Why Milliennials Won’t Get A Cold War
Technology Connects Us
Recently over a long holiday weekend, I had the opportunity to see Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy the movie, an adaptation of the now famous John Le Carré (nom de plume of David John Moore Cornwell) novel – part of a series that focuses on character George Smiley.
Gary Oldham is in an Oscar-worthy role as George Smiley and is the number 2 in command to Control, played brilliantly by John Hurt. While I strongly recommend this very character-driven movie, I realize that it is not for everyone. Especially if you are into blow-em-up Hollywood blockbusters – this one is meant for those bookish types who prefer politics and intrigue to titillation and special effects.
That said, my friend Michael Fuller, an old-school chap from London, escorted me. He chortled that I was a mere babe in the 70’s and would not know much of the cold war. But, I reminded him that I was around in the 80’s and remember distinctly the speech that then US President Ronald Reagan gave in West Berlin at the Brandenburg gate that June day in 1987 requesting that Mikhail Gorbachev tear down the Berlin wall. It took nearly two years later in November of 1989 the wall finally came crumbling down. As the rest of Europe watched in awe as the cold war became luke-warm.
I often wonder if social media were available to the masses then as it is now, would there have been an ‘Occupy’ movement or something reminiscent of the Arab Spring?
At the risk of sounding like an old cow, we lived in the dark. Millennials have social media to thank for being well informed and educated on the socio-economic world-scape. We had to seek it out by reading it in a newspaper or, magazine, hear it on radio, or watch it on the television news.
The world is warmer now. We are more connected than ever before, technology and innovation have allowed the news to find us! Millennials will never know what it is like to go without information. There will never be a COLD WAR for them and for that I am thankful.
Graphic credit: Cold War Museum