How Will Our Descendants Remember the 20th Century?

[Zyobot]

Though human history is regnant with strife, advancement, and geopolitical change, the 20th Century stands out as an exception to us 2018 people. Those hundred years included two World Wars, the Cold War and the dawn of America’s global supremacy. The venerable European empires crumbled to communism, fascism and the exhaustion of wartime, swept up by rushed Americanization or Sovietization respectively. Mass communication reached a new stage with telephone, radio and motion pictures. Airplanes and automobiles changed human travel forever. And at its tail end, the 20th Century gave rise to an innovation that has become fundamental to the 21st: the Internet.

From our (admittedly colored) perspective, the 20th Century is among the most significant and world-shaping periods in human history. But what will our descendants—especially those born into the 22nd Century and beyond—make of those tumultuous times?

For example, will our descendants living 100+ years from now regard the 1900s as we 2018 people regard the 1800s? Might it seem like the Middle Ages to those around in ~3000 AD? What other views could the 20th Century garner from our descendants living in the distant, and disconnected future?

Thank you in advance,
Zyobot

[eurowatch]

Sept 20, 2018 1:28:01 GMT Zyobot said:

Though human history is regnant with strife, advancement, and geopolitical change, the 20th Century stands out as an exception to us 2018 people. Those hundred years included two World Wars, the Cold War and the dawn of America’s global supremacy. The venerable European empires crumbled to communism, fascism and the exhaustion of wartime, swept up by rushed Americanization or Sovietization respectively. Mass communication reached a new stage with telephone, radio and motion pictures. Airplanes and automobiles changed human travel forever. And at its tail end, the 20th Century gave rise to an innovation that has become fundamental to the 21st: the Internet.

From our (admittedly colored) perspective, the 20th Century is among the most significant and world-shaping periods in human history. But what will our descendants—especially those born into the 22nd Century and beyond—make of those tumultuous times?

For example, will our descendants living 100+ years from now regard the 1900s as we 2018 people regard the 1800s? Might it seem like the Middle Ages to those around in ~3000 AD? What other views could the 20th Century garner from our descendants living in the distant, and disconnected future?

Thank you in advance,
Zyobot

I assume you are right in that the farther into the future People live, the less significant they are going to find inventions or events that were groundbreaking to us. To use Your 1800s anology, for People living then the Napoleonic Wars or the American Civil War must have seen comparable to how we view the World War 1 and 2 now, wars that completly changed the way wars were fought and gave rise to the British Empire as the first global superpower. On the scientific front many inventions like steam engines, electricity, vaccines etc. etc. completly reshaped the way People lived their lives and made Western hegemony as we remember it possible because now it was suddenly all "we have the Maxim gun and they don't". Today we regard those wars as important but not "that" important and take all those inventions for granted.
Same Thing With the 1800s attitude to the 1600s, which for the People living then also must have seen like an era of change and possibilities. 

So using that example, the poeple living in the 2200s are going to think of Our time period as interesting, but not as interesting as what happened last Century when they began colonising the Solar System or some gigantic war happened.

[Zyobot]

It's been a while since anyone's touched this thread; I hope for it to be an ongoing one throughout the coming years, but I'll have to wait and see.

Can we predict how WW2 will be remembered by the mid-to-late 21st and early 22nd Centuries? I imagine that unless some cataclysm overshadows it in the future, its sheer scale--from death toll to industrial output--will leave behind quite the legacy and continue to shape the collective cultures, policies, and (I guess you could say) general systems of European, as well as Asian geopolitics for generations.

What about Korea, Vietnam and whatever other conflicts that the US has become embroiled in during the past few decades? Or even the greater Cold War, with its worldwide, potentially extinctive standoff between the Free World and the Suppressed One, so-to-speak?

[Zyobot]

Oct 11, 2018 8:49:38 GMT Zyobot said:

It's been a while since anyone's touched this thread; I hope for it to be an ongoing one throughout the coming years, but I'll have to wait and see.

Can we predict how WW2 will be remembered by the mid-to-late 21st and early 22nd Centuries? I imagine that unless some cataclysm overshadows it in the future, its sheer scale--from death toll to industrial output--will leave behind quite the legacy and continue to shape the collective cultures, policies, and (I guess you could say) general systems of European, as well as Asian geopolitics for generations.

What about Korea, Vietnam and whatever other conflicts that the US has become embroiled in during the past few decades? Or even the greater Cold War, with its worldwide, potentially extinctive standoff between the Free World and the Suppressed One, so-to-speak?

To continue on this, I'm especially interested to see how countries that had transformative experiences during the 20th Century (whether good or bad) remember them by the late 21st/early 22nd ones, when we can safely say that everyone who witnessed them is long dead.

By this, I mean how will a still-surviving Russia regard the long-gone USSR, or what will former Axis Powers make of their WW2-era counterparts? 2100s+ China's memory of the Civil War, Great Leap Forward, Cultural Revolution, etcetera is certainly something to speculate on, too. Similar can be said of former Communist Bloc nations as well as Korea, depending on how its future turns out.

