05-14-2016, 03:30 PM
It sure feels like it here in the US given the events of this year, but before expounding further I'm curious if this had been discussed much in my absence on the old board.
(05-15-2016, 12:31 AM)Kinser79 Wrote: [ -> ]Bob, I hate to be the one to break this to you, but in the 1930s congress was just as divided. FDR himself was called everything under the sun. That is a feature of our particular system, not a bug, so getting around it isn't that much of a problem.
(05-15-2016, 12:31 AM)Kinser79 Wrote: [ -> ]Your Political Compass
Economic Left/Right: -0.63
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -2.92
(05-15-2016, 06:21 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: [ -> ](05-15-2016, 12:31 AM)Kinser79 Wrote: [ -> ]Bob, I hate to be the one to break this to you, but in the 1930s congress was just as divided. FDR himself was called everything under the sun. That is a feature of our particular system, not a bug, so getting around it isn't that much of a problem.
The first 100 days the status quo went out the window. Yes, there was still a lot of division and strife. In any crisis the faction out of power doesn't shut up. They would be as loud and obstructive as they can be until the crisis reaches climax, at which point they somehow morph int "me too.". Congress's cooperation with FDR waxed and waned during his time in the White House. Still, if ever there was a time when labor, management and government came together and initiated transforming change, it was FDR's first Hundred Days.
A loud voice speaking extreme positions in the late 3T or pre-regeneracy 4T is nothing. All sorts of extreme positions will be put forth. The more extreme, the more dubious I'd be about throwing around labels like Grey Champion. What is needed is someone who can work coalition and compromise while anchoring to the central ideals and new values that center the crisis. It's the difference between Charles Sumner and Abe Lincoln.
(05-15-2016, 01:21 PM)Odin Wrote: [ -> ]I think the difference between this 4T and the last is that this 4T is just as much a political crisis (like in the Civil War 4T) as it is an economic crisis, and because the edge of the economic crisis was taken off by swift action by governments there is not the same urgent fear of "if we don't go along and play nice the people are going to go Fascist or Communist and have us hanging from lampposts".
(05-15-2016, 01:12 PM)Odin Wrote: [ -> ](05-15-2016, 12:31 AM)Kinser79 Wrote: [ -> ]Your Political Compass
Economic Left/Right: -0.63
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -2.92
FWIW I usually get around -9.5 on the economic axis and around -6 on the authoritarian-libertarian axis.
(05-15-2016, 03:04 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: [ -> ](05-15-2016, 01:21 PM)Odin Wrote: [ -> ]I think the difference between this 4T and the last is that this 4T is just as much a political crisis (like in the Civil War 4T) as it is an economic crisis, and because the edge of the economic crisis was taken off by swift action by governments there is not the same urgent fear of "if we don't go along and play nice the people are going to go Fascist or Communist and have us hanging from lampposts".
I have no problem with that observation. My feeling is that the big changes that came with FDR's Hundred Days were only possible because lots of people knew that the next team at bat after FDR would be the communists. McCarthy found so many former members of the Communist Party in the 1950s because a lot of people were just that fed up with the democratic / capitalist status quo.
Still, to me, the late 3T is the time when extremists are saying extreme things, and the terrorists are staging violent events intended to create action. The regeneracy is the point when selected extreme plans are put into action, and if there is a military element the terrorists don't need to provoke action as the troops are mobilized and marching. Thus, Harper's Ferry would be a late and major catalyst that brought things to the edge, while Fort Sumter was a trigger that drove things off the edge. Somewhere between those two there was a regeneracy, with both North and South committing themselves to drastic action. I see room for sincere disagreement between the two.
To me, today, as we have multiple extremists pushing conflicting plans, and there is no united push to implement anything, we're still 3T. Yes, it's political. No, the transformation has not been committed to. No, nothing has been implemented yet.
Still, it's not clear to me that everyone has agreed on a common definition of 'regeneracy', or 'Grey Champion'. If one defines 'regeneracy' as "there are extremists ruling around saying extreme stuff" and 'Grey Champion' as meaning "an extremist who says extreme stuff" one can state another opinion. I just prefer stricter benchmarks.
(05-15-2016, 04:54 PM)Kinser79 Wrote: [ -> ]If we add to that the Mega-saeculum theory that the MillSaec itself is a Mega Unraveling then it becomes apparent that the whole saeculum has been dominated by at least two extreme positions dukeing it out since the end of WW2. As such it is only natural for this 4T to have a 3T like feel. I imagine that the next saeculum will be a saeculum long crisis on many fronts.
