From reading the texts, I concluded that the Cold War could be characterized by two opposite concepts, much like the conflict itself. On the one hand, it was a time of great change in the world. Across the world, new technologies rapidly changed the life experience of the average person. Similarly, in developing countries, decolonization following the second World War led to massive changes in the so-called Third World, with postcolonial nations having to find their way in this rapidly changing world. On the other hand, the world was at a tense standstill between the United States and the Soviet Union. The looming threat of total nuclear annihilation and the constant unprofitable and unwinnable wars fought by both sides in various countries established a pessimistic mood in the world, that nothing would change, and even if it did it could all be over in a second. The world seemed as if, despite the rapid changing of the day-to-day, things could stay in this polarized global dynamic for the rest of human history.
Though it seems as if we are beginning to “thaw” from the Cold War, the conflict still haunts the modern world. In their article, Goodbye Cold-War, Aziz Rana argues that, in America, we are returning to the political landscape before the beginning of the Cold War era. Two major candidates in the 2016 presidential election are used as examples, Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump. To Rana, these candidates reflect older political views popular before the conflict, Socialism and Populism respectively. This goes to show how integral the relations of the Cold War were to everything in society, as America did not begin to return to a situation similar to that of before the conflict until a quarter of a century after the fall of the Soviet Union.
The importance of the Cold War in the era naturally means that the mood of the time would make its way into the arts. The Science Fiction movement during the Cold War best captures the attitudes many had towards the era. Some works reflected the optimism about change in the world able to bring about utopia, while others focused on the feeling of stagnation and impending doom during the seemingly eternal conflict between the West and East. The Cold War’s conditions of technological advancement coupled with fears of the unknown led to the perfect breeding ground for major SF works in the period, and knowing its history is vital to understanding the genre as a whole during this time period.