By John Harris (China Daily)
Updated: 2008-01-16 07:41

With two years until 2010, now may be as good a time as any to ask the inevitable question: how will this decade be reduced to historical shorthand?

The answer may combine consumerist dazzle with encroaching dread. The spirit of the age also revolves around a paradox: that in an era of supposedly rapid change, our popular culture is defined by a mass refusal to let go of the past.

References to postmodernism will not work here, because what is afoot is far more culturally stifling than that very worn-out term implies. Think about it this way: whereas, say, 1968 and 1958 denoted two different worlds, how is it that 2008 and 1998 seem so close?

Pop is a pretty good place to start. The idea that the people's music was ever defined by built-in obsolescence now looks absurdly quaint.

The new year brought news that an end-of-the-pier extravaganza known as Here & Now is on to its seventh tour, filling the Britain's indoor arenas with crowds eager to see 1980s throwbacks such as Bananarama and Rick Astley.

Should you want to relive the 1990s, take your pick from back-together bands such as the Verve and My Bloody Valentine, or look at the lists of this year's most eagerly awaited albums - among them offerings from Oasis, REM, Madonna and Lenny Kravitz.

TV exhibits similar symptoms, and cinema can feel much the same, partly thanks to Hollywood's fondness for putting jump-leads on old favorites.

Most remarkably of all, an almost neurotic retrospection increasingly carries over into the small change of everyday lives. Across the globe, 18 million people subscribe to Friends Reunited, keen to rekindle playground bonds that are usually best forgotten, and one of the appeals of more cutting-edge social networking to anyone over 20 is much the same.

A case might be made for all this future denial being an inevitable response to our horizons being cast in terms of post-9/11 dread and ecological apocalypse.

More relevant, perhaps, is the reinvention of what age entails, and the power wielded by people who affect to stay young by endlessly reviving their past.

The best bet, however, might be to recognize that fixating on the past is an in-built aspect of the human condition, but limited technology used to keep it in check.

Nineties nostalgia is growing fast. Today's sober look back at the current decade will surely be tomorrow's dewy eyed retro-fest. As the world carries on spiraling who-knows-where at speed, in pop-cultural terms, time crawls. Having thought about all this for a couple of days, I have got a very old-fashioned headache.

The Guardian

(China Daily 01/16/2008 page9)