(05-15-2016, 10:14 PM)naf140230 Wrote: [ -> ]Just like the Revolutionary War Saeculum.
(05-15-2016, 04:54 PM)Kinser79 Wrote: [ -> ]By your line of argument then we should have been in a 3T for far longer than a turning should last, even if you take the late date of 1984 as the end of the 2T like I do. This of course breaks the theory--not to mention doesn't conform to history.
Let us face it, there are only two extreme plans out there, and then there is the status quo. Since Sanders won't win the Dem Nomination his plan (Democratic Socialism) won't come to the front without HRC swinging massively to the left, which is about as likely to happen as the earth being hit by an asteroid 1000km across tomorrow. The other extreme plan is Nationalism, Protectionism and Isolationism offered by Trump (which isn't that extreme historically).
Given that it seems that Trump's message is catching on I foresee him becoming President quite handily and implmenting that plan. The rest of the GOP has already fallen in line minus a few #NeverTrump clowns most of whom are RINOs anyway according to RW press.
As such I see no evidence at all that we're in a 3T, furthermore much evidence we have been in a 4T for quite some time, of course I also subscribe to the theory that S&H made the CivWarSaec 4T far too short and it really should have started in the 1850s (with the compromise of 1850 being the catalyst).
If we add to that the Mega-saeculum theory that the MillSaec itself is a Mega Unraveling then it becomes apparent that the whole saeculum has been dominated by at least two extreme positions dukeing it out since the end of WW2. As such it is only natural for this 4T to have a 3T like feel. I imagine that the next saeculum will be a saeculum long crisis on many fronts.
(05-16-2016, 02:20 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: [ -> ]To start, I don't see clockwork regularity in the turnings. The classic S&H 4 stroke pattern works well enough for Anglo American Civilization during the Industrial Age.
Quote:Force fitting it anywhere else hasn't worked very well.
Quote:This means the 4 stroke pattern is not, repeat, not inevitable.
Quote: I also see computers, nuclear weapons and a need for renewable energy as arguably marking the end of the Industrial Age pattern, the beginning of something else.
Quote: (The Information Age?) Thus, while I find the language of S&H very useful if you use it consistently, if there is a conflict between history as it is unfolding and The Theory, I am more inclined to question the theory than to cross my eyes and stand on my head to make the theory in its most simplistic form work. Take it in the same was as I say the language of Marx is very useful, but you can't anticipate that history will rigidly follow his outline and time table.
Quote:As I've said many times, I see September 11th as a Trigger for a failed regeneracy and crisis.
Quote:Bush 43 attempted to implement a new set of values including neocolonialism and spreading western values at gunpoint.
Quote: His time in office was a referendum on 'stay the course' against 'cut and run'. This was by far the dominant aspect of his two terms. The resolution was 'peace with honor', a pull out of the conflict without quite admitting defeat coupled with a better understanding of how very difficult it is to achieve much of anything in the Middle East. An awful lot of people do not want to acknowledge that a critical values issue was decided on the battlefield. The left over post Vietnam tensions between hawks claiming they could have 'won' while the doves asserted there was no way to avoid quagmire was revisited in another environment.
Quote: The post Bush 43 result is more nuanced than either of the conflicting dogmatic hawk and dove dogmatic certainties. Cultures can be changed at gunpoint, but doing so is very expensive in gold, iron and blood. The general conclusion was bring the boys home and avoid foreign entanglements without a very long hard look at Powell's Questions.
Quote:I understand the base aspects of a 3T is stagnation, endless debate and inaction, as no one having the power or influence to significantly change the status quo. After Bush 43's failed crisis, I see the US as waddling like a duck, swimming like a duck, and quacking like a duck. Obama may have wanted to push a progressive agenda, but he spent all his political capitol on health care. After that, pure 3T.
Milo Yainnopoulos Wrote:Natural conservatives can broadly be described as the group that the intellectuals above were writing for. They are mostly white, mostly male middle-American radicals, who are unapologetically embracing a new identity politics that prioritises the interests of their own demographic.
In their politics, these new conservatives are only following their natural instincts — the same instincts that motivate conservatives across the globe. These motivations have been painstakingly researched by social psychologist Jonathan Haidt, and an instinct keenly felt by a huge swathe of the political population: the conservative instinct.
