Next Era

[Tim Randal Walker]

Historians have described different phases, or eras/ages of civilization.  With the last turning of the Millennial cycle, we appear to be coming to the end of an era.

[pbrower2a]

Yes. The old certainties that we once thought obvious have often lost their validity. We live in a world much less material than we used to live in, which means that raw labor and raw materials are no longer so precious. Economic competition that once constrained costs has given way to an ethos of getting the customer for everything possible.

We may be at the end of the era in which producing more stuff is the way to get prosperity, at least in the advanced world.

Stone Age > Bronze Age > Iron Age > Age of aluminum and plastics?

[Tim Randal Walker]

Looked at the web site Epicyclical Model for Western Civilization.

The site compared the history of Western Civilization with that of the Classical (Graeco-Roman) civilization.

The author indicated that the histories of two were quite similar, that the two were akin to each other.

[Tim Randal Walker]

700yr~_The Nexial Institute

It is stated that there is an alternating rhythm between Monolithic ("M") societies, and Fragmentary ("F") societiess.  An "F" phase is a lesser shadow of an "M" phase.

BTW, I have been having trouble posting a link.

[Tim Randal Walker]

Review of his secular/spiritual cycle.

[Tim Randal Walker]

Sorokin stated that during a Sensate (secular) super system visual art tends to become more naturalistic.  Until late in its career, when 
-eventually-Sensate art enters its last phase, Cubism.



Actually, it seems that there is one variant beyond Cubism-a naturalistic/cubism hybrid.  Or, as Belin's art is described, hyper realism with a cubist twist.

[Tim Randal Walker]

Sorokin thought that society was faced with a monumental crisis during World War II, and would seek salvation in a new Ideational period....though Sorokin seemed to hope that we would go directly to a new Idealistic period.

On the other hand, Sorokin didn't anticipate a period of peace and prosperity after the War.  Though it
 seems that his prediction of Sensate exhaustion-at least artistically-appears correct.

What if society manages to muddle along for a lengthy period?  Well, Sorokin mentioned in passing a Mixed, Eclectic period.  I wish he had elaborated.  Could he have been referring to something like New Age spirituality?

[Tim Randal Walker]

https://books.google.com/books?id=pYz-MuzjBsoC

I have to wonder if we have actually seen an evolution into a place holder society.  Existing during an interregnum.

Which might make it a second rank society.

[Bill the Piper]

Every era and every generation believes itself to be unique in some way. In 1945, it was widely believed the A-bomb is a harbinger of an "Atomic Age". In 1969, they were talking about start of a "Space Age". Not to mention the "Age of Aquarius".

This is not to say there are no events of historic importance. But only future historians will recognize them. The birth of Jesus was not something the world was talking about. Even around 200, an educated Roman would probably be inclined to regard Jesus as simply one of many preachers. And yet He turned out to be more important than Caesar and Augustus put together. Or did people in 1492 realize how important the discovery of America is? Could they imagine a new civilization will be created on this continent, and that it'll change the destiny of Mankind? So the new era, when it starts, might be related to something we overlook today.

My hopes are however that the Space Age will indeed become real, and then 1969 will be of course recognized as its beginning. I like the endless possibilities of the Cosmos.

[pbrower2a]

(02-20-2019, 08:39 AM)Bill the Piper Wrote: Every era and every generation believes itself to be unique in some way. In 1945, it was widely believed the A-bomb is a harbinger of an "Atomic Age". In 1969, they were talking about start of a "Space Age". Not to mention the "Age of Aquarius".

This is not to say there are no events of historic importance. But only future historians will recognize them. The birth of Jesus was not something the world was talking about. Even around 200, an educated Roman would probably be inclined to regard Jesus as simply one of many preachers. And yet He turned out to be more important than Caesar and Augustus put together. Or did people in 1492 realize how important the discovery of America is? Could they imagine a new civilization will be created on this continent, and that it'll change the destiny of Mankind? So the new era, when it starts, might be related to something we overlook today.

My hopes are however that the Space Age will indeed become real, and then 1969 will be of course recognized as its beginning. I like the endless possibilities of the Cosmos.

The big change that I see is the divide between early capitalism (when capitalism simply meant that capitalists were as rapacious exploiters as slave-masters and feudal lords of the past) and the modern capitalism that depends upon a consumer society to giver workers a cause to not rebel against and exterminate capitalist exploiters in the wake of a proletarian revolution. When the capitalists decided to turn industrial workers into consumers, they saved capitalism and rendered Marx and Lenin irrelevant for as long as the consumer society would last.

