Zeitgeist

During the Frequency festival last week we somehow ended up talking about "Zeitgeist" and which components it currently consists of...

I have to say that we had quite a hard time to define important influences but one aspect that I think is quite important is that people prefer to do something tried and trusted instead of going down an unknown route. You could also sum it up by saying "it's better to be safe than sorry". In terms of politics (and by some stretch of imagination) one could also end up with "sacrificying freedom for security".

What do you think? If you had to define important components of today's Zeitgeist, what would they be?