[stevep]

Nov 21, 2018 14:48:08 GMT Zyobot said:

Oct 11, 2018 8:49:38 GMT Zyobot said:

It's been a while since anyone's touched this thread; I hope for it to be an ongoing one throughout the coming years, but I'll have to wait and see.

Can we predict how WW2 will be remembered by the mid-to-late 21st and early 22nd Centuries? I imagine that unless some cataclysm overshadows it in the future, its sheer scale--from death toll to industrial output--will leave behind quite the legacy and continue to shape the collective cultures, policies, and (I guess you could say) general systems of European, as well as Asian geopolitics for generations.

What about Korea, Vietnam and whatever other conflicts that the US has become embroiled in during the past few decades? Or even the greater Cold War, with its worldwide, potentially extinctive standoff between the Free World and the Suppressed One, so-to-speak?

To continue on this, I'm especially interested to see how countries that had transformative experiences during the 20th Century (whether good or bad) remember them by the late 21st/early 22nd ones, when we can safely say that everyone who witnessed them is long dead.

By this, I mean how will a still-surviving Russia regard the long-gone USSR, or what will former Axis Powers make of their WW2-era counterparts? 2100s+ China's memory of the Civil War, Great Leap Forward, Cultural Revolution, etcetera is certainly something to speculate on, too. Similar can be said of former Communist Bloc nations as well as Korea, depending on how its future turns out.

  I think it depends far too much on how things develop in those countries/regions in the time until the end of this century as that will shape how things further back are viewed.  If we have a relatively liberal world then things like the atrocities of the Nazis and Communists are still likely to be prominent as very dark periods in human history.  Alternatively if its a much darker world with widespread human rights abuse and distortions of history you could have the facts about what happened and whether they was viewed as almost normal.  If there are still autocratic regimes in Russia and/or China then their likely, unless they have a reason to demonise their predecessors, to seek to deny any suffering or failings by their countries.

[Zyobot]

Nov 21, 2018 16:50:57 GMT stevep said:

Nov 21, 2018 14:48:08 GMT Zyobot said:

To continue on this, I'm especially interested to see how countries that had transformative experiences during the 20th Century (whether good or bad) remember them by the late 21st/early 22nd ones, when we can safely say that everyone who witnessed them is long dead.

By this, I mean how will a still-surviving Russia regard the long-gone USSR, or what will former Axis Powers make of their WW2-era counterparts? 2100s+ China's memory of the Civil War, Great Leap Forward, Cultural Revolution, etcetera is certainly something to speculate on, too. Similar can be said of former Communist Bloc nations as well as Korea, depending on how its future turns out.

  I think it depends far too much on how things develop in those countries/regions in the time until the end of this century as that will shape how things further back are viewed.  If we have a relatively liberal world then things like the atrocities of the Nazis and Communists are still likely to be prominent as very dark periods in human history.  Alternatively if its a much darker world with widespread human rights abuse and distortions of history you could have the facts about what happened and whether they was viewed as almost normal.  If there are still autocratic regimes in Russia and/or China then their likely, unless they have a reason to demonise their predecessors, to seek to deny any suffering or failings by their countries.

I'm also concerned about what sort of effect the inevitable extinction of the remaining WW2, Korea, Vietnam, etcétera-war veterans will have on how our descendants perceive those periods in history and, of course, behave towards one another. I've read a prediction or two that a tiny minority of the first few might celebrate/mourn/reflect upon the 100th anniversary of Pearl Harbor, but the accuracy and long-term reliability of such reports can be questionable, to say the least.

Regardless of when they finally bite the big one, though, I don't know that it'd be quite like the passing of the last WW1 veterans. Keep in mind that even with them no longer with us, we still had plenty of decades-younger elders who served in its bigger brother (which was WW2, of course) to directly tell us about how horrible conflict on that scale can be. Having all witnesses of one of two World Wars dead =/= having all witnesses of both World Wars dead.

And I fear that their collective passings might make it all that much easier for future generations to repeat their mistakes.

Assuming that enough goes well and that society remains functioning and stable by the late 21st/early 22nd Century, I might live to tell my grandkids about how it was to have grown up alongside the last Greatest Generation members--not to mention today's divisive political climate, the beginnings of the Information Age, all of those topics that aren't to be discussed in the FH forum.

[kyng]

I expect the first half of the 20th century will be viewed negatively, but without the same emotional resonance as it is today, since the remaining veterans will be long-gone by then. As for the second half, I think what people will remember best will be the fact that the Cold War never turned 'hot': the existence of the United Nations - and, even more so, the existence of nuclear weapons - had proven to be a true game-changer in global politics. However, the wars that occurred during this period (such as the Korean War, Vietnam War and Gulf War) will just be footnotes in history by that point.

As for our technology (electronics, the internet and so on), this will be recognised as important, but just regarded as a 'rung on the ladder', like how we regard the steam engine.

[Zyobot]

One person on AH.com said that far-future people might remember WW2 as we regard the Thirty Years' War. In the long term, I can see this being true.

