Devo’s original fans, the teenagers of the early 1980s [ETA: and late 1970s, the period when the band first hit the mainstream], will likely be the last American generation to enjoy the dregs of the postwar economic anomaly along with the hope that it would give us the luxury* to make the world a more just and human place for all. This is one of the many cultural ways we’re saying goodbye to those expectations.
[* and a luxury it is. Once one rejects Whig History and accepts that things are more cyclic than linear, the revelation that quickly follows is that progress requires human effort. That ability to exert that effort is much more available in a relatively (but substantively) peaceful and prosperous society that allows a little breathing room.]
