Depends whether you're interested in reclaiming the 1970s as a period when things did happen, rather than as an intermission between the 1960s and 1980s.
Eucatastrophe and amphicatastrophe are two terms for endings; Tolkien coined the first, I the latter:
The consolation of fairy-stories, the joy of the happy ending: or more correctly of the good catastrophe, the sudden joyous “turn” (for there is no true end to any fairy-tale): this joy [...] is a sudden and miraculous grace: never to be counted on to recur. It does not deny the existence of dyscatastrophe, of sorrow and failure: the possibility of these is necessary to the joy of deliverance; it denies (in the face of much evidence, if you will) universal final defeat and in so far is evangelium, giving a fleeting glimpse of Joy, Joy beyond the walls of the world, poignant as grief.
The amphicatastrophe is the 1970s ending - usually a downer but not necessarily bad, more often open-ended, and not invoking either satisfaction nor catharsis: "the seventies ending, you know the one where it's sort of downbeat, but you can't be sure, because there's no real sense of resolution." Amidst much waving around of hands.
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Date: 2009-03-23 11:21 am (UTC)Eucatastrophe and amphicatastrophe are two terms for endings; Tolkien coined the first, I the latter:
The consolation of fairy-stories, the joy of the happy ending: or more correctly of the good catastrophe, the sudden joyous “turn” (for there is no true end to any fairy-tale): this joy [...] is a sudden and miraculous grace: never to be counted on to recur. It does not deny the existence of dyscatastrophe, of sorrow and failure: the possibility of these is necessary to the joy of deliverance; it denies (in the face of much evidence, if you will) universal final defeat and in so far is evangelium, giving a fleeting glimpse of Joy, Joy beyond the walls of the world, poignant as grief.
The amphicatastrophe is the 1970s ending - usually a downer but not necessarily bad, more often open-ended, and not invoking either satisfaction nor catharsis: "the seventies ending, you know the one where it's sort of downbeat, but you can't be sure, because there's no real sense of resolution." Amidst much waving around of hands.