The post-disillusionment era.

In relation to the divide between modernisers vs  rose-tinted romantics, I’m probably more likely to be numbered amongst the latter. There are certainly things about the past that I miss, and feel we are worse off for having lost. And with regard to the messy hypothetical calculus of whether what we have got that is better is worth losing that which was of value, I'd say the balance feels like it's shifted towards the negative.  

I am particularly nostalgic for the visions of the future from the past. It is striking how such visions of the future tended to be more ambitious and optimistic about moral and social progress, and how imbued they were with humanism and enlightenment ideals that now feel outdated and naive. (though of course there are always important caveats about the injustices that were overlooked). Think, for example, of Gene Roddenberry's Star Trek and the lessons it tried to impart to us about the responsible exercise of human being's technologically enhanced domination of the world.

Why do they feel so outdated to us now? I think it is because we  have largely given up on the twentieth century faith in the potential of human institutions to change the world for the better. What has taken its place feels like a capitulation to  the inexorable and rising tide of harm that unchecked human activity causes. Call me old fashioned but in spite of the fashionability of networks, I still can’t see how spontaneous action can address the structural issues that channel human activity towards self- and planetary destruction. That’s why I’m still mourning the decay and decline of the main institutions of governance that for all their faults at least kept us sane through their promises of a better world.