Sincerity and the Paleo-Future

The Summer 2007 issue of The Wilson Quarterly contains a small blurb about paleo-futurism. You may even recognize the name of a certain paleo-futurist blogger. An excerpt appears below.

Cars still don't fly, the moon remains uninhabited, and at home there's no robot doing the laundry. What happened to the future? To find it, bloggers and sci-fi buffs alike are flocking to websites that explore the paleofuture - "the future that never was." Matt Novak, the man behind paleo-future.blogspot.com, says that in today's cynical age, people crave the sincere and hopeful dreams of yesteryear.

Just to clarify, while we may long for sincerity in a world where sarcasm is the norm, I would rather be around today than at any other time in history. Too often we become nostalgic for a time that never existed. While the world is by no means perfect and there is plenty to do in making it a better place to live, most of us live longer and more comfortably than our great-grandparents did.

This could very well be the naiveté of a recent college graduate, but I feel writing this blog has exposed me to the fact that doomsday prophets are almost always wrong. And I like those odds.

Those of us who love studying history must occasionally take a breath and remember that tomorrow is the only thing we can truly change. So . . . what are you doing tomorrow?

See also:
Article for MungBeing

United States a British Colony (1923)

Author and critic Henry L. Mencken makes some pretty bold predictions in the February 12, 1923 article, "Thinking Men and Women Predict Problems of World Century Hence," published in the Bridgeport Telegram (Bridgeport, Connecticut).

A hundred years hence the United States will be a British colony, its chief function will be to supply imbeciles to read the current English novels and docile cannon fodder for the British Army.

I believe that Prohibition will be overthrown and restored several times before 2022. There will be periods of Prohibition and wholesale drunkeness, as now, and periods of license and moderation. Just how the wave will be running in 2022 I hesitate to predict.

The American who will be most agreeably discussed by Anglo-American historians in 2022 will be Woodrow Wilson, the first Premier of the United American Colonies.

The greatest living American author is Dr. Frank Crane. He will be remembered long after Walt Whitman is forgotten.

See also:
Sinclair Lewis Will Be Read Until Year 2000 (1936)
Thinking Men and Women Predict Problems of World Century Hence (1923)
Pictures Stately Edifices (1923)
Thinks We'll Do Our Reading on Screen (1923)
Work Days of Two Hours (1923)