Western civilization was barely touched by the top 3. Covid has changed everything. Things none of us thought possible are happening day after day and things may never be back to normal. The world will certainly never be the same again.
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which one of these were the most consequential event for the western civilization?
- Thread starter cursed knowledge
- Start date
End of the USSR, it helped take the boot off of tens of millions of people and allow self determination.
we are still knee deep in Covid, so too soon for that
we are still knee deep in Covid, so too soon for that
I'm American and voted for the Berlin Wall, unless you meant it differently
I think 9/11 reordered our (US) entire perspective as a society in a very short amount of time. We are still living in its shadow in many ways, and we have not reckoned with it at all.
The fall of the USSR was a slow moving event that everyone saw coming. I don't think it had as big of an impact as an actual event.
The fall of the USSR was a slow moving event that everyone saw coming. I don't think it had as big of an impact as an actual event.
The end of the Cold War. If you weren't alive back then, it's hard to convey the constant dread. That fucking TV movie "The Day After" is literally the only movie that has ever legitimately scared me.
And that's just the personal angle. The worldwide consequences are immense. Every other nation on all the northern continents, at least, was heavily affected by the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
And that's just the personal angle. The worldwide consequences are immense. Every other nation on all the northern continents, at least, was heavily affected by the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
Fall of the Soviet Union. It's the second or third most important event of the 20th century, behind perhaps the allied victory of world war 2, and a handful of other events like Hitler's election to the bundestag, or even some good ones -- the space race, the discovery of modern medicines and vaccines, anti colonial movements in Africa.
Also in terms of like reshaping the world, the fall of the USSR changed the global world order. 9/11 did to a degree as well but not as permanent, and largely America/Europe focused. Covid likely won't reshape the world order like the fall of the Soviet Union, it'll have an affect of course but more so on domestic politics in the US.
Covid will "hopefully" have the same affect as like, the Spanish Flu of 1918, and don't forget prior to the last few years, the Spanish flu was called "The forgotten pandemic," it wasn't until a slew of 100 year anniversaries of it and then this coronavirus that it really captured the public imagination. It's sort of hard to think that in a generation of two people will "forget" about the Coronavirus, but....y'know... Here's hoping we do.
www.economist.com
Also in terms of like reshaping the world, the fall of the USSR changed the global world order. 9/11 did to a degree as well but not as permanent, and largely America/Europe focused. Covid likely won't reshape the world order like the fall of the Soviet Union, it'll have an affect of course but more so on domestic politics in the US.
Covid will "hopefully" have the same affect as like, the Spanish Flu of 1918, and don't forget prior to the last few years, the Spanish flu was called "The forgotten pandemic," it wasn't until a slew of 100 year anniversaries of it and then this coronavirus that it really captured the public imagination. It's sort of hard to think that in a generation of two people will "forget" about the Coronavirus, but....y'know... Here's hoping we do.
How the Spanish flu of 1918-20 was largely forgotten
The Economist under-reported the pandemic. Many victims were counted among the dead of the first world war
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Then the limited viewpoint of Western Civilization is what I find odd.
well it seems pretty possible that Covid changes the world order vis a vis China. though the likelihood of accountability seems to be decreasing by the day.
I'm (legit not snarky) curious which direction it'll change vis a vis China, you think?
(Legit curious not snarky/assholish because I can see it going both ways but want to hear your take)
World War II was directly caused by World War I.
Is there any other event that had a greater effect on modern history than WW1? I can't think of anything.
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From what I've read (mostly just that Mary Beard book), Rome at the time of Alexander's death might've actually been able to field an army about the same size as Alexander's. Alexander coincidentally died just as Rome's military machine was just getting started. They were already the big boys in Italy by then.
Romans in the 2nd and 1st centuries BC considered it one of the great what-ifs of history.
This is the big one I think about -- what if Ogedei had lived longer and the Mongol invasion of Europe hadn't stopped. People say the Germans and the French wouldn't have stood a chance against them, but others suggest central and western European weather would've been less conducive to Mongol equipment. Some even suggest one of the reasons the west pulled ahead of the rest of the world developmentally is because it dodged the Mongol invasions while places like Eastern Europe and the Middle East got destroyed.
If you think hard enough about it, WW1 is nothing but a sequel to the Franco-Prussian War.
kind of nuts that the world we know now is cause some guy decided to stick around just in case.
The fall of the Berlin Wall because it sits on this timeline: World War 1 -> World War 2 -> Berlin Wall -> Fall of the Berlin Wall -> the Present.
The last 100 years of mankind and global politics, countries and their societies as we know them were defined by that timeline.
The last 100 years of mankind and global politics, countries and their societies as we know them were defined by that timeline.
Franco-Prussian War --> WWI --> WW2 --> Cold War --> Cold War proxy war creates Bin Laden and Al Qaeda --> 9/11 --> Afghanistan/Iraq/War on Terror
Could chain shit together for a looong time.