Someone was going to blunder into the New World, and whether they did so in 1492 or 1592 was not going to make a difference. The people who would reach the New World could have been Welsh fishermen (they were fishing in the Grand Banks as early as 1475). Polynesians, Chinese, Japanese, or Arabs. Indeed the Vikings reached the New World about a millennium ago -- and had little impact upon it. That could be a pity. The Vikings might have done in America what they did in Russia, establishing a new civilization capable of holding its own. Just imagine a Viking-Skraeling world that exploited the rivers and lakes of the eastern United States and southeastern Canada much as the Vikings exploited (with their Slavic wives and descendants) the rivers of Russia. Or imagine the Chinese establishing a Chinese city at the site of San Francisco instead of simply settling in a Chinatown in San Francisco. The currents would have favored such. Or maybe the Polynesians end up in Mexico. All of these scenarios would have had better fortunes in the wake for America's First peoples. Don't you think Muhammad better than Quetzalcoatl? (Christianity would have followed the Vikings and their trade, so bye-bye human sacrifices of the Aztecs).

[Tim Randal Walker]

Book, copyright 2017. The Shadows Of The American Century. The Rise and Decline of US Global Power by Alfred W. McCoy.

The author discusses different scenarios about the future of international relations.

Among the milder scenarios:

1. The global system still exists, in altered form.

"...a new global oligopoly might emerge between 2020 and 2030, with rising powers China, Russia, India, and Brazil all collaborating with receding powers like Britain, Germany, Japan and the United States to enforce an ad hoc global dominion, akin to the loose alliance of European empires that ruled half of humanity circa 1900.

2.

"If the international order were, however, to weaken markedly, then instead of near anarchy, we might see the rise of regional hegemons in a return to something reminiscent of the international system that operated in the seventeenth century before modern empires took shape".

In the book G Zero the author suggested that the world is headed towards scenario 2.

With scenario 2. I can see a semblance of the current global order lingering. But it would have been watered down into a minimalistic framework.

[Marypoza]

(02-21-2019, 04:39 PM)Tim Randal Walker Wrote: Book,  copyright 2017.  The Shadows Of The American Century. The Rise and Decline of US Global Power by Alfred W. McCoy.

The author discusses different scenarios about the future of international relations.

Among the milder scenarios:

1.  The global system still exists, in altered form.

"...a new global oligopoly might emerge between 2020 and 2030, with rising powers China, Russia, India, and Brazil all collaborating with receding powers like Britain, Germany, Japan and the United States to enforce an ad hoc global dominion, akin to the loose alliance of European empires that ruled half of humanity circa 1900.

2.

"If the international order were, however, to weaken markedly, then instead of near anarchy, we might see the rise of regional hegemons in a return to something reminiscent of the international system that operated in the seventeenth century before modern empires took shape".

In the book G Zero the author suggested that the world is headed towards scenario 2.

With scenario 2. I can see a semblance of the current global order lingering.  But it would have been watered down into a minimalistic framework.

-- l have 2 agree with scenario 2 as well. The BRIC alliance is already falling apart

[Bill the Piper]

I doubt Russia could be a rising power again, they are declining demographically and economically. In 2030, Ethiopia is scheduled to have more population than Russia! Also, compare the territory they held in 1989 and now. Their former satellites (Poland, the Baltics, even ethnically Slavic Ukraine) now hate them.

A new world order of regional hegemonies is more likely. China would dominate Asia, the US - the Americas (although Brazil is on the rise), Germany and France - Europe, Saudis and Iran could divide the Middle East into spheres of influence. Israel will probably be more and more isolated, like apartheid South Africa was.

[David Horn]

(02-22-2019, 11:37 AM)Marypoza Wrote:

(02-21-2019, 04:39 PM)Tim Randal Walker Wrote: Book,  copyright 2017.  The Shadows Of The American Century. The Rise and Decline of US Global Power by Alfred W. McCoy.

The author discusses different scenarios about the future of international relations.

Among the milder scenarios:

1.  The global system still exists, in altered form.

"...a new global oligopoly might emerge between 2020 and 2030, with rising powers China, Russia, India, and Brazil all collaborating with receding powers like Britain, Germany, Japan and the United States to enforce an ad hoc global dominion, akin to the loose alliance of European empires that ruled half of humanity circa 1900.

2.

"If the international order were, however, to weaken markedly, then instead of near anarchy, we might see the rise of regional hegemons in a return to something reminiscent of the international system that operated in the seventeenth century before modern empires took shape".

In the book G Zero the author suggested that the world is headed towards scenario 2.