The conservative instinct, as described by Haidt, includes a preference for homogeneity over diversity, for stability over change, and for hierarchy and order over radical egalitarianism. Their instinctive wariness of the foreign and the unfamiliar is an instinct that we all share – an evolutionary safeguard against excessive, potentially perilous curiosity – but natural conservatives feel it with more intensity. They instinctively prefer familiar societies, familiar norms, and familiar institutions.
Quote:I see a regeneracy as an enabling of one of the systems of values created with fanfare in the prior 2T and debated the duration of the preceding 3T.
Quote:Traditionally it is the progressive values that are enabled by the regeneracy, while the conservatives attempt to maintain the status quo. If someone like Bernie Sanders could get the presidency with a working majority in Congress, this sort of pattern could repeat.
Quote:The GIs attacked problems with everything they had, willing to bear any burden, pay any price, etc... They achieved ever so much, and in doing so created Future Shock. We haven't recovered from the GIs shaking up our culture yet. The GIs arguably solved some problems that according to T4T theory ought to have been solved in the following crisis, but were solved 2 generations ahead of schedule in the awakening.
Quote: As a result, the 3T unraveling has had an element of 1T dogmatism.
Quote: All is well, so there is no need to change. The core of it is the Reagan memes. The government is the problem not the solution. Any attempt by the government to fix things makes it worse. The best solution to most problems is to cut taxes, reduce regulation and let the private sector handle it. The Reagan Memes are the antithesis of the GI values, the opposite of an enthusiastic bearing of any burden, paying of any price, fighting of any foe...
Quote:For a current day progressive to break the Reagan Memes will be very very difficult, but that's where we are at. The Reagan Memes are an over reaction to the GI faith that Big Government can solve any problem if only enough money is thrown at it. The truth is somewhere between the GIs and Reagan. It is a question of finding a rational balance rather than deciding which extreme is going to triumph and run roughshod over the other extreme. Neither extreme is desirable.
Quote:Which is problematic. Only an extremist is going to break the status quo. If we keep electing establishment politicians riding comfortably in the unravelling rut, existing very real problems will only continue to get worse.
Quote:Like a lot of folks, I'm not sure how to read Trump. The easy if possibly shallow read is he's a high ego extrovert who will say whatever his followers will get enthusiastic about. Most of his followers are still embracing the Reagan memes, angry and disappointed that the Republican establishment aren't chasing the Reagan memes to a great enough extreme. I'm not confident, though, that Trump is a Reagan True Believer.
Quote:I'm not sure what he'll do if he actually wins it.
Quote: As a business man he was a doer with a touch of charlatan.
Quote:He doesn't seem to see the system in the Reagan way, a flawed mess that will lead inevitably to failure, thus one minimizes the system. I get the sense he sees the system as a convoluted playground to be manipulated for profit.
Quote:He is willing to lend his name to con artists and use the bankruptcy system to dump his failures overboard.
Quote: I just don't trust his style or integrity.
Quote: I don't doubt that he will through out a lot of simplistic ideas that sound good to the potential Reagan Meme voters. I don't know that he will be able to twist either establishment party in Congress to make any of the ideas actually work.
Quote:I liked your old Communist spin on Trump better than your current spin. At one point you were backing Trump as he would mess things up so badly that a Communist Revolution would become more likely. That made more sense to me than your current endorsement.
Quote:I know I'm not going to convince everyone to see things my way, but that's where I'm at. The very long 3T is actually a 3T, failed 4T, 3T reprise. The mood we are in, regardless of how we got there or whether the failed 4T is recognized or not, is of stagnation, inaction and filibuster. There is no lack of extreme proposals. There is a lack of enabled extremists actually able to start implementing far out ideas. From my understanding of the T4T verbiage, that means we haven't reached a regeneracy yet. We're still talking, not doing.
(05-16-2016, 08:05 AM)Kinser79 Wrote: [ -> ]It is conceivable that the saeculum as we understand it requires certain material conditions which if not met would cause the pattern to break down. That being said a long term study of world history would indicate that history is not a liner progression, despite what many Whig Historians would want us to believe. Therefore a cycle will always develop eventually. It could have two strokes or four, or even six (though that would probably stretch the lifespan of humans past the 120 year mark).
