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• Rahul Rao
  

The Crisis Era comes to an end with a sharp change in the political culture. For example, extremist behavior is no longer tolerated or trivialized. Of late I have heard of incidents in which Trump supporters have done violence in response to the FBI snooping at Mar-a-Lago for classified information. Surely, someone must have ratted him out, whether out of conscience or of fear of legal consequences for failing to do so. 

Although a dead body to which has been done obvious violence is itself troublesome, one might have exculpatory circumstances. If one did not do the deed one might have some explaining but without self-incrimination. So "Mr. Boddy" committed suicide by self-inflicted gunshot wounds for many possible reasons from impending arrest and long-term incarceration to a terminal diagnosis of pancreatic cancer.  Or "Mr. Boddy" fell down a flight of stairs while drunk or on drugs. Having classified documents in the wrong place has paradoxically fewer exculpations than a dead body and is itself prima facie evidence of guilt as is having a stash of heroin or cocaine. 

Not so long ago Republicans owned almost all issues of national security. So Obama caused no problems with it? That shows perhaps how well Democrats knew to avoid trouble even if the rewards for handling it properly were politically slight but consequences for failure at that were catastrophic. Donald Trump threw that away by aligning himself with brutal autocrats overseas and (worst) attempting to blackmail the President of Ukraine.

My bad prediction: when Trump was impeached, I expected Republicans to go along because they had long been fussy about national security. Most let him get away with that. Ironically they would be far better off now had they impeached and removed him. Mike Pence could play his Goody Two-Shoes routine perhaps to an election in which he wins. He might be more effective in getting a flat tax or replacing the income tax with a national sales tax, achieving a nationwide Right to Work (for starvation pay) law, a complete nationwide ban on abortion, massive privatization to monopolistic profiteers, abolishing welfare, and perhaps making religious devotion mandatory even in public colleges.  That would drastically transform America into a pure plutocracy in which the (fundamentalist Protestant) Lord reigneth... in a drastic shift from a secular society that still pretended to care about people who did not have the assets. Great wealth would itself become a tool of great oppression and a cause of great suffering. 

That is not what happened, and it will not be what happens.  

All Tunings are transitions from the ways of the previous Turning to the next Turning. and nobody can deny that the American world of 1948 was very different from that of 1928, and not only in technology. America abandoned the boom-and-bust economy of the quasi-Gilded Age. The celebrity circus of the 1920's was gone. The dangerous Second Klan of 1915 that was a nationwide force as a fascist movement had folded. The high-school diploma that was only for the middle class and above was now the norm for the working class. Suburbia had started to bloom (or infect, depending on your attitude) the rural areas on the outskirts of town where there had been hobo encampments and "Hoovervilles". Banking, a once wild-and-wooly casino of often shady activity, had taken the role of saying no to speculation. Non-WASP Americans who had been poor because they were not WASPs started to enter the Middle Class. Defense plants and the Armed Services had become integrated.

Obviously it helped that America had defeated the most demonic powers ever in existence; had America not done so America might be a land of peonage or slavery under Japanese or German overlords with large parts of the population vanishing into fake showers into which would be administered Zyklon-B gas. Much of the impetus of the Civil Rights struggle arises from the exposure of at least Nazi racism, with many Americans asking questions of whether Jim Crow practice was compatible with our claims to liberty and legal equality. It is telling that Nazi "philosopher" (and eventually, convicted major war criminal) Alfred Rosenberg translated the word subhuman from the writing of the Klan "philosopher" Lothrop Stoddard into the even more horrific Untermensch.  I'm tempted to believe that the Axis lost the war due not to some superiority of the American way of life but instead because a fascist order cannot win the peace. Thus I see such a work as The Man in the High Castle, the best of a certain genre of science-fiction, as absurd if in some respects grimly amusing. 

Two roads diverge at some point in a 4T. One leads to disgrace and ruin, personal or national. Another leads to a wholesome result. Maybe it isn't perfect; the generational theory suggests that even what people see as the optimum changes predictably in a cyclical way.

I have been saying this a lot in forums. People are down on Biden, or whoever, and I think they need to look in the mirror. And Tom Nichols takes a look at this. Maybe not exactly as I would tend to do, but that's OK, I need to take a look again too.

Narcissism and self-centeredness is not a good foundation of democracy. Nor is saying all politicians can't be trusted. If we lose knowledge and virtue, we lose everything.

