This was going to be about how September 11* served as eerie metaphorical foreshadowing for the decade that followed. Basically: In the 00s, we saw loosely organized nodes of ordinary people (al-Qaeda, bloggers, file sharers) wreak havoc on behemoth institutions that should've totally outclassed them in terms of resources and experience (America, the news industry, the music industry). Deep, right? But-

But that thesis didn't bear more than a few minutes of scrutiny, mostly because I couldn't think of any examples beyond those three. (It seemed especially delinquent not to mention, you know, the economy just because I couldn't figure out how to fit it in.) I mean, I do think the terrorism and the Daily Kos and the Pirate Bay are all a result of the same underlying truths about how technology has shifted power away from big corporate organizations to individuals and small groups-but honestly (and not surprisingly), the argument was not lending itself well to a several-hundred-word blog post.

That said, this was still totally the decade when institutions crumbled.

Obviously, the 90s set the stage for it, but seriously, ten years ago, was not everything a distant-seeming threat? I graduated from journalism school in 1999, and yes, professors were talking about how the Internet was going to affect newspapers (no one thought it would affect TV news, because online video was not going to happen for so long), but it's not like anyone had lost a job over it. As for music and terror, they sort of went hand in hand, because the rise of rap-rock was about the scariest thing ever. Anyway, the RIAA was fretting over Napster, but most of us still bought CDs, and getting blown up only happened in much browner countries, or Ireland. And the economy wasn't so hot then, either, post-dotcom-bubble, but it wasn't like today.

Also: The Star Wars trilogy was an incontrovertible, uncorrupted masterpiece of mainstream storytelling (as was Indiana Jones, for the most part!). Apple was the perpetual underdog to Microsoft, and the choice of the punctilious and pampered. Even if you didn't like The New York Times, you were pretty sure they weren't making up stories out of thin air, and that they'd be around forever. "Lennon/McCartney" was sacrosanct. Dan Rather, Peter Jennings, Ted Koppel, and Tom Brokaw-all still on the air. Generally, "scientist" and "expert" were regarded as highly thought of, even if they couldn't figure out whether eggs were bad for you or not. People cared about baseball, especially Red Sox fans. Gay marriage sounded kinda crazy! America was very clearly the good guy, at least to most Americans. And Christmas shopping was a frantic annual hell-day that meant getting in a car and going somewhere full of people and decorations and music. Whereas this year, I did mine at three o'clock in the morning in a cold and silent basement office.

The point is, there was an element of certainty to everything in the pre-millennium, and it might have been an illusion, Michael-indeed, it was; a lot of the above hadn't been institutions for all that long themselves-but also it wasn't. There really was a little more certainty, because there were: (1) more experiences shared by larger groups of people, (2) fewer experiences overall, and (3) less ongoing and pervasive analysis of said experiences.

Not that I am complaining about what we have now. Yeah, it's annoying when you find some dude with an "American Dad" avatar calling Thomas Merton an uninformed asshat, but I suppose it's all ultimately for the greater good. (And obviously, gay marriage not sounding crazy anymore is a win. Oh, and: black president.) It would be easier if people would shut up and blindly accept the shit that most of us know is true, but that's not going to happen, and also it would be fascism, and besides, "the shit that most of us know is true" has become an increasingly smaller category.

Bertrand Russell said the great discovery of the 20th century was the technique of the suspended judgment. Ha! He may have been right, but it sure doesn't seem like anyone told the 21st century (although I will have to think about it some more and get back to you later, ha ha). On my more optimistic days, though, I can see how the new media have started to bring that lesson home in the new millennium. The proliferation of opinions out there-reasonably well-thought-out opinions, even-makes it tough for all but the willfully obstinate not to notice that they might be wrong, or at least not the only one who's right. Not that the willfully obstinate are going away soon or not a serious force to be reckoned with-but even the ferociousness with which they cling to their long-held mind-sets is pretty telling evidence of how badly so much of what they depended on is breaking down.

None of this is news, and you could argue, of course, that the past decade hasn't been any more institutionally crumbly than those previous to it. And you may be right and I may be wrong, but as should be obvious from the preceding paragraphs**, it's the sort of question we can no longer fool ourselves into thinking we can answer definitively. SO WHERE DOES THAT LEAVE US?

This fall, I reread the Book of Ecclesiastes, which was already dealing with existential crises and the ephemerality of everything, the lack of reliability inherent in our occupation of these four dimensions, and the rest of it so, so long ago. Vanity, vanity, all is vanity; useless, useless, everything is useless. But:

Then I commended mirth, because a man hath no better thing under the sun, than to eat, and to drink, and to be merry: for that shall abide with him of his labour the days of his life, which God giveth him under the sun.

Not very deep, I know. But it promotes as timeless an institution as you're likely to find, in this or any decade. Happy New Year.

Josh Wimmer promises this was better than the 9/11 thing.

* 2001.
** By which I mean: I am totally the one who is right.