Bob Butler Wrote:As I've said many times, I see September 11th as a Trigger for a failed regeneracy and crisis.
(05-16-2016, 08:05 AM)Kinser79 Wrote: [ -> ]And you were wrong then, and wrong now if you still believe so. The simple fact of the matter is that in 2001 the old civic generation still had some lingering political and social power, and the new one was busy learning their multiplication tables. It is my feeling that the turning cannot change until at least half of the generation that is supposed to be in rising adulthood (I usually call it young adulthood) has to be in that stage. Assuming S&H's date for the start of the Millennial Generation, and assuming that Millies are in fact a Civic generation the oldest ones would be 19, and the youngest should have just finished being born on 11 September 2001.
Bob Butler Wrote:Bush 43 attempted to implement a new set of values including neocolonialism and spreading western values at gunpoint.
(05-16-2016, 08:05 AM)Kinser79 Wrote: [ -> ]Yes, and he failed, just as attempting to change someone else's values always does. People change their values because they want to (for whatever reason), they never change them because someone else wants them to. In fact if anything attempting to change the values of others makes them seek to "double down" on those values even if that course of action is self-destructive.
(05-16-2016, 08:05 AM)Kinser79 Wrote: [ -> ]Not quite. We were in a 4T, but the regeneracy stalled, as such the best thing possible was to slam on the breaks. Not only that he had to deal with a Boomer Dominated Congress and of all the generations the one most likely to "be stuck in the 90s" is in fact the Boomers. Since 2010 Xers have taken over the House and are making headway in the Senate. It is unfortunate that the President is a Democrat because Xers tend to be overwhelmingly Republican, and when not Republican Natural Conservatives.''
(05-16-2016, 08:05 AM)Kinser79 Wrote: [ -> ]That is the S&H narrative. However, it is only a narrative--and remember they did write their books to sell and sell primarily to Boomers. What happens if the "new values systems" from the 2T are destructive, stupid or just plain garbage? What happens then? S&H are silent about that.
Bob Butler Wrote:Traditionally it is the progressive values that are enabled by the regeneracy, while the conservatives attempt to maintain the status quo. If someone like Bernie Sanders could get the presidency with a working majority in Congress, this sort of pattern could repeat.
(05-16-2016, 08:05 AM)Kinser79 Wrote: [ -> ]I think you assume that there were social problems solved in the 2T that were not solved.
(05-16-2016, 12:25 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: [ -> ](05-16-2016, 08:05 AM)Kinser79 Wrote: [ -> ]It is conceivable that the saeculum as we understand it requires certain material conditions which if not met would cause the pattern to break down. That being said a long term study of world history would indicate that history is not a liner progression, despite what many Whig Historians would want us to believe. Therefore a cycle will always develop eventually. It could have two strokes or four, or even six (though that would probably stretch the lifespan of humans past the 120 year mark).
I see technological advances as a significant factor in forcing culture change. We've had that for quite a while, keeping a steady pressure on cultures, making sure there won't be a lengthy steady state. It may be that over the period of Anglo-American development the technology based pressure has been steady enough that the four cycle pattern was stable. At this point I see factors like computer networks and nukes are actually increasing the pressure. The 1960s period was as intense as a crisis, might have some aspects of a crisis. The recent unraveling might have some aspects of a high in an intense resistance to additional change and big government. I don't see a stop to cultural mood changes. If there are four basic moods -- high, awakening, unraveling, crisis -- I don't see getting stuck in one and unchanging. After a generation or so things are apt to change. I'm just not seeing the 4 stroke pattern as still active and think 20 20 hindsight will be required to spot any new pattern that might or might not develop.
Quote:Bob Butler Wrote:As I've said many times, I see September 11th as a Trigger for a failed regeneracy and crisis.
(05-16-2016, 08:05 AM)Kinser79 Wrote: [ -> ]And you were wrong then, and wrong now if you still believe so. The simple fact of the matter is that in 2001 the old civic generation still had some lingering political and social power, and the new one was busy learning their multiplication tables. It is my feeling that the turning cannot change until at least half of the generation that is supposed to be in rising adulthood (I usually call it young adulthood) has to be in that stage. Assuming S&H's date for the start of the Millennial Generation, and assuming that Millies are in fact a Civic generation the oldest ones would be 19, and the youngest should have just finished being born on 11 September 2001.