In the (historically-speaking) short one, however, I think that late 21st/22nd Century-era society will treat either of the World Wars as more akin to how modern people treat the Napoleonic Wars.

What do the rest of you think?

[stevep]

Dec 22, 2018 4:05:26 GMT Zyobot said:

One person on AH.com said that far-future people might remember WW2 as we regard the Thirty Years' War. In the long term, I can see this being true.

In the (historically-speaking) short one, however, I think that late 21st/22nd Century-era society will treat either of the World Wars as more akin to how modern people treat the Napoleonic Wars.

What do the rest of you think?

  Probably more akin to the Napoleonic wars as that was a world war while the 30YW was largely confined to central Europe.  Especially once the last survivors of WWII die.  Although the one big factor of course is that we have recordings, both from the times and of veterans afterwards as well as of analysis of some key buildings, battles etc, which didn't really exist, other than fairly primitive photos, for earlier wars such as the USCW and the Boer war.  Coupled with the fact that such information is very easy for people to see from the internet and widespread films, TVs etc.  Those will make for a more lasting connection with the two world wars, as will things like Armistice day in many countries and the widespread war memorials and graveyards.  However as the survivors and people who personally knew them die out the connection will be more distant. 

  Of course this is assuming of course that another great conflict doesn't eclipse the world wars in popular consciousness.  I hope not as it could be very, very destructive, even without nukes being used, but that is another factor as memories of the world wars recede.

[Zyobot]

I wonder how the 100th anniversary of various key events of WW2 will go--from its (albeit debatable) initiation when German forces blitzed Poland on September 1, 1939, to a battered Japan's surrender on September 2, 1945. Once September 2, 2045 finally rolls around, we can finally claim that the Second World War--from beginning to end--took place a century ago; I feel surreal just thinking about how life will be with no more Greatest Generation members left.

To a lesser extent, I also feel this way about remembering the Korean War, the Vietnam War, etcétera. Eventually, society will reflect on the 100th anniversary of 9/11, and the War on Terror that ensued. But there's little assurance that I'll become a centenarian who witnesses those commemorations happen.

Either way, though, I hope that I live to see such turmoil confined to the history books. Fifty, sixty, seventy more years is a lot of time for things to get better, or to get worse...

[kyng]

Yeah, it's going to be a surreal occasion, for sure.

I was thinking about this earlier this year, during the centenary of the end of World War I. When I was first growing up and learning about the war, it was less than 80 years in the past; there were still quite a few veterans alive; and I felt as though it was still very much a part of what had built "Modern Britain". However, now that it's over a century in the past, all of the veterans have passed away, and anyone who remembers the war at all will likely be gone in a few short years. Consequently, I've found myself starting to think of World War I in much the same way that I think about the Napoleonic Wars: a very important part of history, but slowly becoming little more than history. Sure, our connection to WWI is still stronger than our connection to the Napoleonic Wars, but it'll inevitably get fainter and more distant over time.

It could be that, in 30 years' time, I'll be thinking about World War II in the same way. However, after 50 years of recognising the legacy of World War II as "part of the fabric of the modern nation", I might find that feeling harder to shake.

[Zyobot]

Dec 24, 2018 13:59:42 GMT kyng said:

Yeah, it's going to be a surreal occasion, for sure.

I was thinking about this earlier this year, during the centenary of the end of World War I. When I was first growing up and learning about the war, it was less than 80 years in the past; there were still quite a few veterans alive; and I felt as though it was still very much a part of what had built "Modern Britain". However, now that it's over a century in the past, all of the veterans have passed away, and anyone who remembers the war at all will likely be gone in a few short years. Consequently, I've found myself starting to think of World War I in much the same way that I think about the Napoleonic Wars: a very important part of history, but slowly becoming little more than history. Sure, our connection to WWI is still stronger than our connection to the Napoleonic Wars, but it'll inevitably get fainter and more distant over time.

It could be that, in 30 years' time, I'll be thinking about World War II in the same way. However, after 50 years of recognising the legacy of World War II as "part of the fabric of the modern nation", I might find that feeling harder to shake.

Your post raised/expanded upon some intriguing points about that. It'll be real interesting if and when in fifty, sixty, maybe seventy years' time, I'm able to tell my grandkids about how life was when WW2 veterans walked the earth. As unfortunate as the final passing of the Greatest Generation may be, I hope that no one--at least in my lifetime--will have to relive their experiences; it saddens me that anyone would be forced go through that. As such, I hope that our descendants wise up and work towards building a more united, cooperative and negotiable global society. But I can't guarantee that they'll be successful.

Once ~2045 and the years surrounding it roll around, someone should write an ISOT back to the mid/late 20th Century (when WW2 veterans were younger/middle-aged folks). Though it doesn't need to have remembrance as its main focus, I would want a chapter or so to explore how the uptimers remember those conflicts compared to the downtimers. The latter would be dismayed that the former have come from a time where the Greatest Generation is all gone, and a number of them would be transfixed on uptimer documentaries that reflect on the centennial of this or that key event. In fact, I'm already thinking of how an official speech on such a topic would proceed (i.e. on the 40th/100th anniversary of VE Day).