time due to poor intelligence: "The greatest catalyst to the Able Archer war scare occurred more than two years earlier. In a May 1981 closed-session meeting of senior KGB officers and Soviet leaders, General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev and KGB chairman Yuri Andropov bluntly announced that the United States was preparing a secret nuclear attack on the USSR" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Able_Archer_83#Operation_RYAN http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Able_Archer_83#Operation_RYAN

arh68 12y ago

(: thanks. Your comment helps put [1] in perspective for me, helps place it in the zeitgeist. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Terminator https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Terminator

davidw 12y ago

A nice video that captures some of that is Fishbone's "Party at Ground Zero" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Party_at_Ground_Zero http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Party_at_Ground_Zero

vidarh 12y ago

I grew up in Norway. The pivotal moments of the 80's for me were things like going to school in 1986 and exchange dark jokes about the radiation clouds heading our way from Chernobyl. Or waking up my parents to tell them about the assassination of the Swedish prime minister Olof Palme. And Tiananmen Square. Hardly uplifting moments. And an endless stream of civil wars where the insurgents and governments where alternately supported by the Soviet Union and the US. It was reflected everywhere in popular culture too: One one hand you had the excesses, but on the other you had the post-apocalyptic movies as you point out, and comics. I remember in particular Watchmen, which to me in many ways captures that feeling amazingly well. (I didn't actually read the original when it was released; but I very much remember the discussions around it, and remember seeing the ominous front pages in the news stand as they were released) Ironically, the Watchmen movie caught a lot of flack when it was released for the music choices, many of which seemed strange to those not growing up during that era, or perhaps not growing up in Europe during that era (though set largely in the US, Watchmen is very much British in sensibilities - not surprising given Alan Moore). But songs like Nena's 99 Luft Baloons captured the feeling perfectly for me. A lot of the music in Watchmen was what I listened to in the 80's when I was feeling in melancholic mood... (And since I brought up comics, there's of course Frank Millers "The Dark Knight Returns") A lot of the light-hearted music and movies from the 80's feel like shallow veneer over that darker undercurrent.