A word that describes an opportunity for significant influence on culture or society

Question

I am looking for a word that describes a significant opportunity to influence based on a unique confluence of events or timing. More specifically to significantly influence culture or society.

Answer 1

Consider watershed:

an event or time when important changes happen in history or in your life

(Longman)

Example:

The 1932 election represented a watershed in American politics.

If a phrase is OK, critical juncture might work.

juncture: a point of time, esp. one made critical by a concurrence of circumstances

(http://www.thefreedictionary.com/juncture)

Example:

The 1930s was a crucial time of change in Latin America, a "critical juncture" in David Collier's and Ruth Berins Collier's terms.

(source on Google Books)

Answer 2

While the answers which preceded mine have made some good suggestions, I think the words paradigm shift describe quite aptly what you are describing.

In his seminal work, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Thomas Kuhn takes great pains to elucidate the phenomenon of a paradigm shift, which takes place when a confluence of events and timing create the possibility for culture and society to be influenced significantly for centuries.

The Copernican Revolution was one such paradigm shift. The invention of the atom bomb was another, as was the germ theory of disease.

Once Copernicus and his theory of the sun being the center of our solar system attracted a critical mass of people within the scientific community who agreed with his theory, the scientific revolution in astronomy received a powerful kick in the pants.

In essence, a paradigm shift is a novel and unfamiliar perspective for viewing a phenomenon, and most of the people in a given culture and society cannot appreciate that perspective, at least at first. With the right confluence of events and sometimes serendipitous timing, however, the new perspective (which came about primarily through "thinking outside the box," as we say today) begins to take hold, gather momentum, and sometimes takes off, paving the way for a magnitude of change, sometimes for the good and sometimes not.

I suggest the subsequent change is frequently a combination of both good and bad outcomes, with the ripple effects sometimes being nearly impossible to predict. I imagine the first scientists (and there must have been thousands of them) who worked at harnessing the power of the atom, for example, could not fully appreciate its potential for destroying life as we know it on plant Earth through the insanity of mutually assured destruction.

Answer 3

The culture or society is at a turning point or a crossroads.

Turning point:

a point at which a significant change occurs (MW)

Crossroads:

A crucial point: "At midlife, couples are at a crossroads of change, just as individuals are" (TFD)

At a crossroads typically implies that a decision must be made, while a turning point doesn't carry that connotation as strongly.