The 1988 Show
instance, in which one of 1988’s most memorable moments took place
when, during the only vice presidential debate of the election that year, a
catch-phrase was bom as vice presidential candidate Dan Quayle
suggested that his youth not be held against him because, after all, John
F. Kennedy was also young and relatively inexperienced in politics when
he was elected. Quayle’s opponent. Senator Lloyd Bentsen, listened in
disbelief, paused for a moment, and then fired back;
Senator, I served with Jack Keimedy. I
knew Jack Kennedy. Jack Kennedy was
a friend of mine. Senator, you’re no Jack
Kennedy.
The problem here, though, is that two different men are being compared
to each other. No one doubts that they are different, and the debate thus
has to do with how much they actually have in common. There is no
assumed continuity between Quayle and JFK. And even in instances
when a comparison does assume some continuity, it is usually not deeply
ontological. In the case of comparing the year 1988 and the year 2013,
they are confusingly ontologically similar. Both were once called “now”
or “today.” Over time, 1988 changed into 2013. But there was never a
time when JFK and Quayle were referred to with the same indexical.
Consequently, we cannot say that 2013 and 1988 are different because
we are comparing them to each other.
If, for instance, we were to look at the 1988 movie Die Hard and
compare it to the 2013 movie, A Good Day to Die Hard, we might say
that the 2013 movie is “a” Die Hard movie, the fifth in the franchise, and
we might debate whether or not anything could really ever top the first
two installments, but we would still all know that each Die Hard movie
is unique and has its own essence—what the Greeks would call, an eidos.
We would be, in some sense, comparing apples and oranges. In
comparing American culture in 1988 to American culture in 2013,
though, the assumption is that there is one thing—American culture—at
work, and it, singularly, has changed over time. But saying “it
singularly” has changed is like saying “it” is doubled, “it” is two things:
one thing then and another thing now. And so, which is it? Is it one
culture or two? If it is one, then there is no change. And if it is two, then
there is no change as well since there are just two separate things being
compared. Either way, change seems to be an illusion.
In the search for some sort of stable background against which
we can measure the passage of time, we inevitably come to the claim that
what must have remained stable from 1988 to 2013 must be us—it must