Different people emphasize different aspects of the S&H system. You are emphasizing the generation personality aspect. I emphasize the political mood and values changing aspect. With the four stroke pattern breaking down, I don't think either of us might be entirely convincing.
Quote:Bob Butler Wrote:Bush 43 attempted to implement a new set of values including neocolonialism and spreading western values at gunpoint.
(05-16-2016, 08:05 AM)Kinser79 Wrote: [ -> ]Yes, and he failed, just as attempting to change someone else's values always does. People change their values because they want to (for whatever reason), they never change them because someone else wants them to. In fact if anything attempting to change the values of others makes them seek to "double down" on those values even if that course of action is self-destructive.
Through the bulk of the Anglo-American development, it has been the progressives who have achieved the regeneracy and driven the agenda. For the most part their agendas have succeeded. Bush 43 tried as a conservative to push a different sort of agenda and failed. I have described it as a 'false regeneracy' and 'failed crisis'. I can pretty much agree with the above paragraph as to how and why he failed. We're seeing the history in a similar way. We're disagreeing on how to label it.
Quote:(05-16-2016, 08:05 AM)Kinser79 Wrote: [ -> ]Not quite. We were in a 4T, but the regeneracy stalled, as such the best thing possible was to slam on the breaks. Not only that he had to deal with a Boomer Dominated Congress and of all the generations the one most likely to "be stuck in the 90s" is in fact the Boomers. Since 2010 Xers have taken over the House and are making headway in the Senate. It is unfortunate that the President is a Democrat because Xers tend to be overwhelmingly Republican, and when not Republican Natural Conservatives.''
Stalled regeneracy rather than False regeneracy? Different language, but yah... Again, I'm more into the values shifts than generational stereotypes. I see stagnation and inaction. I'll put the turning boundaries where the mood and values change, not when certain age groups start getting into office.
Quote:(05-16-2016, 08:05 AM)Kinser79 Wrote: [ -> ]That is the S&H narrative. However, it is only a narrative--and remember they did write their books to sell and sell primarily to Boomers. What happens if the "new values systems" from the 2T are destructive, stupid or just plain garbage? What happens then? S&H are silent about that.
Well, perhaps S&H were silent on stupid and destructive 2T values as such hasn't happened recently. I see the anti-war, racial equality, gender equality and environmental changes of the recent 2T as necessary and appropriate. I see neocolonialism and changing cultures at gunpoint as destructive, stupid and just plain garbage, but Bush 43 tried his push in a late 3T, not 2T.
Quote:Bob Butler Wrote:Traditionally it is the progressive values that are enabled by the regeneracy, while the conservatives attempt to maintain the status quo. If someone like Bernie Sanders could get the presidency with a working majority in Congress, this sort of pattern could repeat.
(05-16-2016, 08:05 AM)Kinser79 Wrote: [ -> ]I think you assume that there were social problems solved in the 2T that were not solved.
Guilty. Wrote too fast. Didn't word it properly. The problems of the last 2T were not completely solved. Red resistance to change capped what could be done. Still, significant progress was made, enough for Future Shock. As a broad principle, I don't think any crisis or awakening will completely solve anything. There will always be leftovers and polishing to be done. Periods of transition can only flow so long before the perceived need for change fades and an odd numbered turning is apt to kick in.
Getting edit dizzy. Might pick it up again later.
(05-16-2016, 01:21 PM)Kinser79 Wrote: [ -> ]Over all, I stress generation archetype because when we're dealing with masses of people and their movement in masses it is best to think in terms of archetype. Honestly I wish I could break it down into mathematics--I could be Hari Sedon. The S&H theory seems to work best when we're examining large groups of people who are largely ignorant of the forces at work.
(05-16-2016, 08:05 AM)Kinser79 Wrote: [ -> ]I actually don't think so. As I pointed out Lincoln was a unionist first and foremost. Unionism that Andrew Jackson agreed with and Andy J was not exactly a "progressive". (Awesome President, but definitely not a progressive, you should hear some of the shit those people say about him sometime.) The Founders largely had the American revolution to not pay taxes to Parliament (which they never had to do before), the UK government trying to enforce their trade laws (which they never had before--for a century I might add), and imposing laws from without (prior to the 1760s all the colonies were essentially self governing with the Crown just appointing the governor, and often a local at that). Given these facts it seems that the revolutionary war was fought to maintain a status quo rather than to create something new. Even the argumentation of the Declaration of Independence all has content that any person literate in English would have likely have read at the time. FDR did many progressive things but did so for inherently conservative reasons--the preservation of capitalism, and later democracy.