Will be interesting how COVID will be noted in the history books.
Hope it won't be something like:
"To get a real perspective on how the Third World War has started,we have to go back to 2020, where geopolitics started to nosedive and tensions between China, the EU and the US thanks to the pandemic were on the rise. This marked the year where every country started to isolate from the rest of the world, which in turn lead to suffering in their populations that the far right political parties abused to gain power once again. Trumps reelection, made possible by him acquiring a Covid 19 vaccine with the use of the military, was the biggest step in the US's way to become the one party country we know today.
At the same time, the EU's(European Union see S.154 for further reference) split was set in motion which also was a big contributor on the NEE's(Northern Europe Empire) founding just three years later in 2023 under the reign of (at that time)Germany's AFD party....."
As long as it's not something like this, I say the fall of the USSR. The above is of course not something I think will happen, but future implications on current events are unpredictable. Just like I had no thought about the war on terror and its consequences when I saw the towers collapsing on live TV.
Hope it won't be something like:
"To get a real perspective on how the Third World War has started,we have to go back to 2020, where geopolitics started to nosedive and tensions between China, the EU and the US thanks to the pandemic were on the rise. This marked the year where every country started to isolate from the rest of the world, which in turn lead to suffering in their populations that the far right political parties abused to gain power once again. Trumps reelection, made possible by him acquiring a Covid 19 vaccine with the use of the military, was the biggest step in the US's way to become the one party country we know today.
At the same time, the EU's(European Union see S.154 for further reference) split was set in motion which also was a big contributor on the NEE's(Northern Europe Empire) founding just three years later in 2023 under the reign of (at that time)Germany's AFD party....."
As long as it's not something like this, I say the fall of the USSR. The above is of course not something I think will happen, but future implications on current events are unpredictable. Just like I had no thought about the war on terror and its consequences when I saw the towers collapsing on live TV.
Cold War style tensions between the U.S. and China. It certainly feels things were already trending that way and Covid seems to be accelerating it.
I think the Fall of the Soviet Union (in the way it fell) will in the long-term be looked back upon as a destabilising factor in world peace and geopolitics.
Whilst undeniably a coup for human rights and democracy, the opportunities presented by its fall to truly create a unified and coherent global strategy to the biggest problems of our day were, mostly, missed out on.
And I think the absence of a global superpower in opposition to the west, ideologically, has had the dual impact of both weakening the values of the west and also allowing other, perhaps worse powers (centralised and not) to fill the power vacuum left by the USSR. At least the Soviet Union was a known and stable quantity with broadly knowable objectives. The world we live in today is more complex and I think we're still very much in the short-term impact stage of its fall.
I think that short-term impact was mostly very positive and it's great to see how former Warsaw pact countries have bounced back. But it remains to be seen how the long-term impacts will transpire. There's not enough distance.
It's easily the biggest world event since WW2 though and the biggest there will be for some time, I imagine. 9/11 doesn't hold a candle to it.
Whilst undeniably a coup for human rights and democracy, the opportunities presented by its fall to truly create a unified and coherent global strategy to the biggest problems of our day were, mostly, missed out on.
And I think the absence of a global superpower in opposition to the west, ideologically, has had the dual impact of both weakening the values of the west and also allowing other, perhaps worse powers (centralised and not) to fill the power vacuum left by the USSR. At least the Soviet Union was a known and stable quantity with broadly knowable objectives. The world we live in today is more complex and I think we're still very much in the short-term impact stage of its fall.
I think that short-term impact was mostly very positive and it's great to see how former Warsaw pact countries have bounced back. But it remains to be seen how the long-term impacts will transpire. There's not enough distance.
It's easily the biggest world event since WW2 though and the biggest there will be for some time, I imagine. 9/11 doesn't hold a candle to it.
We're not far away from COVID to tell know destructive it will be. However, given all the unemployment trends, it will be devastating for a long time.
Here we're talking about important world events and you're just comparing TV shows smh
Most people on ERA weren't even born yet. 9/11 is nothing to what the Cold War brought upon the world (both the good and the bad).
9/11 aftermath still actually impacts most people on a regular basis. any time you travel for example. and the bigotry and hate towards Muslims to name another one. just the other day I wasn't able to send a pair of tiny audio speakers by air to sweden because apparently speakers are weapons of mass destruction and are banned on airplanes. before 9/11 the world was much more convenient in many ways.
we'll probably get a recession thanks to covid but I don't predict any long lasting cultural and practical changes.
we'll probably get a recession thanks to covid but I don't predict any long lasting cultural and practical changes.
9/11 turned Bush into a hero and allowed the toxic patriotism to fester which directly lead to what we see in America today.
Definitely Berlin Wall/Fall of USSR. Not to downplay the fallout of the "War on Terror" of course.
