"What about the feeling that it's all been done?"
I feel there's nothing I can do except admit that I often question whether anything other than what we already know is possible. To an extent I think that is actually true - meaning we, humans, have not evolved enough intellectually for breakthrough innovations. Many people feel that we are at a standstill and are resorting to recycling old ideas. For example, take a look at the clothing style; after the early 90's we began to see the 70's style coming back and then the 50's "polo/prep" style and then to the current 80's retro. Zengotita questioned, "How many different ways can a finite set of shapes and colors be arranged in a finite space?" I believe that every century people have been pondering these very questions. It does seem impossible for anything new and unique to come around, but it will, in time. The problem with our period in time, is that we are a society living in the fast lane; we want everything at the push of a button. If we just look at how far music, for example, has progressed in the last 50 years, it is amazing compared to that of centuries ago. In the last 50 years, we have seen maybe 15 very different styles of music, whereas centuries ago, new styles were invented every 50-100 years. Basically, we perceive our society to have finite ideas in a world of infinite possibilities. Because our minds cannot comprehend the concept of infinity, we can't believe that is hasn't all been done before.
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These are good points, and you're right that cultural changes occur more quickly now than ever before. I guess I just wonder how different all the musical styles of the last fifty years are. There's rock, and there's jazz. Country and folk, I guess, but those are really old genres, in fact, all the way back to medieval Europe. And, what else? Techno? Electronic? disco? Emo? Punk? The differences between these are pretty slim at times, and I think that's part of what the article is saying. At some point, the differences will be so small that we won't be able to tell them apart at all, even if, at some microscopic level, they will still be "unique." But maybe that's just what happens when you get older and things seem to be repeating themselves (with variations, of course).
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