Trent Durham GTA History Dr. Robert Wright looks to the past as an example of how we will move forward with the restoration of “real-life” activities
What will be the first-thing you do once the pandemic loosens its grip on society? One Trent professor predicts that the next era will see many joining a crowd of pleasure seekers looking to shake off notions of a “new normal” and reimagining a fanciful future with buzzing main streets, global travelers, radical political movements, and playful pop culture.
Recently, Dr. Robert Wright, History professor at Trent University Durham GTA, penned a powerful piece in the Ottawa Citizen that is getting people excited about the moments ahead that will define this decade.
“The restoration of safe, in-person intimacy will feel novel initially — enough to leaven people’s attachment to technology. They’ll curtail their Zoom and Netflix use, and happily. The exodus of urbanites to rural and suburban locales will reverse — not wholesale but enough to produce a perceptible renaissance in city life,” writes Professor Wright. “Cottage prices will retreat, condo sales will boom. Our obsession with diet, fitness, fashion and personal grooming will accelerate, as people once again revel in the pleasures of the social and the material. Our puritanical cultural gatekeepers will bemoan the marked rise in ostentatious consumerism.”
Wright: After the pandemic - Well, welcome to the Roaring Twenties
Dec. 29, 2020
Source: Ottawa Citizen