Bicentennial vs. Semiquincentennial
I was in junior high school in 1976 during the U.S. bicentennial. Maybe I'm not as dialed-in to popular culture as I was back then, but I'm not seeing anything close to the hype over the upcoming 250th U.S. anniversary, which is in less than five weeks.
It seemed like there was a lot more discussion as the bicentennial approached, for months. There was a short piece every night on TV called "200 Years Ago Today" where an announcer described what had happened on that exact date in 1776. There were articles in the newspaper about various founding fathers. Now, all that's going to happen is some pathetic music festival with Vanilla Ice and Flo Rida (everyone else dropped out), and talk of issuing a $250 bill with Trump on it.
Is it because 250 just isn't as exciting as 200? People do respond more strongly to numbers with lots of zeros. Do people feel that the US reaching this milestone is less to be proud of considering who is in office at the moment? In 1976, the Vietnam War had ended and even though that was a disaster, at least we weren't at war during the bicentennial. On July 4 this year, we could very well still be at war with Iran, and not exactly winning either. Was it a more hopeful time?
It seemed like there was a lot more discussion as the bicentennial approached, for months. There was a short piece every night on TV called "200 Years Ago Today" where an announcer described what had happened on that exact date in 1776. There were articles in the newspaper about various founding fathers. Now, all that's going to happen is some pathetic music festival with Vanilla Ice and Flo Rida (everyone else dropped out), and talk of issuing a $250 bill with Trump on it.
Is it because 250 just isn't as exciting as 200? People do respond more strongly to numbers with lots of zeros. Do people feel that the US reaching this milestone is less to be proud of considering who is in office at the moment? In 1976, the Vietnam War had ended and even though that was a disaster, at least we weren't at war during the bicentennial. On July 4 this year, we could very well still be at war with Iran, and not exactly winning either. Was it a more hopeful time?
