How long is an era? When the old seem untenable? After the enlightenment, Jews felt that the prior era was over. When the 1960’s came, people proclaimed a new liberal era that evolved beyond the past. When the 1990’s came, religious conservatives had a triumphalism that the past was over. Here is a two minute clip from the show Portlandia that mocks this sense that one must be the new. The clip makes fun of hipsters and technology junkies but works for many who think they are the whiggish conclusion or evolutionary end.
The Book of Doctrines and Opinions: 