History Will Not Look Kindly on the First Decade of the 21st Century

I am arguing this same position on this same motion in a few weeks for the City Schools final. That doesn't sound like a big deal, but hey, it's the biggest competition I'm eligible to enter. In any case, in this debate, I will be attempting to prove that history will not look kindly on the first decade of the 21st century. As the instigator of this debate, I feel it falls upon me to define this motion for the purposes of the debate. That future generations will view the years between 2000 and 2009 in a negative light. My argument will be based on: 1. Establishing what history tends to remember 2. Establishing what noteworthy events took place in the defined time period 3. Establishing which events will live longest in our cultural memory 4. Proving that said events will not be looked kindly on I eagerly await any challenger, and would like to provide for them a concise explanation of my argument: 1. On my first point, what does History tend to remember? The key question in this debate is what will the decade be remembered for. To understand this, we will have to establish what previous decades have been remembered for. Acknowledging that a decade is a pimple on the face of history, we must confine our speculation to within the 21st century. To get a better idea of this, we must therefore examine the preceding century. Let us examine two decades from the 20th century. One looked kindly on, and one not looked kindly on. I would nominate the 1940s as a decade history does not look kindly on, and the 1960s as one that it does look kindly on. What is remembered from these decades? In the 1940s, the obvious thing is World War 2, probably what the decade is best remembered for. Millions were killed in the war and many more wounded. The USSR gained power, as did the USA. Nuclear weaponry saw its inception as a military tool and the Cold War became a fixture of international politics for the rest of the century. Does this mean the decade was all bad? No. There were stunning advancements in political thought, (England establishes the NHS in 1948, free healthcare) science, (radar) economics, (pulled out of depression) women's rights, (women working in the workplace) and more. However, these advancements are largely unacknowledged and the decade is considered one of the darkest times in modern history. Why? Because the War eclipsed all of these achievements. Because these advances were not tied to the greatest event of the decade (the war) in the minds of the people, they were not associated at all with the decade. What are the 1960s remembered for? Social liberation, women's rights, political radicalism, and the civil rights movement. Most of which happened in the 40s, but people didn't notice. Why remember this decade so well? The civil rights movement is perhaps the defining event of that decade, equivalent to WW2 in the 1940s. But the Civil Rights Movement was born out of segregation, discrimination, oppression, and a whole slew of ugly words. This was as tumultuous a decade as any of the century. There was experimentation with drugs and a rise in crime rates. Surely this decade was as bad as any? It was remembered well because of the strides forward made in Civil Rights. Why? This was the decade overcoming its greatest blemish in segregation. People remembered the positive which came from the negative. The crux of my argument is that the events which History tends to remember are either the negative ones, or the positive ones that came from the negative ones. Good events on their own do not live long in the cultural memory. A lot of negative events happened this decade, of course, but any good which may come of the bad has not, as of yet, emerged. The decade is up, and this period failed to produce a phoenix from its ashes. As such, one cannot help but feel that future generations will, like ourselves, remember either bad events, or good ones in reaction to bad ones. Failing to see any positive events from the myriad negative ones, they will not look kindly on the first decade of the 21st century. I look forward to hearing from any potential challenger.