As most of you know, I'm sympathetic to the goals of environmentalism, but I despise the misanthropic luddites and anti-natalist hippies that tend to spearhead them. As such, I think we need to define a new environmental infrastructure deal on our terms. 

First off...how a re we going to pay for it? 
1) Double the estate tax owed on foreign-owned, residential homes (that's right. those friggin Chinese commies better pay up for gtfo). 
2) Good ol' legalize-n-tax weed. 
3) Add a national tax on high fructose corn syrup.
4) Require that all donors to political campaigns or parties pay an equal, corresponding amount to infrastructure projects. 
5) Decrease agricultural subsidies by 30% 


Now then, let's begin
1) Begin construction of high speed rail all across the country. If necessary, eminent domain will pay out 125% of market value for all property seized. 
2) Where possible, begin construction of underground tunnel highways in major metropolitan areas
3) Where possible increase interstate highways to 4 lanes, urban highways to 6 lanes and dense, metropolitan highways to 8 policies. Additionally, individual states may apply for grants to increase country backroads from 1 to 2 lanes. 
4) Add at least one nuclear power plant to every major metropolitan center, and at least 2 more per state. 
5) Increase funding for alternative energy-related R&D by 500%
6) Pay homeless people to plant trees and shrubs. Appoint a team of ecologists to oversee the operation to ensure this is done in a way that mirrors the ratios of native flora. 
7) Set up charging stations for electric vehicles around the country.

Is joy and celebration going away in the USA today?

I think today's high prices, not just in the last year, but decades now, are curtailing the possibilities of life for all. I don't know how real estate prices, for example, can come down, but they are killing the life of great cities. Something's gotta break. Everything costs too much. Permits for law enforcement quintupling so people can't go to a kite flying festival in Berkeley. Art schools closing because of high real estate prices and tuition costs. Only a few people can afford to be artists. Musicians still can't play in some places. Just all over the place. Covid seems to have dealt a big blow to the things that make life fun.

There needs to be a recovery from this, short term and long term. Maybe some owners of real estate need to lose the value of their homes and offices. So be it. If the best cities in the country force their residents to work all the time, and close themselves off from anyone moving there who is not wealthy, that is a world that needs to "come around" to a newer world where most people can do real living again.

This wasn't my favorite song, but I got to like it. I think it summarizes what is being lost today. And it takes on some melancholy when I think of the people shot down at a 4th of July Parade this year. And I note that this massacre happened in a suburb of Chicago. Guns, high prices, low incomes, climate disasters, pandemics, fanatic believers, ruin things today. Can we recover our joy of life, or will we live in fear and relative poverty?

I say "2T-ish", because I think they're too collectivistic and ideologically consistent to show the substantial tides and regularity of turnings seen in Western democracies (especially in the anglosphere). 

With that said, the reason I suspect they're entering a more 2T-ish era is that the previous decades showed many signs of 
- generation of "little emperors" from the 1 Child Policy, which took place from 1980 to 2016 (note: I don't necessarily think these indicate hard generational boundaries). Ironically, a bust rather than a boom, but with the similar effect of rearing a generation of pampered post-crisis children 
- decades of consistent economic growth
- high levels of strictly enforced conformity 
- strong cultural unity and optimism about the future 

now, for the last few years, the bulk of those only child babies are in rising adulthood and we're seeing things like 
- more individualistic consumption patterns 
- still reasonable economic growth, but of a more turbulent nature with more ups and downs
- for the first time in quite awhile, massive protests 
- renewed ideological fervor (in this case: reunification of Taiwan with China)

Of course, there are some differences. They're still a country of stifling conformity with ever-increasing surveillance and social credit scores, and their ideological thrusts seem to come from the old as much as the young, but by and large, I think the tide is turning for them just as it does for us.

Obviously, ever generation contains a range of personalities (my black sheep, individualist Civic ass can tell you all about that), but I think the Adaptive generation has an above average level of this diversity. The formation of the Adaptive archetype is contingent around being over-protected and sheltered from the era of crisis they grow up in. For those who were minorities, especially poor or lacking in parental figures, it's not uncommon for them to develop into something more scrappy, survivalist, possibly even sociopathic.

Has anyone heard of this one?
FAQ

Let's start with this one: tough minded Reactive elder and cutesy, innocent young Adaptive. Her response simultaneously contains a gruff rebuke of what she views as a needless impracticality, and a maternalistic undercurrent of endearment ("d'aww, life hasn't beaten the hopefulness out of you yet")

In your opinion, what are some common themes in how each archetype is likely to view the other three archetypes both older and younger than them?