(05-16-2016, 08:05 AM)Kinser79 Wrote: [ -> ]What happened with Bush 43 was there was a tragic event, it gave him some political capital and he spent it like a drunken sailor. There was no "false regeneracy" because someting like a regeneracy would have to have happened to confuse people into thinking it was a real one. Likewise there was no false crisis because 9-11 ultimately did not set into motion an existential threat to the nation. The terrorism and the wars were things that happened "over there".
(05-16-2016, 08:05 AM)Kinser79 Wrote: [ -> ]Anti-war movements are not new, and Boomers certainly didn't start them. Racial and gender equality are pretty much the same thing. Environmentalism was actually started by Missionaries. According to S&H it is the prophet generation in the 2T that come up with the new ideas, the new paradigms and so forth. Much of the 60s was recycling Missionary materials and most of the effective leadership was conducted by Silents. From what I've seen the new ideas that Boomers are responsible for are largely equated to mass marketed watered down occultism (aka New Age), fad diets, and various cults. There is a lot of destructive, stupid and just plain garbage to go around from that generation, it wasn't Bush 43 alone.
(05-16-2016, 08:05 AM)Kinser79 Wrote: [ -> ]Furthermore I would argue that Bush 43 failed not because of the turning, but rather because of a complete misunderstanding of human nature and how values interplay with that nature.
(05-16-2016, 08:05 AM)Kinser79 Wrote: [ -> ]You could of perhaps worded it better. I would say that a large part of the Red Resistance you allude to comes from Boomers mostly. As long as the GIs were in charge they could push through an agenda you'd call progressive and the Silents would go along with them--mostly. That being said, one needs to understand that when we're dealing with political movements, even if we're not talking about movement politics, Natural Conservatives are always going to try to "hit the breaks", that is what Natural Conservatives do. Furthermore, Natural Conservatives exist in all generations, they just tend to be over-represented in Nomad generations for some pretty good reasons.
That being said, 2Ts largely do not result in structural social change. Even today we see that some are calling for a re-institution of Jim Crow but on different lines.
(05-16-2016, 06:03 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: [ -> ]I think you’re dreaming, unless and until you reduce values and emotion to numbers. Values have a huge amount of momentum. They don’t change without large pressures applied and blatant failures of principles that likely worked quite well at one time. It would be very difficult to objectively assign mass weights to existing cultural memes and force vectors to new technologies or ideas that might cause change, especially if one’s own values are part of the system one is trying to objectively and mathematically model. Being objective enough to play Hari Seldon is way beyond you and me. We are both far too wedded to our own perspectives.
Quote:At one time I was challenged to identify an ‘arrow of progress’. If a doctrinaire Whig were to identify what type of progress is more or less inevitable, what would it be?
- People who did not have rights acquire them. There is a step towards equality.
- Elites who control a new area of business, often the result of new technology, take political power from established interests. The largest of these involved loss of influence by the old royalty and nobility, with increased influence by the Robber Barons.
- In general, the new elites demonize the old elites, and make promises to The People. Inequality in political power is often linked to inequality in wealth. Thus, there is generally an element of class struggle wrapped into it somewhere.
Quote:This perspective is often rejected by the conservatives who try to make the conservatives into the heroes… or rather make the heroes into conservatives. I remain dubious. While one can always and justly cast doubt on the motivations of the new elites, on the idea side the Revolution implemented the Enlightenment ideas, the Civil War was about slavery, the New Deal about government serving the working people more the elites less, while Fascism was a modernized authoritarian tyranny, Agricultural Age militaristic tyranny with different trappings. The key is that the new elites can’t usurp power without the backing of the People. To get this backing they have to make badly wanted concessions.
Quote:Ideas entirely at odds with either George Washington’s isolationism or the World War / Cold War containment policies were tried. They failed. These bad new policies have hopefully been purged from the playbook. The competing memes of stay the course against avoid quagmire were resolved. I see this as a major trial of values with a resolution that was expensive in gold, iron and blood. I don’t think you are actually disagreeing with me on this? You just don't want to acknowledge it as important?
