But What If We're Wrong?: Thinking about the Present as If It Were the Past

by Chuck Klosterman

I do think—and I think many would agree—that gravity is the least stable of our ideas, and the most ripe for a major shift.”

The practical reality is that any present-tense version of the world is unstable. What we currently consider to be true—both objectively and subjectively—is habitually provisional.

we’re starting to behave as if we’ve reached the end of human knowledge. And while that notion is undoubtedly false, the sensation of certitude it generates is paralyzing.

I suspect most conventionally intelligent people are naïve realists, and I think it might be the defining intellectual quality of this era.

in the early nineties, I knew of several long-term romantic relationships that were severed simply because the involved parties attended different schools and could not afford to make long-distance calls, even once a week.

In 1999, it was almost impossible to find any example of a trans person within any realm of popular culture; by 2014, a TV series devoted exclusively to the notion won the Golden Globe for Best Television Series.

This is how the present must be considered whenever we try to think about it as the past: It must be analyzed through the values of a future that’s unwritten.

Howard Zinn’s 1980 depiction of how America was built in A People’s History of the United States is no longer a counterbalance to a conventional high school history text; in many cases, it is the text.

my profession regularly overrates many, many things by automatically classifying them as potentially underrated. The two terms have become nonsensically interchangeable.

Cleveland radio DJ Alan Freed, a man who played black music for white audiences and unwittingly caused the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame to be built on the shores of Lake Erie, the artistic equivalent of naming North America after the first guy who happened to draw a map of it.

right now, electronic dance music probably outsells hip-hop. In my opinion, this is identical to the punk-versus-disco trade-off of the 1970s. My prediction: edgy hip-hop music will win the fame game in the long run, while EDM will be seen as another mindless dance craze.”

Rock music is grounded in the American South.29 Chuck Berry is from St. Louis, which certainly feels like the South for most of the year.

Conflicting conceptions of “reality” have no impact on reality. And this does not apply exclusively to conspiracy theorists. It applies to everyone, all the time.

Throughout the 1970s, the most common narrative trope on a sitcom like Three’s Company or Laverne and Shirley was “the misunderstanding”—a character infers incorrect information about a different character, and that confusion drives the plot.

It’s among the few remnants of the pre-Internet monoculture; it could be convincingly argued that football is more popular in America than every other sport combined.

Football could become a dead game to the casual sports fan without losing a fraction of its cultural influence.

But there’s also an intermission I barely remember, even though it was the most politically edifying stage of my life—the four years in between, when I lived in Akron, Ohio.

Sixteen years ago, it was reasonable to believe there was no meaningful difference between Democratic leadership and Republican leadership.

As a consequence, the United States is a safe place for those who want to criticize the government but a dangerous place for those who want to advance unpopular thoughts about any other subject that could be deemed insulting or discomfiting.

It almost feels like I’m arguing, “Democracy is imperfect, so let’s experiment with a little light fascism.”

“Okay, fine. But if you don’t vote, you can’t complain.” Actually, the opposite is true—if you participate in democracy, you’re validating the democratic process (and therefore the outcome). You can’t complain if you vote.

If you want to amplify the value of your vote, the key is convincing other voters to stay home. But nobody does this, unless they’re actively trying to fix an election.

I am of the opinion that Barack Obama has been the greatest president of my lifetime, and by a relatively wide margin. This, I realize, is not a universally held position,

My grandmother was born before the Wright Brothers’ virgin 852-foot flight and died after we’d gone to the moon so many times the public had lost interest. Everything in between happened within her lifetime.

I watch them to be surprised. Sports are among the increasingly rare moments of totally unscripted television.