With scenario 2. I can see a semblance of the current global order lingering.  But it would have been watered down into a minimalistic framework.

-- l have 2 agree with scenario 2 as well. The BRIC alliance is already falling apart

I'm not happy with either choice.  I don't see collaboration unless the PTB exact some cost on the rest, and that would just devolve into sniping and small wars ... just like today.

[Eric the Green]

(02-22-2019, 11:37 AM)Marypoza Wrote:

(02-21-2019, 04:39 PM)Tim Randal Walker Wrote: Book,  copyright 2017.  The Shadows Of The American Century. The Rise and Decline of US Global Power by Alfred W. McCoy.

The author discusses different scenarios about the future of international relations.

Among the milder scenarios:

1.  The global system still exists, in altered form.

"...a new global oligopoly might emerge between 2020 and 2030, with rising powers China, Russia, India, and Brazil all collaborating with receding powers like Britain, Germany, Japan and the United States to enforce an ad hoc global dominion, akin to the loose alliance of European empires that ruled half of humanity circa 1900.

2.

"If the international order were, however, to weaken markedly, then instead of near anarchy, we might see the rise of regional hegemons in a return to something reminiscent of the international system that operated in the seventeenth century before modern empires took shape".

In the book G Zero the author suggested that the world is headed towards scenario 2.

With scenario 2. I can see a semblance of the current global order lingering.  But it would have been watered down into a minimalistic framework.

-- l have 2 agree with scenario 2 as well. The BRIC alliance is already falling apart

We are irrevocably in a world global system. However, there are always fluctuations, and as I predicted decades before, right now the nations and regions are making a comeback. The dominant trend will pick up again within a few decades, if not sooner, and globalism remains the overall trend and cannot be stopped, but only managed properly, OR NOT.

[Eric the Green]

(02-22-2019, 12:33 PM)Bill the Piper Wrote: I doubt Russia could be a rising power again, they are declining demographically and economically. In 2030, Ethiopia is scheduled to have more population than Russia! Also, compare the territory they held in 1989 and now. Their former satellites (Poland, the Baltics, even ethnically Slavic Ukraine) now hate them.

A new world order of regional hegemonies is more likely. China would dominate Asia, the US - the Americas (although Brazil is on the rise), Germany and France - Europe, Saudis and Iran could divide the Middle East into spheres of influence. Israel will probably be more and more isolated, like apartheid South Africa was.

Seems right, for the moment. And these regional hegemons will have the reckon with each other and work together, and recognize the importance of smaller powers too.

[Marypoza]

(02-22-2019, 01:32 PM)David Horn Wrote:

(02-22-2019, 11:37 AM)Marypoza Wrote:

(02-21-2019, 04:39 PM)Tim Randal Walker Wrote: Book,  copyright 2017.  The Shadows Of The American Century. The Rise and Decline of US Global Power by Alfred W. McCoy.

The author discusses different scenarios about the future of international relations.

Among the milder scenarios:

1.  The global system still exists, in altered form.

"...a new global oligopoly might emerge between 2020 and 2030, with rising powers China, Russia, India, and Brazil all collaborating with receding powers like Britain, Germany, Japan and the United States to enforce an ad hoc global dominion, akin to the loose alliance of European empires that ruled half of humanity circa 1900.

2.

"If the international order were, however, to weaken markedly, then instead of near anarchy, we might see the rise of regional hegemons in a return to something reminiscent of the international system that operated in the seventeenth century before modern empires took shape".

In the book G Zero the author suggested that the world is headed towards scenario 2.

With scenario 2. I can see a semblance of the current global order lingering.  But it would have been watered down into a minimalistic framework.

-- l have 2 agree with scenario 2 as well. The BRIC alliance is already falling apart

I'm not happy with either choice.  I don't see collaboration unless the PTB exact some cost on the rest, and that would just devolve into sniping and small wars ... just like today.

-- l never said I was happy with it. Merely that the BRIC alliance is falling apart so that scenario probably ain't happening

[Tim Randal Walker]

Regarding a fourth-"chaotic stage"-in Sorokin's spiritual/secular cycle. This is Galtung's notion of plastic time. or Foucault's post modern world.

I believe that I have identified one such period.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hellenistic_religion

[Hintergrund]

(02-20-2019, 08:39 AM)Bill the Piper Wrote: Or did people in 1492 realize how important the discovery of America is?

Columbus seems to have believed it himself, for whatever reason.

[Tim Randal Walker]

Review of Quigley's stages.

http://www.draftymanor.com/bart/h_quigle.htm