If the Berlin wall doesn't fall and the USSR doesn't collapse Europe looks completely different. The omnipresent fear of being nuked to oblivion faded in those days.
9/11 is close but I think the jury is still out on that but I think it's closing the gap quickly. The re-rise of American Nationalism, the PATRIOT Act, DHS, the thousands (millions?) killed in the name of the War on Terror. Without 9/11 who knows what the US looks like today.
The Pandemic is a concrete example that when there's a clear solution to a problem there will always be enough selfish/stupid people to ruin it for everyone. It's consequences are still being determined though. Once it's in the rear view (if ever...) we'll have a better idea what actually changed as a result.
The 2008 financial collapse was the least consequential IMO. Millions out of work, international banking thrown to chaos, sovereign nations on the brink of bankruptcy all were terrible, but compared to the loss of life all the above inflicted I don't think it belongs in the conversation.
I voted 9/11 but it could just be that as a US citizen I feel its effects more readily than the fall of the Wall. I suspect if I lived through the Cuban Missile Crisis I'd have a different opinion.
9/11 is close but I think the jury is still out on that but I think it's closing the gap quickly. The re-rise of American Nationalism, the PATRIOT Act, DHS, the thousands (millions?) killed in the name of the War on Terror. Without 9/11 who knows what the US looks like today.
The Pandemic is a concrete example that when there's a clear solution to a problem there will always be enough selfish/stupid people to ruin it for everyone. It's consequences are still being determined though. Once it's in the rear view (if ever...) we'll have a better idea what actually changed as a result.
The 2008 financial collapse was the least consequential IMO. Millions out of work, international banking thrown to chaos, sovereign nations on the brink of bankruptcy all were terrible, but compared to the loss of life all the above inflicted I don't think it belongs in the conversation.
I voted 9/11 but it could just be that as a US citizen I feel its effects more readily than the fall of the Wall. I suspect if I lived through the Cuban Missile Crisis I'd have a different opinion.
Oh got ya, yeah, I agree to an extent. I think it's difficult for countries like the US and China to really have the sort of relationship that the US and USSR (or even the US & China pre-1973) had, because our economies are so interwoven, as well as most other economies throughout the world. That's a little bit of a Pollyana Fukuyama point of view, but I think it's true to an extent.
I was thinking that COVID-19 might offer an opportunity for countries to continue or shift away from an American-led world which will give further rise to Chinese leadership. Like, the US basically ceding responsibility of the World Health Organization because Trump is looking to blame someone for Coronavirus, and that offering a vaccum for Chinese health leadership to step into, or, say, American and European countries can't produce enough COVID-19 vaccine fast enough so more countries turn towards vaccines produced in China. China is already the world's leading producer of stuff but this offers an opportunity for China to step up and assume a leadership role in shaping policy something that they really haven't had a significant role in globally in close to a century.
The fall of the USSR and 9/11 definitely. COVID-19 might have the same repercussions, but right now it's still too early to tell.
Not that 9/11 hasn't been massively influential (it is), but without the USSR falling the entire world would've been different. The effects of 9/11 are nothing compared to the possibility of the Cold War continuing (or worse, escalating into a real war). Also, the entirety of Eastern Europe (and parts of Western Europe) are also still feeling the economic and sociopolitical effects of the fall of the Soviet Union.
many countries including my own (Germany) are still dealing with the effects on society and economy from the fall of the wall/USSR/Eastern Bloc.
And Eastern Germany got out the best compared to rest of Eastern Europe, speaking as a former East German myself. East Germans are alienated from the rest of German society on many levels to this day, just like many parts of Eastern Europe are from Western Europe. And that is within the same country.
There is a saying in Germany "Die Mauer im Kopf"
which means "the wall in the head".
the wall may be gone, but in society and mentality, it hasn't yet. in almost all areas of life.
it is also ironic, that an east german (merkel) holds the highest position in the country, yet statistically, there are almost no east germans in high ranking political positions, companies, education, etc. even when west german companies buy up east german companies, its leadership is quickly replaced with west germans
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When the first white person to see a non-white, looked at them and thought themselves as superior...
It's too soon to assess the long-term of covid because we're right in the middle of it. Short-term and day-to-day it had the biggest impact but don't think beats the fall of the Soviet Union or 9/11 in historic impact.
I'd say The 2001 9/11 attacks, leading to the subsequent war on terror, war with Iraq, rise of ISIL and jihadists, rise of xenophobia, rise of white supremacy, rise of populism. It also can be linked to the Great Recession, with falling markets at the time leading to lowering of interest rates for an extended period, leading to the subprime crisis, leading to (still persistent) increase in economic inequality, in the ME this lead to the Arab Spring, the Syrian Civil War, the refugee crisis and again increased xenophobia etc.
Although I guess you could link the rise of Taliban with the fall of the Soviet Union so....
Although I guess you could link the rise of Taliban with the fall of the Soviet Union so....