Farewell to the naughties

Back before the turning of the millennium, one of the anxieties most frequently expressed about the decade from 2000 to 2009 (aside from the fear that civilization would come to an end on its first day) was the question as to what to call it. The 1990s were the nineties, the 1950s were the fifties, but what would the 2000s be called?

Apparently, the years from 1900 to 1909 were known as the “oughts” or “oughties” at the time that they occurred. But the word “ought” has become so old-fashioned that few recognize what it means. In fact, by the 1950s, this word had already fallen out of use: in recent decades, when people have wanted to refer to the first decade of the 19th century they have tended to speak generally of the “turn of the century”—a phrase that now leaves one wondering which century is being referred to.

To call these years the “zeroes” was a possibility, and the suggestion of the more neutral “ohs” in a New York Times editorial printed on December 30, 1992 was perhaps the most sensible solution offered. In the end, though, no one took them up on it. In fact, though we waited with baited breath to see which of above usages would ultimately be adopted, the ultimate strategy seems to have been to refrain from referring to the past decade as a unit at all.

But now that it’s over and we can look back on the era as a whole, we would like to make so bold as to advance a suggestion: in more ways than one, the first decade of the 21st century can aptly be named “the naughties.”

To be sure, the word “naught” is just about as old-fashioned as “ought.” In addition, purists could argue that the correct spelling when referring to a year should be “nought,” which means “zero,” as opposed to “naught,” which means “nothing.” But bluntly, when we take a look at how the human race as a whole behaved during the period, we find the double-entendre of “the naughties” irresistible.

This is a decade in which world politics were dominated by a war of choice entered into on the basis of lies, and the world economy was dominated by a hoard of confidence men and tricksters who wormed their way deep into the halls of the governments that should have been regulating them. In democratic countries, the mass looting was enabled by a populace more easily swayed by advertising gimmicks and fear-mongering sloganeering than by reason or research.

Nor is the meaning of “nothing” altogether inapposite. If you take a look at measures like average incomes in the United States, for instance, or progress in controlling carbon emissions and slowing climate change, “nothing” pretty much sums up what happened during the decade. (We do not except the recent Copenhagen climate change agreement, a vague, non-binding treaty from which specific targets were dropped.) In fact, by a number of other important measures of wellbeing—the percentage of U.S. residents above the poverty line, for instance, or the percentage with medical insurance coverage—what happened was less than nothing. But to call the decade “the minuses” might be pushing it too far.

But it is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness, and though we’re glad to see the naughties go, it’s more important to look to the future and see if we can steer it in a better direction. Strictly speaking, we have to wait until 2013 for the century to become a teenager, but we think that 21st-century denizens of the planet would do well to consider January 1, 2010 the date when we come of age.

Symbolically, the teenage years are the years in which we leave behind our childhoods and become adults. It’s time and past time for that. We need to take responsibility for ourselves, for each other and for the planet. It’s true that government won’t do it for us, but even truer that a Wild West society, in which big corporations operate on a might-makes-right basis and humans identify themselves primarily as “consumers,” won’t do it, either.

That’s why we support efforts like the Transition Towns movement, Sullivan Alliance for Sustainable Development, the development of local agriculture, and all such projects that promote local production and ways to rely on each other more within our communities, while becoming more self-sufficient as communities. If we can do that, then the coming decade of the teens may indeed be a coming of age for us. It’s sorely needed after the lost decade of the naughties.

Also in this issue:

• Helping animals close to home

Dr. Punnybone

Jogger Not