Quote:Was it Sturgeon who propose that 95% of anything is garbage? Generations have different styles and obsessions. It’s traditional and easy to diss on other generations.
Quote:While the Boomers didn’t invent the various causes they fought for, they pushed for necessary and appropriate changes that were in time made.
Quote: Still, these changes happened with the GIs in control. I doubt blindly following of the Domino Theory would have stopped without loud obnoxious objection. The time for a big step forward in gender and racial equality had come.
Quote: I don’t know that the Boomers should be exalted as they were the kids on the ground when it happened, but they were the kids on the ground when it happened. Similarly, while others were concerned about the environment before the awakening, the awakening was a time of a vast change in policy.
Quote:You are not the worst of the Boomer Bashers
Quote:here, but you seem to be indulging yourself with this post.
Quote: Personally, I don’t see the point of placing the blame on generations. The original S&H put an emphasis on the positive aspects of each generation, and projected that one could expect great things when the various positive aspects of several generations lined up in a constructive way. Many of those who come to this forum dwell on the negatives. I see it as about as constructive as dwelling on the alleged negative stereotypes of this race or that gender. I hope I don’t have to explain to you how stereotyping and prejudice have their down sides?
I could pick on other generations. Most of what I’d rather see the youngsters change is in complaining less and working for change more. Things aren’t going to change without more people pushing for change. That was the Blue Boomer’s role in their younger days. Still, that was then. These days the Blue Boomers are sitting on the sidelines while griping just as much as any other generation. It’s a problem for the whole culture, not just the Blue Boomers.
Quote:Are you trying to trick me into saying something good about Bush 43? Ha! No way.
Quote:Actually, during the Cold War the United States played some imperialistic hardball, using military and political methods to gain economic advantage. The rest of the world let us get away with it as we were picking up a lot of the cost of containing communism. Many in the Bush 43 administration thought the world would continue to let us get away with it. They did not anticipate the degree with which the world recognized and opposed neo colonialism in a post Cold War world. They should have. A little bit of empathy would have served them very well. I won't object to the description of 'complete misunderstanding of human nature and how values interplay with that nature. They were just used to the idea of being a superpower and drunk with the idea of being the sole superpower.
Quote:In this exchange I’m not disagreeing much with the history you are emphasizing, but we’re emphasizing different patterns in said history. Likely inevitable.
(05-16-2016, 07:37 PM)Kinser79 Wrote: [ -> ]I would argue that it (objective psycho-history) is beyond any human. At best we can use mass psychology to understand, and perhaps manipulate the course of history. Beyond that, anything even close to Asimov's Psychohistory is a pipe dream. But a good dream never hurt anyone.
(05-16-2016, 07:37 PM)Kinser79 Wrote: [ -> ]And a doctrinaire Whig would be right, in so far as that list would conform to their ideology. The question is, however, does that happen in history. Does the transfer of one old elite automatically confer social/economic/political "progress"? I would say largely no. After all to a serf does it matter if the king is a Saxon or is a Norman?
(05-16-2016, 07:37 PM)Kinser79 Wrote: [ -> ]I don't bash boomers, I merely tell the truth about them.
(05-16-2016, 07:37 PM)Kinser79 Wrote: [ -> ]You mean there is conceivably something good to be said about Bush 43?
(05-16-2016, 07:37 PM)Kinser79 Wrote: [ -> ]I think you're over estimating the good will of the Europeans, Japanese and Koreans. For the most part prior to the 1970s they couldn't do anything about US imperialism because they were not economically strong enough to. Imperialism is expensive. By the time they had the economic means to the so-called communist threat was pretty much over. The USSR's economic means to build empires were exhausted, China was moving capitalist, which left the only countries attempting to actually construct socialism to be Tiny Albania, Isolated DPRK (though Juche should not be confused with M-L), and maybe Cuba (which was heavily revisionist to start with as Castro really isn't a commie). Vietnam and Laos are not now and never have been socialist of any type. The communist parties of both exist because Russia not the US helped them in ending colonialism--they are vestigial organs.
(05-16-2016, 07:37 PM)Kinser79 Wrote: [ -> ]I think we largely agree that we are not disagreeing. I've started to think that when dealing with all the big issues, the really important issues (you know the ones that you're not supposed to talk about in mixed company but are really the only issues worth talking about--seriously you have no idea how much I hate "chit-chat" and "small talk") the result always reminds me of the parable of the blind men and the elephant.